Important Things to Know About Magento 2 – The global COVID-19 pandemic made 2020 a watershed year for e-commerce. With people stuck at home and brick-and-mortar stores having to limit capacity or even shut their doors, people turned to their computers and phones to acquire life’s necessities and luxuries alike.
For business owners, entrepreneurs, web developers, and more, this made the importance of having a highly functional e-commerce platform even more vital than before. If a company has a low-quality online store, it now risks missing out on a big opportunity. If the online store doesn’t exist, they risk not just missing out on sales but maybe going under altogether.
What hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world have known for a long time and more are figuring out every day is that Magento, an open-source e-commerce platform that organizations can use to build a customized online store, is one of the best e-commerce solutions created in the last 20 years.
Whether you have never heard of Magento, still use Magento 1, or are fully on board with Magento 2, there is always more to learn about this software. Here we will look at some of the most crucial things you should understand in 2021 about this product and how it can affect your business. These are six important things to know about Magento 2.
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1. Magento has an interesting history
Magento was developed in 2007 by Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner. They originally called the product Bento but were forced to change the name due to a trade dispute. In 2008, the open-source platform was officially released to the world. The software was immediately popular and won several awards, culminating in the company being purchased by eBay in 2011.
A few years later, eBay underwent a corporate shakeup and sold off assets, including Magento. The company was bought by a private equity firm in 2015 and eventually sold to Adobe in 2018. The 2015 sale allowed Magento to finally release its long-awaited next-gen platform, Magento 2. In the company’s decade-plus long history, it has been downloaded more than two and a half million times. And has helped facilitate over $150 million in transactions.
2. Magento 1 is now obsolete
As popular as Magento 1 was, the release of Magento 2 has now made it obsolete. There are still many online stores that run on this platform but that should change relatively quickly. According to Liventus, 2021 is the time to make a Magento upgrade if you haven’t already.
Magento had long planned to discontinue service – customer supports or updates – for Magento 1. The end-of-service (EOS) date was originally planned for late 2018 but was pushed back multiple times. On June 30, 2020, the EOS date was made official and the company no longer supports the older version of the platform.
3. Security is the biggest reason to upgrade to Magento 2 immediately
While many Magento 1 stores may work fine for years to come, there are several reasons that users will want to upgrade as soon as possible. The number one reason (and the other reasons aren’t even that close) is that the EOS date means that Magento is no longer offering security patches for the legacy software.
After the massive increase in cyberattacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, online security for e-commerce platforms is more important than ever. This wave of attacks showed us how fast cybercriminals move and how quickly cybersecurity experts have to provide patches to keep online stores safe. No security patches means that any new cyber threats will have a better chance of succeeding, a risk no business wants to take.
4. Magento 2 focuses on SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for businesses that have e-commerce platforms. This is how you make sure you get the quality and quantity of visitors to your store so that you can make sales. SEO is as much about the technology you use as your actions. And the new tech stack that Magento 2 offers helps address two major SEO issues.
If your website takes longer than three seconds to load, about 40% of visitors will leave the site. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, the Google algorithm will downgrade it on its search engine results pages (SERP). This is why the improved speed (50% or up to 2 seconds faster) and standard mobile optimization of Magento 2 is a huge boon for businesses.
5. Magento 2 addresses some major issues from Magento 1
Magento 1 was an amazing product for its time but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its issues. Users have several long-standing complaints about Magento 1. This includes a long, six-step checkout process, a hard-to-navigate back-end admin panel, and third-party extension conflicts.
All three of these common complaints are addressed with Magento 2. The six-step checkout process has been streamlined and is now a two-step process. The admin panel is now much simpler, easier to navigate, and user-friendly. And Magento 2 also offers much better extension overlap, so installing third-party extensions is much simpler.
6. Upgrading to Magento 2 can be complicated
While there are many good reasons to upgrade to Magento 2, it is not the easiest process in the world. This is especially true when it comes to migrating all the data from your Magento 1 store to your new one. When done right, by experts who know what they are doing, switching over can take just a few minutes of downtime that your customers won’t even notice. If it’s done wrong, the downtime can be much more severe. Upgrading and making the migration is generally best left to professionals.
Conclusion
Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform that has truly changed the world. It has made e-commerce a reality for everyone from giant companies like Nike, North Face, and Ford to the entrepreneur next door. With Magento 2, the product has become even better and is ready to respond to the unique challenges and opportunities of the 2020s. This makes 2021 the year to switch over and upgrade if you haven’t already.
