The most important differences between Magento and Shopify

Setting up an online store: it is often associated with difficult choices. We are not talking about a brand or domain name in this blog, but about the real backbone of your online store: the e-management system. With two major players on the market – Shopify and Magento – we are not going to compare apples with pears. A short and concise comparison between the two systems is really necessary.

Get your facts straight

First and foremost, it is important to understand the core of both systems. For example, we often read that Magento is an “open source platform”, while Shopify is considered a “click & pay option “.

Magento is therefore a free basic platform on which many developers have developed templates and modules themselves. These modules help to get the most out of the e-management system. The free offer has to be put into perspective, as those modules are often charged for and the price can increase significantly.

In the case of Shopify , however, the source code always belongs to the developer, with whom you will “rent” an online store. Shopify develops its own modules and is therefore easier to use.

Installation & hosting

In the case of Magento the installation is really a specialists’ business. The configuration takes a long time and usually requires a specialized developer. Hosting is not yet automatically arranged neither. Since it is a very heavy system, a specialized hosting service will have to evolve.

At Shopify it is again “simpler” . The system can be installed and configured much faster and it is already automatically hosted. There is much less behind it and the development costs are also reduced considerably. The acquisition costs are also significantly reduced.

Templates & extensions: quality vs. quantity?

Both systems have in common that they can be expanded with many extensions. Some are free, some cost money. The difference is somewhere between quality and quantity. Magento offers more than 5,000 extensions and that number is growing every day. However, since it is an open source system, the quality of these extensions cannot always be guaranteed. Do you want to change a template? Then a developer will have to be involved in the story. At Shopify the quality is very high. The extensions and templates are all developed by Shopify and they usually have a higher quality guarantee. In terms of quantity, Shopify is clearly inferior to Magento, but on the other hand it is a lot easier to carry out style adjustments.

Conclusion

Summarizing the differences between the two e-management systems in a single blog is impossible. Anyway, we can say that both systems are highly recommended. If customization or great flexibility are important: then we always suggest Magento . However, the start-up costs are often much higher and not always ideal for a beginner. In that case, Shopify is a lot more interesting: a simple interface that is easy to set up and entails lower start-up costs.

Curious which system suits you best? Then contact us now for more information or tailor-made advice for your company.

Read More

Why choose a PIM system (Product Information Management)

A crucial part of growing an e-commerce business that is often overlooked by many owners is: adequate product information management.

Product information is an important and influential element to improve the purchasing intentions of customers. Brand impressions drop to 20% on average due to scarce or inadequate product information. Without the proper use of PIM, not only could you miss many buyers who should visit your website, you may also lose those customers who visit the site.

The use of the PIM system

According to research, around 30% of the product catalogs contain data errors. In this regard, you must consider whether all your products are listed correctly. In the event that this is not the case, you can lose customers.

As your business grows, it may be difficult for you to manage and maintain  a high volume of product information. You have to control the information about each function of the different products. You also need to customize this information for different sales channels you use. It can be difficult to keep up with so much information.

This is the reason why you need a good PIM system. A PIM is an online application specifically designed to keep product data organized. This allows you to make important updates to product categories and features. You can also develop logical and dynamic product groups. You can also edit and adjust the price of the product and other information. PIM systems record data located in different systems to merge or combine them in one interface.

The effective use of a PIM system can offer several advantages. These are discussed below.

Higher turnover

An important feature of many PIM applications is their ability to develop collections. For example, you can create a collection of purple and gold items and mark this collection as a sale. The result is that you can offer your customers a relevant and customized internet experience without too much time and effort. You can give them access to a button that they can click to view summer items they use for their grill or sports equipment.

For example, on Mother’s Day, you can send an email and link it to the various product collections, such as perfumes, flowers, spas and chocolates. This will help your customers with website navigation, making the experience more and more enjoyable. You can adapt more easily to changing market needs. As a result, the turnover will increase. However, this is not possible if you lack the required tools to update product information or to crrect the dynamic collections. A PIM system supports you in both tasks.

