We recently learned that one of the bigger E-Commerce providers, Magento, has provided notice to its platform users that it will no longer support versions 1.x as of June 2020.  

This means that Magento will no longer provide security updates or support for those versions – any business still using this version of their platform after the end of life date will find themselves left out in the cold. Therefore, if you need any type of support for your website you will not get it. It also means that any security issues not addressed previously will no longer be addressed. 

Magento does offer the ability to upgrade your website. However this will come at a cost that is prohibitive for most small business owners: they want $10,000 up to $40,000, depending on the complexity of your website and shopping cart.

How will this event affect you and your business? Let me put it to you this way – security issues are always a concern, and there will always be security issues. If a provider will no longer address them on their platform, it means that bad guys will have an easier time hacking into those websites after additional security issues are discovered in the future. This occurs all the time in tech and it will always be that way.

What you can do to protect yourself, your website, and your business:

  1. Plan on migrating your website as soon as possible to a new provider if you cannot spend the 10k – 40k for the upgrade
  2. Your new provider should be able to provide a ‘permanent’ solution – in other words, your provider should be stable and provide regular updates for the foreseeable future. You don’t want to have to migrate your website again in 5 years, for example.
  3. Your new provider should be able to migrate your website for you at a reasonable cost (less than 1/2 that Magento wants at their lower end) except for a very complicated e-commerce site.
  4. Your new provider should be able to extract all the data from your current Magento site (you will need the admin login for it) and duplicate it on the new platform, potentially with new features to help sell your products and services.
  5. Your domain name will not change – it will just be hosted with a different provider.
  6. All aspects of the transaction for the website migration should be clear and up-front, no hidden costs must exist.
  7. You must feel comfortable with the person you are working with to get your website migrated.

I am not going to lie to you – this will be a process, and it will not be cheap. You must make the decision if your website is not bringing a lot of business – do you keep it up, or do you double or triple your efforts to bring in more business. This really depends on how serious you are about keeping it, and your resolve to continue the business.  

This is a lot to think about. I have been in business for nearly 40 years and know this is a huge wrench that just got thrown into the workings of your business.

I can help talk you through the process. I can also recommend solutions for you. If you would like your questions answered with no hard sales, give me (Dave Glick) a call today at 800-590-2085. I am available to help in any way that I can.

For your reference, please see this article from Magento date September, 2018.