Upgrade Magento 1.9 to Magento 2.3 with ease – A Practical Case Study

This isn’t a secret anymore that Magento 1 is dying in less than 300 days from now (June 2020) and it won’t offer security alerts and updates in the future thereon. Even though more than 70% of the Magento stores have upgraded from Magento 1 platform to Magento 2, more than a third of the store owners are perplexed about the complications involved and the outcomes of the migration.

On a recent occasion we were fortunate enough to have handled this migration for one of our clients with success which qualifies us to describe the entire migration process with sufficient details:

About Illumepartyware

Illumepartyware is an online store for party wear and decoratives that ease your task at making the right party arrangements without the need for running between the outlets.

The e-store serves users across the US and Australia. It was designed on Magento 1.9 by our expert Magento developers in the past with sufficient customizations and extensions. 

However, with Magento 1 meeting its dead end, the client wanted the existing store upgraded with every detail being restored as they were before. Much like several other Magento 1 store owners, our client was quite dubious about the results.

In this blog, we will discuss how we accomplished the migration and offered better features to the existing store.

But before learning the procedure, let us first understand the immediate need for this migration.

Reasons to upgrade Magento 1.9 to Magento 2

The most upgraded version of Magento 1, that is Magento 1.9.4.1 stays miles behind the Magento 2.x in terms of functionality, performance and much more. Here we list the prime reasons why every Magento 1 based store owner shall migrate with an immediate effect:

1. Magento officially announces the end of support

Magento has officially announced that Magento 1 support will be called off by June 2020 which isn’t too far from today. The Magento 1 based stores will fail to resolve the glitches on official grounds.

2. No further updates

The security and performance-based updates are already put off by the e-Commerce platform giant leaving the store owners with the only option to migrate.

3. Repeating the same changes across the platform versions

With migration being the last option, the store owners will need to repeat the same changes in the Magento 2 store as they did in the previous version, once upgraded.

Apart from the fact that Magento itself is discouraging the further usage of Magento 1, the latest version offers a good number of benefits to the businesses:

1. Faster and more efficient 

2. Improved site performance

3. Omni-channel presence, highly responsive storefronts

4. The Magento 2 Admin panel is more intuitive and easy to handle.

That being said, it is easier to acknowledge the purpose behind our client’s eager at migrating the Magento 1 based store to Magento 2. As the leading Magento Migration service providers, The Brihaspati Infotech holds proven expertise at handling Magento platform migration for online retailers. And, Illumepartyware was one of them.

Challenges and precautions while upgrading Magento 1 to Magento 2

The Migration of the Magento 1 store had never been easy since day 1. We came across multiple challenges at various stages.

The first one was the lack of similarity in the modules for each version. As a result, the migration suffers the following losses:

-> Theme and the blocks of the template are not migrated

-> The Back end data isn’t transferred correctly

-> The Extensions and the custom functions don’t work at the other side

-> The configurations aren’t copied to Magento 2.

Thus, we had to take care of the following points:

-> Full backup of the Magento 1 store including every file and folder.

-> Made a list of skippable items from the Magento 1 store.

-> Create a clone database of your Magento 1 store.

The solution offered for Magento 2 migration

We were lucky enough to have created the original version of the store and that was one reason that the client had enough faith in us at carrying out the risky task of upgrading Magento 1 to Magento 2. We offered the following benefits for them:

-> As the original developers we could easily locate the desired data and the files attached to them

-> Being an excellent Magento development team that has handled more than 3000 Magento projects we knew how to handle every file.

We took keen notice of the challenges and were able to come up with a resolution for each.

Migrating data during Magento migration 

No doubt, data is the fuel for running a booming e-Commerce business and an online shop is the storehouse of data. It is thus important to secure the database at the time of migration.

The long list of information primarily includes:

-> Product details

-> Order details

-> Categories

-> Customer information

-> Admin details

We have previously talked on Data Migration from Magento 1.9 to 2.x which explains the entire process in detail.

In Illumepartyware, there were several products and details of numerous customers from across various parts of the serving countries. Added to that were the categories and filters that needed to be restored. 

The migration did not affect on the back-end data.

Product details:

Categories:

Migrating Theme

Customer experience has always been at the top of our priority lists, especially when the client owns an e-Commerce store. The theme of Illumepartyware had to be more engaging than the one during its Magento1 days. 

-> Installed Ultimo Theme

-> Customized it at various points based on the unique business needs of the store

-> Clean and well-organized storefront

-> Optimized the Page speed reducing the page loading time and the clutters at navigation.

Here’s a brief overview of the Storefront:

Migrating extensions in Magento 2 migration

More than the in-built functions of the respective versions, it was probably the third-party plugins that troubled us during migration. In fact, as a well-established brand, Illumeparty worked on with quite many such extensions that assisted the e-commerce store in many ways. We had to make a list of plugins that are supported across the editions and the ones that don’t.

Migrating the extensions included installing the third-party extensions and their compatibility with the store. It involved resolving the conflicts with the supported extensions for better synchronization.

We covered up the following functions while migrating extensions to Magento 2:

-> Onepage checkout

-> Shipping rules

-> Reviews from a third-party website: Stamped.io

Email marketing and rewards

Migrating Configuration

The online store targets two nations diagonally opposite across the Pacific Ocean- the US and Australia. For obvious reasons, the currency, the shipping modules and the rest had to vary. 

Keeping in mind the business model, we made these configurations go smoother with the help of additional customizations and the right optimization tactics.

The store switches between Australian and US Dollars based on the selection highlighted in the screen above. It allows the store to switch currency based on the physical location of the user.

However, if the other serving country were a non-English speaking country, we would have seen a good variation in the currency symbol along with the language of the contents.

Key learnings for Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration

Magento 2 varies largely from the previous version in every term. And that certainly makes it difficult to upgrade a store, especially when it survives on ample customizations and third-party extensions.

Manually carrying out the migration is something a business owner or a naive Magento developer shall not try for it may harm their data to a big extent. Added to that, is the wastage of effort at the time of laying out the original store.

It is advisable to reach out highly dedicated Magento development company for safe and secure migration of your Magento 1 store to Magento 2. 

Final words on Magento 2 Migration

Magento 2 is going to be a great platform for e-commerce businesses. It offers better features for both the admin as well as the users. It is robust, highly responsive, interactive and flexible in every term making it an ideal place for the retailers. 

Migrating to Magento 2 is a daunting task for sure, however, it is worth the pains. Your efforts will be appreciated at the user’s end with a great hike in your conversions. 

If you seek consultation from an expert panel regarding your Magento store migration or e-commerce business, you can have us contacted.