Magento 2 Migration in 5 Easy Steps

When you have an ecommerce business, showcasing your products on a professional storefront is a must. If you don’t keep your platform updated, you’re at risk of losing customers to long loading times and confusing checkouts, not to mention the security risks of outdated platforms.

Magento is the one of the leading ecommerce platforms, used by over 250,000 retailers across the globe. An updated version, Magento 2, was released in 2015 and contains many vital features for ecommerce businesses.

In this article, we’ll explain how Magento 2 migration works and provide an easy set of steps you can follow to migrate your business over to the platform.

Should I migrate to Magento 2?

Before you start your business migration to Magento 2, you should think carefully about whether it’s right for your brand. There are a great many benefits to Magento 2 migration for ecommerce. For one thing, it’s a very powerful and scalable platform, so it can easily handle vast catalogues of products.

Magento also has an extensive community of developers creating new extensions for the platform, making it very customisable to suit your needs. Magento 2 also boasts extremely high speeds – up to 50% higher than Magento 1. If you’re looking for a highly customisable, scalable, fast ecommerce platform, Magento 2 is the right choice for your business.

How do I migrate to Magento 2?

Magento 2 migration will vary in time and difficulty, depending on the complexity of your store and any customisation required. It will also depend on whether you intend to tackle migration yourself or work with an expert team to simplify the process. Whatever you decide for your migration to Magento 2, there are several key steps to follow.

Step #1 – Review/Consultation

The first step is to ensure your team is on the same page about your migration to Magento 2. From your Head of Marketing to your graphic design team, everyone involved in the development of your website needs to be part of this process. In this stage, you should collectively create an outline of the reasons for your migration, as well as any requirements and preferences for the new website.

If you are working alongside a Magento 2 specialist team, this will be a consultation stage to help them understand your requirements, preferences, budget and any issues you have with your current ecommerce platform. The specialist team will also identify any potential complications for the migration process.

Step #2 – Planning your Magento 2 website

For the next stage, you’ll need to collate your ideas into a clear migration plan. This plan can roughly be split into four stages:

1. First, create a rough outline of the data that needs to be transferred, including products, customer information, blog and page content.
2. Next, record any requirements and preferences that should be taken into consideration when creating the website. This might include the integration of certain third-party extensions.
3. Consider how you want each page to look and be structured, including details about style, placement and content. Check that any themes or plug-ins you wish to transfer are compatible with Magento 2.
4. Finally, create a roadmap with clear and specific deadlines for each task.

If you’re working with a team of Magento specialists, they will consult with you to create the plan for your migration to Magento 2. They will then provide you with a step-by-step plan, estimated timeline, and a clear, fixed cost.

Step #3 – Building a Magento 2 site

This step will depend on which platform you are migrating from and whether you plan to work with a developer. If you’re taking a DIY approach with your Magento 2 website, make sure you back up your current website and prepare a copy to transfer data from.

You should also prepare a testing environment for your new website, rather than going live straight away. Examine the copy of your current website and look for any data or third-party extensions that you no longer need. Keep a record of anything you need to transfer. After that, you can start on the website development. This will involve choosing a theme for your website, installing relevant extensions and customising the site to your needs.

If you’re working with Magento 2 specialists – like our team at Bing Digital – you can sit back and relax during this step. Under your direction, we’ll design and create the new website for you, including the layout and interface.

Step #4 – Migration to Magento 2

Now it’s time to migrate your data. This process is split into five parts.

1.     Themes

Whatever platform you’re migrating from, be clear on which themes are compatible with Magento 2. To retain the same theme as your current website, you may need to look for a similar, compatible theme for Magento 2, or customise your theme to suit your needs within the code.

2. Extensions

Look at the list of required extensions that you recorded from your current website. Check for equivalent extensions on the Magento Marketplace.

3. Customisations

Any customisations made to your website will need to be transferred over in the code.

4. Website data

Next is the important step of migrating your website data, including orders and customer accounts. This process needs to be managed carefully, as it involves sensitive data. There are tools that can assist with data migration to Magento 2.

5. Testing, testing, testing

Once your content is in place, don’t be tempted to make your website live right away. First, test your site to ensure everything is working well.

As keeping your data safe is of the utmost importance, having a certified Magento 2 expert on hand to help with your Magento 2 migration is often the best choice. As well as transferring all of your content, they will also suggest how you could optimise your new website, and provide quality assurance testing before launch.

Step #5 – Launching your site on Magento 2

Once your Magento 2 migration and testing is complete, you’re ready to go live! You can then utilise all the benefits of the platform and start selling straight away. After monitoring your website for post-launch issues, then it’s time to get to grips with the general maintenance of your Magento 2 website. If you need an extra helping hand, Magento experts can provide continuous support tailored to your budget and requirements.

Let our certified Magento experts take care of migration

So, now you know the steps to follow for your migration to Magento 2. Ultimately, it can be a complex process, requiring effective planning, analysis, migrating data, then finally testing and launching the website.

Having a certified Magento expert on hand to develop your new website and migrate your data can take the stress out of Magento 2 migration. At Bing Digital, we’ll take care of the entire migration process, from design to testing. We’re fully certified by Magento, so you can relax, unwind and focus on what you do best while we take care of your website.

Ready to migrate to Magento 2? Contact our Magento experts to get the ball rolling.