Improve SEO rankings

Adequate product information can help consumers to better navigate the website and thereby, to increase the chance that they will stay on the website. Another big advantage of organized product information is that it increases the visibility of products on search engines such as Google.

Google displays the most relevant and compelling content at the top, based on search queries. If you want to score high on Google’s search results, you need sharable and well-written content.

The majority of the content of the online store pages is your product information. As a result, Google reads the product information and determines its relevance, depending on the user’s search query. PIM systems help you to organize and manage your product information so that you can enrich various attributes, such as product descriptions with compelling copies and relevant keywords.

They help you to better understand the different products to ensure that the metadata on the web pages can offer search engines such as Google more in-depth context. This increases the traffic to the site.

Personalize the user experience

According to marketing experts, it is not enough, even if you sell on all your available platforms. You must be able to come up with creative and innovative new ways to enable consumers to interact with your brand. This is where PIM systems are very valuable because they can be used for more than just updating the product information on the web pages. You can use them to implement many creative strategies.

With a PIM system, your website can offer consumers creative and exciting ways to navigate the website. For example, let’s assume that your site sells cookbooks and lists recipes. With a PIM system you can think of unique ways to make your content more accessible. You can customize your page so that when your customers have entered the different ingredients they have in their house, then all the relevant recipes that use these ingredients will be displayed.

And yes, you can include links to the various cookbooks you sell in the recipes to promote your product. The presence of complete and accurate product information allows you to provide your users with a unique, engaging and interactive experience.

PIM systems have different and unique features. Many of these systems have specific features for large companies. Most of them are optimized for managing product information in multi-channel sales environments.

Therefore, consider your specific preferences and needs, as well as the plans, before turning to a solution. A PIM system like Akeneo is ideal because it offers the versatility to meet different business needs.

Read More

The most important differences between Shopware and OpenCart

Choosing the right e-commerce platform can be challenging and very difficult. Nowadays the market has hundreds of different options, which makes the selection very difficult. To increase the return on of your store and to attract more customers, you need to select a suitable platform that meets your current needs. It also has to provide the necessary functionality to adapt and respond to developments in the future.

To simplify matters, we compare the two popular e-commerce solutions: Shopware and OpenCart.

OpenCart

Opencart is a free open source e-commerce platform and is an ideal match for medium-sized and small businesses. The software is compatible with PHP; every entrepreneur who is familiar with PHP will greatly benefit  from this feature. Since OpenCart uses a model with ‘core extension’, you need to install some applications if you need more functionality.

The good news is that OpenCart has a huge variety of extensions, nearly 14,000. Because it runs on AJAX technology, the platform is exeptionnally fast. OpenCart has all the basic functions that online retailers need for their e-commerce platform. In addition, OpenCart has a multi-store feature that allows users to track and manage multiple online stores from one administration panel.

Easy to use

OpenCart is a simple and user-friendly e-commerce platform with an intuitive, effective and well-designed interface. It is easier compared to Shopware. Thanks to the quick installation and the interface, Opencart is a very simple tool for many non-technical users. You can easily make changes within OpenCart and add them with little technical knowledge.

Free

The word free can be a little misleading when it comes to open source platforms. OpenCart is completely free to download, upgrade and use, but that does not mean that you manage the online store free of charge.

Keep in mind that you have to pay the security and hosting costs. A few basic expenses that you have to make are the costs for hosting, domain name and your SSL certificate. Moreover, you may have to spend a significant amount on the purchase of various extensions.

SEO

In terms of SEO, OpenCart is a pretty good platform, but it’s not the best. It contains all the essential SEO functions that you can expect from a solid e-commerce platform. It can easily get your products or services in one of the best SERPs.

You can assign meta descriptions and keywords to all category and product pages, along with header and title tags. In addition, OpenCart is doing well when it comes to developing excellent SEO URLs.

