How to Minimize Downtime During Magento 2 Migration?

December 16, 2020

Nowadays, the majority of online customers expect websites to load within 3 seconds.

In fact, if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of them have admitted that they immediately leave the website and move on.

Now, if a single second delay in loading can make such a huge difference, then just think about the effect on your eCommerce business when your store is down for a long period of time during Magento 2 Migration.

This is the reason why it is so crucial to minimize the downtime issue when you’re planning to migrate your online store to Magento 2 platform.

What is Downtime?

Downtime is basically a period of time where a website is not functionally available to use.

And when it comes to website downtime, there are mainly two types of downtime:

Hard Downtime: Hard downtime is when a website is completely inaccessible.

Soft Downtime: Soft downtime is when the website is either fully or partially accessible but has poor performance or functionality issues.

Effects of Downtime on Your eCommerce Business

Depending upon the size of your eCommerce business, downtime can cause multiple dire consequences.

These consequences generally include:

#1 - Loss of Revenue

Let’s face it. When your online store is down, your eCommerce will be losing revenue. And the longer it takes to migrate your online store and get it up and running, the more revenue is going to suffer because of it.

According to recent research by Gartner, the average revenue loss due to downtime is $5,600 USD per minute.

Based on your past revenue per minute or hour, you can easily calculate the lost revenue of your eCommerce business during Magento 2 Migration.

#2 - Reduced Search Engine Rankings

Downtime occurs on every website and eCommerce store.

But, if a website is down for a long period of time, it gives a bad sign to Google’s crawlers, which ultimately affects the search engine rankings, traffic, and sales of your online store.

And since Magento 2 Migration is a time-consuming process, it is extremely important to ensure minimum downtime as much as possible.

#3 - Loss of Brand Reputation & Credibility

Another serious consequence of downtime is the loss of your brand’s reputation and credibility.

You see, when your eCommerce store is down for a long period of time, you’re not only losing potential revenue but you’re also damaging the credibility & the reputation of your brand.

Every time a customer is not able to purchase a product from your store, most of the time it results in the loss of credibility.

And over a long period of time, many such dissatisfied customers are likely to show their frustration on social media platforms.

Due to this, the news about your downtime would spread over the internet, and your competitors would be quick to take advantage of your situation and attract your customers.

So, the longer the downtime is, the more losses you’re going to suffer because of it.

Fortunately, it is possible to minimize the downtime of your online store during the Magento 2 Migration.

Also read: What are the Pros and Cons of Migration to Magento 2?

Steps to Minimize Downtime During Magento 2 Migration

Here are a couple of steps you need to apply in order to minimize the downtime as much as possible during Magento 2 Migration:

Transmission of data from Magento 1 to Magento 2 platform locally
Move database, source files, and media to a new host
Use a delta migration tool to transfer all data that customers added such as orders, reviews, personal information, etc.
Set DNS records that point to a new host with Magento 2
Finally, shut down your old store

Also read: Why Upgrade to Magento 2 and Not Stay on Magento 1?

Concluding Thoughts…

It’s now clear as crystal that downtime during Magento 2 Migration can heavily impact your eCommerce business.

Although, you can certainly take advantage of the above-mentioned steps to minimize the downtime as much as possible. But it is still going to affect your business unless you somehow achieve Zero downtime during the migration process.

Yes, zero downtime during Magento 2 Migration is possible and achievable if the whole process of migration is handled by skillful professionals.

We, at MageDelight, provide Magento 2 Migration Service with guaranteed zero downtime of your existing store to help avoid all negative consequences such as loss of revenue, search engine rankings, and your brand’s reputation & credibility.

That being said, if you’ve any questions regarding Magento 2 Migration with zero downtime, feel free to contact us at any time.