Migrating from M1 to Shopify

As a Magento Partner we understand that not all customers running Magento 1 sites will want to migrate to M2. For example, if you're a start-up or your online sales are below £500,000.

If you're still running M1, the chances are your site is at least three years old and will no longer supported by Magento. This means you are probably contraveneing your PCI self certification because you’ve agreed to maintain security patches as part of your agreement to use a third party for your sites payment gateway. No security updates means no insurance for any attacks, so now is a good time to think about moving platforms.

In the intervening period, platforms such as WooCommerce and Shopify have taken a significant market share, with 27% and 20% respectively of eCommerce usage distribution in the top 1 million sites, compared to Magento's market share of just under 9%.

These alternatives are better suited to smaller ecommerce 'shop' sites where there is not the need for a large ERP integration, warehouse management, or multi-brand storefronts, B2B functionality etc.

You may well find that there is also not the need for a bespoke design. Instead, Shopify offers easy to configure themes through a user-friendly admin interface. Also, the same level of custom development to replicate complex business systems is generally not needed.

This means for businesses that are mainly on-line, who need a standard shopping customer experience, there is no need to incur the build costs associated with M2 (from £25K). Thanks to Shopify's low initial build cost, you can benefit from a fully functioning, theme based Shopify site from as little as £3K. In addition, with Shopify operating a software as a service model, you don't have to worry about additional hosting and support costs either.

However, if your site does require some functional enhancements, Shopify does offer a large variety of 'apps' which provide third party integrations (for example ERP integration or Shipping extensions). These are easy to install and configure, and are aimed at smaller-scale stores in terms of their capabilities.

If you do have more unique requirements, we'd be more than happy to create your own Shopify app or work within Shopify itself to deliver exactly what you need your Shopify store to do.

Also, being a Magento Business Solution Partner means we are experts in understanding your Magento data and ensuring a smooth migration to your new ecommerce platform.

With the clock ticking, you may find Shopify is the best solution, especially with it's quick build time and a cost per transaction payment gateway that works out of the box.

You can read more about our Shopify offering here.

Why not get in touch to find more about out how we can help.