E-commerce designs and templates

OpenCart has a variety of responsive and professionally designed themes. You will find thousands of free and fee-based themes that can give your online store a good look.

However, you need basic knowledge of CSS, HTML and JavaScript to apply the designs and themes to your online store. This often makes it more complicated to manage templates in OpenCart, compared to Shopware.

Customer support

Unlike many other open source e-commerce platforms, OpenCart does offer customer support. Opencart has recently started offering special commercial support.

Fortunately, there are also enough Opencart forums active. Here you can easily find a representative or developer who can answer your questions for free.

Shopware

Just like OpenCart, Shopware is an open source e-commerce platform that works with the latest edition of PHP. The most important advantage of the compatibility of Shopware with PHP Seven is the incredible increase in performance. According to the latest tests, Shopware is almost twice as fast in many areas, which gives an advantage over Opencart.

This is particularly reflected in the ‘Theme Cache’, with which you can develop a theme very quickly. Shopware uses the latest and most innovative technologies to offer customers proper security.

Intuitive and easy to use

Shopware has an intuitive and simple interface, making it easy to use. This allows you to spend your time and effort on the most important aspects of the online business. The backend is specially designed to save time and simplify your work.

Adjustability

Shopware is very easy to adjust due to the open template design. You can easily make numerous adjustments via the backend without touching a single line of code. This gives the e-commerce platform an advantage over OpenCart.

Flexible user support

Shopware customers can choose between different service and support options. Some of these options are available for free. For a little more extensive user support, you can choose from a variety of Shopware subscriptions tailored to your needs. Simply choose the subscription option that best suits your business model.

Costs

Shopware has four rates, which are divided into categories. These are community, professional, professional plus and enterprise. The community plan is free and offers community support. The professional package costs 1295 € and the professional Plus package 5995 € per year. The Enterprise package is available on request, there is no fixed price. This price includes the manufacturer’s support, product streams, a storytelling feature, customer streams and much more.

SEO

Shopware provides important and reliable options to provide the most relevant search engine content for search engines to Google. In addition, the responsive and dynamic template formats ensure that Google’s Ajax crawler optimally captures all the content that is embedded in your business environment, and gets the best out of it, and all this in a way that is relevant to SEO.

All responsive topic pages have been optimized to be relevant to SEO. In addition, non-SEO-related and excessive tags have been removed. The platform is also optimized for mobile devices.

This was a comparison between Shopware and OpenCart, focusing on the differences between the two e-commerce platforms.

Read More

Benefits of Shopify

According to AmericaCommerce research, the e-commerce market in the US alone is worth as much as $ 220 billion. Moreover, the market is growing rapidly by almost 17% per year. In 2017, e-commerce retailing reached a peak of $ 370 billion. For the majority of people, the appeal of online sales has become too large to resist.

That said, developing an online store is a tricky and complex task. Thanks to effective hosted e-commerce solutions such as Shopify, users can easily and quickly set up an effective and mobile-friendly online store. That is why Shopify is one of the most successful and leading e-commerce platforms in the world. Although there are different shopping platforms that you can choose from, Shopify offers a number of advantages.

We discuss a number of important benefits of Shopify that make it one of the best e-commerce platforms.

Easy and quick to set up

Shopify offers entrepreneurs a simple way to quickly launch their online store without having to worry about development costs and servers. These challenges present themselves for various self-hosted platforms such as Magento. On the other hand, the admin interface of Shopify is very user friendly and clear; it is also fairly intuitive because all the different functions are logically structured.

Moreover, the user can easily find video guides and extensive documentation on the Shopify website.

It’s advantageous

One of the key priorities for a majority of startups in most industries, is to minimize operating costs without sacrificing functionality. This is where Shopify really shines in comparison to other platforms, because it has a good price-quality ratio. It has a relatively low monthly fee and in return you have access to many features that you need to be able to manage a reliable and secure e-commerce website.

