Introduction
E-commerce platforms provide a strong base through which companies and firms establish their online stores. For many years now, Shopify and Magento have been among the leading eCommerce platforms. But, if you have been pondering over migrating from Magento to Shopify, you are not alone.
Magento, an Adobe company, was launched in 2008. Later, in 2015, Magento 2 (M2) was released. But since June 2020, Magento announced that they will no longer support the Magento 1 (M1) version and will only support Magento 2 (M2). Ever since this announcement, many businesses have been migrating to Shopify or Shopify Plus.
Here are a few reasons to migrate from Magento to Shopify.
Reasons to Migrate from Magento
As mentioned earlier, the biggest reason for the migration is the end of Magento 1 (M1). When Magento came out with Magento 2 (M2), it had quite a few issues and was not stable. Even with updates and bug fixes, people faced a few problems with Magento 2 (M2). One such problem has been the platform running a bit slow at times.
While people can still use Magento 1 (M1), zero support from the platform means there won’t be any patches or bug fixes, leaving online stores susceptible to many problems.
Apart from this, upgrading to Magento 2 (M2) and using it to host your online store can burn a hole in your pocket. Furthermore, Magento’s interface and usability are complex with a steep learning curve, requiring the involvement of experts for the job.
Reasons to Migrate to Shopify
Shopify holds almost 11% of the global eCommerce market share, which is much more than Magento. In fact, over a million businesses use Shopify’s platform to host websites for their online stores. Here are a few reasons why.
Reasonable Pricing Plans
Shopify’s pricing plans are very transparent to all users. When compared to the costs involved with Magento, Shopify’s pricing plans are very pocket-friendly. Comparing the ownership cost of Shopify Plus and Magento over three years shows that Shopify’s ownership costs are equal to half of Magento’s.
App Integration
Shopify has a lot of integrations with other tools. These integrations make it easier for you to connect your business to the tools you use every day.
For example, if you use a program called Quickbooks, you can connect it to your Shopify store so you can sell things in your store and automatically update your Quickbooks with the new information.
Powerful APIs let you integrate the business system and tools you rely on, with ease. Your ERP, PIM, or CRM integrations would be much simpler.
Easy to Get Started
Through the Shopify theme development, the platform offers numerous templates that you can download and use to get started in building your eCommerce website.
Apart from these reasons, Shopify and Shopify Plus are highly efficient and secure platforms that you can use to scale your business.
Shopify vs. Magento
Interface
Building your website on Magento can get overly complicated. Moreover, designing each area of your website to exactly match what you want requires assistance from professional web developers.
On the other hand, Shopify uses the simple drag-and-drop feature that makes it easy to design and build websites for anyone.
Security
Security is an essential factor that you must always consider for your online store. If the eCommerce platform that you choose lacks security, it makes your store vulnerable to data breaches, threats, and attacks.
Magento lacks in avoiding such problems, especially in its first version. Contrarily, Shopify is the best in the business when it comes to data and website security.
Furthermore, a major downside to Magento is that the store owner or CMS admin needs to have the technical know-how of adding security patches with every update. But, in Shopify, all of this comes with the update from the development side as a package.
Scalability
Scalability talks about how the eCommerce platform manages a sudden surge in traffic. Being top companies, both Magento and Shopify can manage high traffic. But the process involved in getting there differs between the two.
Through the proper development of your website, you can scale your business on Magento. For Magento, you also need the infra team to ensure the server’s high availability. However, scaling on Shopify is totally looked after by Shopify’s team of developers.
Online stores on Shopify can handle over 8000 orders per minute. Moreover, Shopify Plus offers unlimited scaling and APIs in its package.
24/7 Support
Shopify’s support team is available for help promptly when you need them. This includes 24/7 phone, email, and chat support.
This is critical for small and medium-sized business owners without a robust technical team. It helps find a speedy solution when problems like 503 errors arise or the site crashes due to server overload or app updates.
On the other hand, you need to find support on Magento community forums.
Considering Data Migration And Structure While Migrating From Magento To Shopify
Creating your online store on eCommerce platforms isn’t a small feat. Naturally, you must consider what would happen to your data and website’s structure if you migrate from Magento to Shopify.
The products’ details, like their name, URL, images, etc., information about all your orders, including the price breakup and customer’s address, static pages like your about us page and contact page, are all safely transferred between Magento and Shopify.
However, there are a few fields that Shopify might not understand and capture during the migration. These details may include the customer’s preferences, product configuration, etc. To avoid such problems during migration, you can use tags and meta-fields to store this data.
Many tools are available which can help to migrate the data from Magento to Shopify. However, if you are looking for the safest way to perform the task, without the hassle and without risking website crashes, you can take help from a development agency to help with migration.
Finding The Right Agency Partner
Once you decide about migrating from Magento to Shopify or Shopify Plus, you must ensure proper transfer. After putting so much of your time and effort into building your website, you cannot afford to lose vital data or the website’s structure. Hence, handing this work over to professional agencies can be the best option for you.
Conducting thorough research on different agency partners who can make this transfer smooth for you is essential. Choosing an agency that has prior experience in this field can be your best bet.
Conclusion
Today, there are numerous benefits of transferring your online store from Magento to Shopify or Shopify Plus. Features, like a wide variety of options for ready themes, along with Shopify’s cost-effective plans, make the entire migration process even more advantageous for you.
In addition, if you are thinking about migration, designing, developing, and growing your eCommerce store, Centous Solutions is your one-stop destination. Feel free to get in touch with us to know more!
