Magento commerce cloud, which has empowered around 9%1 of the world’s eCommerce sites released its next-generation enterprise-level commerce platform Magento 2.0 in 2015. The highlights of the upgraded platform include unparalleled scalability, supercharged out-of-the-box features, and seamless device-agnostic customer experience. Hence, tens of thousands of retailers took the leap of faith and moved to Magento’s revised version, but there are still many who couldn’t decide in its favor.

In this blog, we shall make a comparative study between both versions so that retailers can take a call as per their business requirements.

Magento 1 (M1) VS Magento 2 (M2)

Scalability

One of the key attractions of Magento 1 was its ability to grow along with its customers. However, Magento 2 has taken this feature a step further and offers unmatched scalability to retailers. The revised platform can process 39%2 more traffic than Magento 1, which is approximately equal to 3.5 million page views and 250,000 orders per hour.

Mobile Friendliness

Around 50%3 of eCommerce traffic comes from mobile devices and considering this dynamic shift to M-commerce, mobile-responsive templates for storefronts have become imperative. This is exactly where Magento 2 has an edge over Magento 1. The former delivers responsively designed themes, simple video integrations, and touch-friendly checkout processes. All these functionalities significantly improve the performance of Magento commerce cloud 2 on mobile devices, which impacts sales.

Checkout Processes

Did you know of the 75% cart abandonment4 that happens; 20% is due to lengthy and confusing checkout processes?

In Magento 1 the checkout process comprised around six different steps, such as checkout method, billing info, shipping info, shipping method, payment information, and order review. It became overwhelming for customers most of the time. Therefore, Magento 2 took care of this problem and simplified the user experience with a two-step checkout process, namely the shipping and the reviewing options. Tests have revealed that Magento 2 delivers 51% faster5 end-to-end checkouts as compared to the earlier version of Magento.

Security

Consumers are highly sensitive to their personal data and are unlikely to shop with a brand that they do not trust. Hence, security is a primary concern for retailers. For Magento 1, security isn’t up-to-date as it doesn’t have security patches or updates. It means that with Magento 1, it’s impossible to maintain a secure site unless you spend hefty amounts to create and update those patches.

With Magento 2 you can make your site as secure as possible since you have the updates and patches, but you would need to manage the PCI compliance all by yourself because only the unmodified version of Magento 2 is technically PCI compliant.

1 https://www.coredna.com/blogs/magento-2-migration

2 https://magento.com/sites/default/files8/Community-Insights-Transforming-Your-Business-M1-to-M2.pdf

3 https://magento.com/sites/default/files8/Community-Insights-Transforming-Your-Business-M1-to-M2.pdf

4 https://magento.com/sites/default/files8/Community-Insights-Transforming-Your-Business-M1-to-M2.pdf

5 https://magento.com/sites/default/files8/Community-Insights-Transforming-Your-Business-M1-to-M2.pdf

Payment Gateways

Allowing customers to choose their preferred payment gateways enables brands to build trust and improve the conversion rates.

In Magento 1, store owners could integrate most of the payment gateways on their Magento eCommerce site, but it required third-party integration or custom development work. Magento 2 supports most of the payment gateways without any third-party integrations.

Backend Architecture

The backend of M2 is friendlier than M1. For example, the admin panel of Magento 2 offers easy navigation. Besides, it has an advanced dashboard that displays new orders, last orders, top-searched keywords, lifetime retail sales, bestsellers, and a lot more. From a customer’s perspective, it has a product configuration feature along with data grid customization as per requirement. Therefore, with features like four times faster product import, customizable admin dashboards, content staging, and the new inclusion of UI layout editing, the development team will have more time to focus on tasks that are complex.

Extensions

A pressing issue with Magento 1 was conflicts with the third-party extensions. However, with the new technologies in Magento 2 like HTML5, CSS3, and Require.js; installation of extensions is now easy. That being said, remember that managing extensions could become tougher as you customize your Magento store.

Customer Support

Since Magento 1 is already sunset, there aren’t any ways to get any patches or updates to support your Magento 1 store, while for Magento 2, the level of customer support depends on the version you are using.

For instance, Magento 2 that comprises Magento Open Source, Magento Enterprise Edition, and Enterprise Cloud Edition has customer support only for the latter two versions but comes with a steep price tag. Magento Open Source doesn’t have any customer support and is free to download.

The Battle Between the Two

Since 2016, around 10,0006 businesses have moved to Magento Commerce 2, which indicates that the shift has already begun. However, before migrating retailers should realize that a comprehensive assessment, review, and plan is critical for a successful migration. Any migration should entail the customer’s existing implementation along with the extensions. In fact, there can’t be a battle between the two versions of Magento since Magento 1 is the dying star, while Magento 2.0 is only the viable eCommerce platform. If a retailer is still on Magento 1 the only question that should arise is whether to invest in Magento 2 or to look out for other options. However, for migrating to Magento 2, which creates countless digital commerce opportunities, brands must connect with industry experts who can assess business requirements and carve out a successful migration strategy.

6 https://magento.com/sites/default/files8/Community-Insights-Transforming-Your-Business-M1-to-M2.pdf

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