Reliable and safe

If you have an online store, you will be confronted with personal and sensitive consumer information, such as credit card details. This is why you must ensure that the website is safe, fast and always online.

This is one of the main reasons why people rely on a hosted solution, because it offers unmatched reliability. And Shopify is no different. All technical issues, such as server maintenance or upgrades, must be properly taken care of to ensure that the shopping cart and online store are available 24 hours a day and that the relevant web pages are loaded quickly. You can enable SSL certificates for your online store to ensure that all customer data is encrypted and safe and that secure connections are passed on.

Visually appealing

The success of your online store largely depends on what it looks like, especially the homepage. On this page, customers familiarize themselves with your brand. Shopify has beautiful design themes that can help your store to get started. Moreover, it is relatively easy to improve the look and feel of your online store.

As with WordPress, designers and developers can find unique and attractive shop windows with Shopify. This allows Shopify developers to easily build on top of the e-commerce platform and fully customize the shopping experience.

Essential marketing tools

Shopify has been developed to improve marketing, especially for many startups who want to keep their costs as low as possible and want to spread the word quickly. The basic package of Shopify contains advanced e-commerce analysis and SEO functions. With these functions you can follow your customers more easily and tell them how they can find you online.

For example, lets assume you discover that most of the new online visitors found the website when they searched for “the best white wines from France”. Using this information, you can then come up with a series of blogs on this subject and also include the bestselling white wines on the homepage. In addition to integrated and effective SEO tools, Shopify also offers a number of important marketing tools, such as customized gift vouchers, discount codes, social network integration, store statistics, targeted email marketing and a discount voucher system.

Abandoned shopping cart recovery

What do you do when a potential customer places an order on your online store or places the products in his shopping cart to leave without buying? Statistics show that more than two thirds of online customers usually do this.

This is where Shopify comes to your rescue, because it offers cart recovery service. The service can automatically track and inform potential customers (via email), reminding and persuading them to purchase the product. This is a simple and excellent way to increase sales.

Payment options

Although Shopify supports different payment gateways, the platform also has its own payment gateway, made possible by Stripe. You do not need a seller account to use the service.

Read More

How to prevent that emails from the online store end up in the spam folder

Amazon is the most dominant and leading e-commerce brand. Nevertheless, the company has recently developed a strong profile as a major cloud computing service provider.

Amazon has expanded its cloud services with email and has introduced a new and innovative email service that delivers emails in bulk. This is called Simple Email Service (SES). It is an ideal service for online stores that cannot communicate effectively with their customers because their emails end up in the customers’ spam folder.

Because Amazon knows that sending emails in large numbers is more difficult than it seems, the company expects e-commerce companies, large and small, to take advantage of this great opportunity. With this service, a company can use the same technology and formatting that it uses to send emails to its customers.

The anti-spam rules are only tightened. That is why there is a good chance that order confirmations, invoices and newsletters from your online store will end up in the spam folder. This is disadvantageous for your company, since this information is important for the customer. As a result, you as a online store owner, can miss out on money. Invoices are not paid because they are sent to the spam folder, or you do not receive any inquiries from the customers.

The first step to prevent this is to add an SPF record to your DNS. This method has been working for years, to prevent your emails from ending up in the spam folder.

But, because Microsoft and Google have tightened their rules, this SPF record is unfortunately no longer a guarantee. This means that you have to improve the configuration, to ensure, that your online store does not send spam. In oder to do this, you must use a special email server such as Amazon SES with advanced DKIM records.

What is Amazon SES?

SES is the email distribution engine from Amazon that works on a pay-per-use basis. The SMTP server sends emails via applications such as Microsoft Outlook or other SaaS platforms, which generate emails and require SMTP servers to distribute emails.

SES cooperates with applications, which run on Elastic Beanstalk or Elastic Compute Cloud. Please note that this is not a platform designed to maintain email addresses or compose emails. Unlike other email distribution services, SES uses the Experience of Amazon to send emails to the huge customer base it serves.

