What You Need to Know About Migrating Your E-Commerce Website to Magento 2‍

An eCommerce business requires a lot of time and effort. If you want to manage everything seamlessly and provide an elevated user experience to customers, choosing a competent CMS becomes of utmost importance. 

That’s where Magento 2 comes into the picture! 

So, if you have chosen Magento 2 as your eCommerce platform and are considering migration, you have come to the right place. This article should educate you more on the do’s and don’ts of Magento 2 migration and if you should hire dedicated Magento developers for the task. 

Things to Take Care of Before Magento 2 Migration 

1. Review your extensions 

Does your current eCommerce store use any extensions? If you do, you need to check and review those extensions whether you will still need them after migrating to Magento 2. 

In case you don’t need them, the migration will take care of it and you don’t need to install them separately. However, if you do need those extensions, you will have to check if they are available for Magento 2. If not, you will have to look for alternatives. 

2. Review themes and layouts 

Check the existing theme and layout of your eCommerce store and look for themes and designs that will match with Magento 2. 

3. Get rid of non-essential data 

Review your online store and get rid of all the redundant and unnecessary data. It is helpful because you will lessen your burden during the data backup. 

Magento 2 Migration Checklist 

1. Devise a Migration Plan 

Migration isn’t something you do on a whim! It needs careful attention to your audience’s requirements, your budget, and your perception of growth. You have to decide the new product specifications, skills of your Magento 2 developers, deadlines, and how much business downtime you may have to experience. 

2. Create a Backup 

With the best Magento developers for hire, you can seamlessly migrate your data to Magento 2 store. To do so and ensure no data is lost or compromised in the middle, you need to create a backup of the database, system, text, and media files. 

In Magento, your backups are saved in the var/backups directory. Note that there are 3 copies of Magento 1.x data, keep a backup copy off-site, and save the data in 2 different formats. 

3. Set Up a Development Environment 

You should always create a different environment for migration and not perform the migration steps in the development environment. It is to ensure that your audience experiences no downtime. 

Install and set up Magento 2 store and configure the Git version control system. To start the new development environment, you will need the following technology stack: 

• PHP Composer
• Apache 2.4 or Nginx 1.8
• PHP 7.4
• Linux OS such as Ubuntu or Debian
• Elasticsearch 7.6.x, and 
• MySQL 8.0 - MariaDB 10.4 for Magento Commerce Cloud development 

4. Review Custom Code 

Like extensions, you also have to review custom codes used in your eCommerce store. It could be custom CRMs, ERPs, or any other tools. Review your online store to see if you need these customizations in the new store as well. 

5. Build Custom Functionality 

If you are migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2, you can migrate the custom codes to your new store seamlessly. However, if you have a lot of customizations in place, the migration will take longer. Thus, it is better to migrate and then build custom features with the help of Magento 2 eCommerce site development. 

6. Data Migration Tool 

You get to use the official Magento data migration tool for migrating your store to Magento. It has 3 modes that you can work with: 

• Settings mode for migrating configuration settings
• Data mode for migrating primary data in bulk 
• Delta mode to transfer data updates in an incremental manner 

To use this data migration tool, you need to install it first in your Magento 2 store. Then, configure the settings, and migrate settings as well as data to your store. 

7. Design Frontend 

There is no provision to migrate your eCommerce store’s frontend design or theme to Magento 2. So, even if you use Magento 1 and want to use the same design and theme in Magento 2, you will need to check if the same theme is compatible with Magento 2 or not. 

You also have the option to manually move the design by copying HTML and CSS media to your Magento 2 store. Or, you can design your Magento 2 store as you please with a new theme. 

8. Test and Sync Database 

Use a test environment to check if all website functions are working in order. You can check: 

• Custom actions built for your store, 
• The checkout and payment process work flawlessly or not, 
• Extensions and custom code 
• Canonical URLs and internal linking 
• Complex orders and shipping functions working or not 
• Site design and SEO 

Sync the database to ensure the entire data is migrated to Magento 2 successfully. 

9. Review Site 

After the migration is done, you need to review your new Magento site carefully even if Magento 2 developers have checked thoroughly. You can monitor the speed, performance, check site caching, or other errors on your site. 

If you find any errors, you will need to troubleshoot the bugs and fix them. 

10. Deploy 

Once everything is reviewed and approved, your site will go live for the audience. Make sure to look for the best Magento developers for hire and deploy the site in the live environment, including considering Magento development services by Elogic Commerce for optimal site performance and maintenance. 

Conclusion 

Adhering to the Magento 2 checklist, you should be able to migrate from any other eCommerce platform to Magento 2. However, the process can be daunting and technically challenging if you are not well-trained in Magento 2. 

It is important to hire a Magento expert and get the needed assistance in such situations. You will be able to secure your sensitive data and migrate your store to the new Magento 2 version and utilize its exceptional capabilities. 

Author Bio: 

Maulik Shah is the CEO of BiztechCS, a development company. He often takes the front seat in the company’s development projects, because he enjoys solving problems through technology. When it comes to writing for any blog, his contribution is priceless. Maulik ensures that his interaction with development is frequent enough, and his industry knowledge is ever-evolving so that he can share it. Despite his packed days, Maulik’s door is always open and he is generous with sharing this knowledge and experience.