Magento 1 End of Life (EOL): Countdown Begins

Way back, in April of 2017, Magento announced that they were planning on no longer supporting Magento 1 software. With an end of life date of June 2020, most believed they had time to figure it out – that time is now.

There is still some room to decide what your next steps will be, and fortunately, good options that should propel your online store to new heights.

Key Things to Know

• Whether you decide to move to Magento 2 or switch to a new ecommerce platform provider, you will be undergoing a full replatform. See what replatforming looks like with this good step-by-step guide.
• If you don’t switch, your site will no longer be supported by security updates after June 2020. This leaves you, your site, and your customer’s data at risk.
• Your site will no longer be PCI DSS compliant after the EOL date causing concern with your payment provider. This could lead them to drop you. Read more about that here.

Options

You might think an easy option would be to upgrade to Magento 2; however, that might not be the case. As stated above, it is still a complete replatform which means your themes won’t transfer, your M1 extensions won’t work, and some of your data will have to be migrated manually. M1 and M2 have a different architecture which is why this isn’t a simple upgrade.

Another option is to switch platforms altogether. BigCommerce has a done a particularly good job at providing Magento 1 store owners with everything they’ll need to transition smoothly to a cloud-based platform. They also just posted a great survival guide which is worth a look to learn more about Magento 1’s EOL and get complete details of what it means for you. Here are some key comparison points:

• Easy Set-Up: BigCommerce works seamlessly with a wide assortment of enterprise-grade apps that can be installed with one click. 96% of merchants migrate from their existing platform in 2-4 months.
• Spend Less: At 1/4 the cost of Magento, BigCommerce has no hosting or maintenance costs; while Magento hosting typically costs four figures per month and can surge during the holiday season. BigCommerce offers a lower cost of ownership while providing better security, speed, and fraud protection.
• BigCommerce offers 99.98% server uptime and keeps your business running and orders processed even during peak seasons, while your Magento store may struggle unless you are paying extra for truly scalable hosting.

Clock’s ticking!