The email service is available in the east and west of the United States and in regions in Ireland. It offers customers the advantage of greater availability and low latency.

Benefits of SES

SES is very beneficial for online retailers because it eliminates the difficulties in sending bulk emails. The companies can also benefit from the advanced email infrastructure and the many years of experience that Amazon has.

Simple API call

With a simple API, a company has access to a scalable, high-quality email infrastructure to communicate cheaply and efficiently with customers. To guarantee a higher delivery ratio, SES uses various content filtering technologies that thoroughly scan the emails from your online store, to ensure, that the email content meets all ISP standards. Depending on the results, the emails are prepared for sending or sent back to their sender for rectification.

Affordable

SES has a simple value proposition. You can increase the scalability as often as you want and whenever you want, you pay for what you use. You can use a free option (excluding data transfer costs) of 2,000 email messages on a daily basis. You can use this option when you send emails from Elastic Beanstalk or EC2. You can also send 1000 emails for just 10 cents.

It is clear that an uncontrolled SES service is likely to attract spammers. Therefore, the company suggests that an interested party should start with the SES sandbox.

Monitors Key Metrics

In addition to the favorable rates, ISPS rlies on Amazon SES emails to come from a credible and proven source. This is because SES monitors some key statistics, such as complaints and hard bounces, to ensure that questionable or controversial content is not disseminated.

When the service detects deviations and abnormalities, your account will be blocked. Companies that send emails must therefore adhere to best practices, such as: sending relevant content of the highest quality, maintaining email lists properly, and ensuring that complaint and bounce percentages are between 0.1% and 5%.

Although the standard method of SES identifies complaint and email bounce messages, these are also included in the tracking of emails that are forwarded after being sent. You also have the option to reconfigure SNS to better display this information. Using SES, many applications that typically send bulk e-mails can use the SNS report to combine these statistics with various triggers to provide real-time statistics or identify potential issues.

Email pausing

With the new updates for the API processes, there is now an option to  temporarily pause sending emails to SES. You can disable emails for sending to the full SES account with the update sending option.

Pausing emails is very useful. Keep in mind that the SES policy uses an automatic execution. With the help of the email pause function, you can temporarily stop the option of delivering emails and prevent your email account from being blocked. During the time when you can not send emails, you canfind out why your email account is causing abnormal complaints or a huge bounce rate. Once you’ve found the reason, you can start sending emails again.

The pause function also helps to ensure that the ability to distribute emails with a SES service is not interrupted. It ensures that the reputation of the sender is not damaged by problems or errors.

Start

Amazon SES is an excellent service for online stores in the retail trade. You can easily try Amazon SES, as it is easy to set up. You can click on the SES Sending Service via the control panel. You have the option to use the email service immediately. You are initially limited to a maximum of two hundred emails per day. Once you have access to ‘production access’, you have the option to send up to 100,000 emails per day.

The limits for emails are increased evenly depending on your bounce rate, email pattern and complaint statistics. In most cases, email limits jump from 100,000 to a maximum of 500,000. You can also submit a manual request.

SES rates

SES offers affordable and competitive email delivery. The first 62,000 emails every month are free, provided that these emails come from Elastic Beanstalk or EC2. Thereafter, prices rise up to 10 cents for every thousand emails. Attachments cost twelve cents per gigabyte.

You can make it easier for yourself by using Amazon SES. Join this popular service today and stay in touch with your customers.

Read More

How to launch a successful ICO

Since the creation of cryptocurrencies and the Ethereum network in 2014, the number of launched Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) has quadrupled. The number of successes achieved by most projects means, that more people are motivated to start their own kick-off. While some were successful, others suffered huge losses.

Are you planning to start an ICO? If so, it is important that you read this article, because we are discussing some ways in which you can successfully start an ICO project. They contain;

1. Think about your idea;

Most unsuccessful ICO projects were not planned. The team probably didn’t bother to come up with their ideas before they decided to launch an ICO. It is important that you have a feasible idea and that you also think about it. You could start by asking yourself; does my project really need an ICO?

