Why do people migrate from Magento to WooCommerce?

Although Magento has many advantages, it also carries a lot of drawbacks, making customers switch to another platform. Only recently a great number of e-commerce store owners powered by this recognized platform have moved towards WooCommerce. By looking at the Magento market share in August 2020, the stock is getting closer to 17 000 websites. Whether you’re a long-time Magento user or a fresh store owner, you might be curious about the reasons for going WooCommerce. 

As the support of Magento 1 came to end on June 30, e-commerce owners must struggle with a dilemma: move to Magento 2 or plunge into a different solution. According to Builtwith, in the face of this situation, WooCommerce has become one of the leading choices. This is the result of Magento losing almost 17,000 customers with a profit of less than 3,000 – giving a net loss of about 14,000. That’s a huge customer flow. 

Magento market lose

Source: https://trends.builtwith.com/shop/Magento/Market-Share

There is a set of reasons behind the present outflow. First of all, Magento requires some special insight including high-tech skills and knowledge of terminology. It has never been the easiest platform to work with. It’s not also the most flexible in terms of quick updates or concerning how hard it is to onboard new developers to the project in progress. Also, Magento is dedicated to big eCommerce retailers which makes it hard to operate by the non-tech persons. How does the converting process look like and what are the potential reasons to make a change?

Reason 1. The process of migrating from Magento 1 to WooCommerce

Magento 2 arrives with an absolutely different architecture and database design. It’s also not possible to use Magento 1 extensions and themes. Instead, they must be re-created to work properly with the new Magento 2 structure. All that creates extra work.

Transferring from Magento to WooCommerce proves to be much quicker and easier. No wonder that eCommerce owners turn towards Woo-option. 

How does the migration look like? 

The change from Magento to WooCommerce requires migrating your eCommerce data from the old platform to the new one. Fortunately, you can achieve it with no data loss. 

What kind of data can be migrated from Magento to WooCommerce?

Product data — names, prices, descriptions, SKUs, weights, and variantsTax classes, names, and ratesCustomer data — names, emails, addresses, and passwordsProduct categoriesOrder information — date, status, price, volume, discounts, and shippingCoupon codes and discountsPage titles, dates, URLs, and descriptions

Source: WooCommerce.com

With WooCommere the developer can’t automatically recreate the store design. To make that happen, you need to prepare a process – create a WooCommerce store. We explain how to do it step-by-step in Cut2Code’s Ultimate Guide to WooCommerce. You can also consult your eCommerce with our specialists so they could support you during this stage.

Once completed, the next step would be to migrate eCommerce data. You can migrate store data manually, use a data migration app or, again, ask professionals that will perform it for you. 

Let’s talk about more general features of both platforms that may impact the eCommerce market change.

Reason 2. User-Friendliness & Customization

Magento is quite difficult to operate. In addition, it is built under a quite complex method of usability. To put it simply, someone who wants to manage the platform and customize the store must be experienced in programming or have a piece of technical knowledge. The same goes with the dashboard area which at first may be challenging to grasp for a potential admin.

On the other hand, WooCommerce has a much lower learning curve – running and managing it comes easily for a person with no technical skills. It’s WordPress-based and thus gives all possibilities of content and product edition that you would expect from an intuitive and user-friendly CRM.

Source: WooCommerce.com

Reason 3. Hosting Requirements

Another impactful matter is hosting requirements. Magento resources regardless of the version are “hungry”, meaning they require a proper web hosting platform that may turn out expensive in the long run. Conversely, WooCommerce can run on any basic shared space with usually budget-friendly hosting plans. Choosing the type of web hosting, one always needs to take a future perspective on the business. Where would I be in a few years? Should I already think of scaling my store, by adding more products or exploring new markets? If the answer is positive, the cost becomes a crucial factor and so does the choice of the best hosting.    

Reason 4. The Cost

Magento is incomparably more expensive than WooCommerce. As we have mentioned, the platform primarily aims at big companies and there’s a significant amount of technology stack that a developer needs to cover to become Magento-savvy.

Because knowledge is the key, obtaining knowledge takes time and, in many cases, money. No wonder then that Magento developers are simply more expensive to hire. Ande the same goes with Magento paid extensions which are, in general, more expensive than add-ons for WooCommerce. So although the base Magento version is free to use or migrate at the start, you have to consider your budget when developing it.

Let’s have a look at a comparison table of these two e-commerce platforms.

FEATURE	Magento	WooCommerce
Ease to Use	Created for users experienced in coding	Easy to use and manage for non-tech people
Cost	Free community version. Paid cloud level and Enterprise level	Free to download and use. Paid additional features
Customization options	Advanced customisation with coding only	Simple, built-in customization options enabling easy adjustment

Ecommerce Market in 2020 Is Changing

In rough times, users look for ways in which the effort is worth the profit. The customers’ loss of Magento to WooCommerce – which is approximately 14 000 Netto – is a significant sign of a market change. We predict that a move towards lighter and less technical options will only become stronger.