In general, a product or service must attract attention and offer a solution to a problem. In the same way, your project could offer a solution to one of the many global problems. This would attract more people to the project, so make sure it works.

2. Identify your competitors;

According to a report released by CoinMarketCap, it was revealed that there are currently more than 1,500 cryptocurrency platforms in the world. Enormous competition right? You must remember that these cryptocurrencies are each targeted at certain industries and niches. All you have to do is simply pick the people in your niche and try to offer a better service than they do. This means that you should do intensive market research.

3. Create a token for the ICO;

While doing this, it is recommended that you consider it a living being. Ensure that there are relevant support systems. You must have a plan for distributing these tokens, you must also have planned how the tokens should be split. You could start by giving answers to the following questions; How many tokens are given to developers? How many would be offered to the public?

4. Write a white paper;

A white paper is simply a guide or report that should give readers a complete assessment of the project, and the idea behind the development of the project. Your white paper must be written in simple and clear terms. This will make it easier for readers to understand the ideas.

While writing the white paper, you must also state a number of benefits that your project has, over the others that have been developed.

5. Create a website;

A website will offer people the opportunity to do research and to contact you. The website must contain a brief assessment of the project, a list of the team of developers, a step-by-step plan, the token distribution system, etc.

After you have done all this, you have to promote or market the project. This is very important for the success of your ICO. A customer service team must be set up to respond and answer questions from readers and potential investors.

Read More

Five tips for writing a white paper

In short, a white paper refers to a guide or report that informs a large audience about a particular project or product. At the same time, a White Paper also describes the philosophy and ideas of the project. Here you can specify what is responsible for the development or creation of the project or product. The main purpose of the white paper is to inform readers about a product or project or the solution to a problem. In other words, a white paper is like a step-by-step plan that guides your readers. Therefore, it is important that it is informative and appealing.

There are certain tips that can help you to write an appealing and informative white paper for that project that you are planning to launch.

1. Your white paper should throw a new image on your product / project;

It is important that you do not provide readers with the same boring information that they have already read everywhere else. You have to do it differently than the rest. This means that you should do a lot of research. Also make sure that the project you want to launch focuses on a specific area. You could make it interesting by adding relevant statistics and graphs, this could help you support your point and make readers more curious about your project.

2. It must be simple, clear and easy to understand;

Although readers are industry owners and experts, it is still important that you use simple and clear words that an unfamiliar person or a newcomer to the industry can easily understand. Do you use acronyms or certain terms? Explain this well. Use short sentences and try to keep the paragraphs brief. If your white paper contains too many technical terms that prevent others who are not familiar with the industry from understanding it, you can always add a glossary.

3. It must have a good structure;

In order to regard your whitepaper as fascinating and informative, it must have a orderly structure. You could start by listing the issues the industry is facing and how your project or product would be the solution. As you identify the issues, try to determine how these issues affect readers and their business. That way, you get them to adopt your solution sooner.

4. Make sure you include relevant and recent statistics and reports;

The inclusion of recent and relevant statistics and surveys would show readers that you are aware of the events in the industry. As an extra stimulus, you could describe how the product or project you created would solve a large number of problems in the sector.

5. Make a clear overview of the step-by-step plan, the team of developers and the vision;

Each project that is developed, is expected to have a step-by-step plan. This would tell the readers that you know what you are doing. The vision must also be clearly stated. The names of the developers must be stated, previous functions must also be mentioned. This would encourage readers to try out the project.

Read More

ERC-20 Token explained

Simply put, ERC-20 is the standard protocol on the Ethereum network that is used for smart contracts and for entering tokens on the network. The abbreviation “ERC-20” stands for “Ethereum Request Comment” which actually refers to the request for response to the network. The number “20” is the number assigned to this request. According to reports that Etherscan.io published in July, it appeared that there are more than 100,000 ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum network.

On the Ethereum network, ERC-20 easily defines a list of rules and regulations that Ethereum tokens must follow on the main network. This allows external developers to accurately predict interactions between tokens in the network.

The rules mentioned above contain;

  • How these tokens can be exchanged
  • How users access the tokens

How is it made

The Ethereum network is revolutionary in the cryptocurrency industry. The development and launch of this great network in 2014 changed the way things were done. This allowed external developers to create contracts that are capable of creating decentralized applications. On the Ethereum network, decentralized applications can create ERC-20 tokens that can function as a currency or as a share in the company.

Smart contracts are used to create decentralized applications, as well as the ERC-20 token. The smart contracts of Ethereum are written in programming language. Once the token is created by smart contracts on the network, it can be traded, transferred or even given to someone else. It is the common language used by all tokens on the Ethereum network, allowing it to be transferred or traded.

How it makes developers possible

As mentioned above, ERC-20 tokens allow third-party developers to predict how new tokens will work on the larger Ethereum network. In addition, developers with ERC-20 tokens do not have to run projects again every time a new token is released on the network. As long as the tokens have been developed to comply with the rules, they are automatically compatible with all projects.

Reportedly, most tokens released through the Ethereum network are all compatible with ERC-20.

Popular ERC-20 Tokens

EOS; this platform is currently one of the best and most valuable cryptocurrency network and the platform is trying to use inter-blockchain communication.

TRON; ranked in the top 10, TRON is trying to offer a network for the entertainment industry.

Although ERC-20 tokens are useful for developers, there are still several problems. If the tokens are used to pay for Smart Contracts, rather than Ether Tokens, they are usually accidentally destroyed. About $ 3 million worth of tokens have been destroyed. The members of the Ethereum community are working on solving this problem. A new standard will soon be introduced on the network. While this new standard is still being worked on, developers are advised to continue using the ERC-20 token. This new standard will be called “ERC-223”

Read More

Migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2

Next year, support for the e-commerce platform Magento 1 will end. The professionals in the industry are already concentrating on switching to the new platform, Magento 2. Now you are wondering how you can best move from Magento 1 to Magento 2. It is important that you start planning the switch to Magento 2 as soon as possible.

In this article we provide a comprehensive overview of the process to make the switch a little easier.

Before you want to switch, you must follow these steps:

  1. Make a full backup of the Magento 1 store, which contains all folders, files, and databases.
  2. Make a replica of the Magento 1 store. Do not use the live store.
  3. Make a thorough analysis of the store and remove the unnecessary items.
  4. Make sure your current extensions, themes, and custom codes are compatible with Magento 2.
  5. Migrate your data files from your cloned database.
  6. Discard all useless and outdated data from your database, including logs and compared products.
  7. To ensure a trouble-free transfer process, install Magento 2 on the same server where Magento 1 is stored.

According to the official documentation, the transfer process has four steps. We will now discuss these steps.

Migration of theme

Magento 2 has introduced new technologies and methodologies to provide a better shopping experience for both users and sellers. Developers can use new improved ways to create striking and beautiful Magento 2 themes. They can also modify and use existing themes, provided they are compatible with Magento 2 standards. It is important to keep in mind that it is not possible to migrate Magento 1 themes to Magento 2.

There is a good chance that you will have to develop a new theme for Magento 2. If you don’t feel like it, it is of course also possible to purchase a theme for Magento 2 and install it from a reputable source or via the Magento Marketplace.

Expansion migration

Like Magento 1, extensions in Magento 2 are important elements that offer new functions. This can extend the functionality of the Magento store and significantly improve the user experience. The next step in the switch is the installation of your desired extensions in Magento 2 that can be found on the Magento Marketplace.

Please note that extensions designed for Magento 1 are not compatible with Magento 2. We recommend that you install only the most relevant extensions based on your needs that are available and essential to Magento 2. The Magento developers, development agencies and the community are working hard to make it easier to configure extensions from Magento 1 to Magento 2.

Customization

The next step in the transfer process is customization. The good news is that in most cases the customization code used in the Magento 1 also works with the Magento 2 store. Magento also offers a code migration toolkit that can be useful during this process. It is important to note, that due to a variety of structural differences between Magento 1 and Magento 2, code migration may require some extra work to integrate the custom code with your Magento 2 store.

Data migration

The final step in the transfer process is the transfer of your Magento 1 data to the new Magento 2 store. Magento offers a tool for data migration, making the data migration process less annoying and time consuming. It is a tool that helps you migrate your important data, such as categories, products, orders, settings and store configurations to Magento 2.

The tool uses ‘map files’ to transfer your data to the Magento 2 store. It checks the consistency and stability between the two database structures (fields and tables) in Magento 1 and Magento 2, monitors the progress of data transfer, generates logs and performs tests to verify the accuracy of the data.

The tool works in three different ways:

  • Migrate your configuration settings
  • Migrate the core data of your database
  • Transfer data updates in steps to your administrator dashboard and storefront. Transferring media files such as images and videos must be done manually. Despite all steps to be followed, the switch may not work as intended. You may even get some error messages. Do not panic! You can resolve any errors or problems by contacting experienced Magento developers who will gladly help you further.

When do you need to upgrade?

This largely depends on your existing website and whether it works well. If your website is doing well (it is running smoothly and your orders are coming in) and you have a version that is not outdated, you don’t have to hurry. You can already start using Magento 2 so that you get the hang of it.

Conclusion

Magento 2 has brought a completely new playing field for both solution partners and sellers. It is important to make the switch to the Magento 2 store if you want to stay informed about innovation and progress in the field of e-commerce. Although migrating to Magento 2 can be a time consuming and laborious process, you can make it easier by planning everything carefully and following a clear transition plan. If you are unfamiliar with this or if you have no experience, the best way is to engage a professional developer to make the switch easier. </ div>

Read More

Writing a white paper

When starting a blockchain project, the importance of a white paper for the company cannot be emphasized enough. This is because it is a good way to introduce the public to every part of the project. A white paper contains the technical details, the problems that the project must solve, the solutions to the problems, information about the team and the consultants (including qualifications, positions in the team and past achievements), the financing,  the step-by-step plan to identify milestones that the company would lie to reach in several areas in the near future, and other important information.

A white paper can best be described as an official document of a company about a project with the purpose to give the reader more information about a project. The white paper is a combination of expertise and detailed research  in one document, that speaks for a particular recommendation or solution. With the white paper, the reader can get a better idea of a problem / challenge, possibly solve a problem or improve the reader’s decision-making process. Since you use a lot of text with a white paper and do research, you must ensure that you do not make any mistakes. The information must be as clear as possible so that the message is not misinterpreted.


One of our services at Web-Company is to produce high-quality white papers according to the correct white paper writing standards.
We believe in excellence. That’s why we do our best to ensure that we write professional, personal, clearly defined, plagiarism-free, consistent, easy to understand, well-illustrated and of course compelling white papers or all of the above. We understand that white papers written by companies are not only meant to inform to the public about the current project, but also to reflect the company’s know-how. It must ultimately also contribute to the company’s marketing programs. Although you have the option to market the project through a white paper, you should not use it as a sales pitch. We make the white paper an instrument that attracts an audience outside your project, and thus conveys the expertise of the team of your project as a vision.
We can handle any intricate part of your white paper, regardless of the project. Our team of experienced researchers and professionals (in various fields) has everything in-house to ensure your project’s white paper conveys the right message to the readers. As part of our white paper service, we see it as our duty to ensure that all sources and research materials we use come from reliable sources. This ensures credibility and reliability. If you want your blockchain project to be successful, your white paper must be excellent. An excellent white paper ensures that the reader understands all the information and does not have too many questions.

Read More