Magento Themes: What is Magento Theme Migration?

If you weren’t one of those who upgraded to Magento 2 before June 2020, you probably already know why you should be thinking about it sooner rather than later. Even though your Magento eCommerce store may still be intact and running, the lack of quality fixes and security patches is reason enough to bid farewell to Magento 1 and migrate to Magento 2.

This is because security maintenance and support are vital to be able to warrant a safe and smooth experience for your eCommerce store customers. The Magento migration process can be divided into four key stages. These stages include theme migration, the migration of any extensions you may have installed, customizations you need, and lastly the migration of all your data.

Magento theme migration is one of the most important stages in the process because if your theme hasn’t been migrated perfectly, your eCommerce store may be in trouble!

Why You Should Think About Magento Theme Migration

What does the theme even do for you? Is it just how the store looks? No. Your Magento theme is much more than mere decorative wallpaper. It determines the format, layout as well as the functionality of your eCommerce store. The theme is what ensures that your customers have a consistent and smooth user experience with your website, whether that’s in terms of browsing or making transactions.

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Now that you understand and acknowledge the importance of the Magento theme, let’s talk about why you should be serious about theme migration. Whenever you decide to upgrade from Magento 1 to 2, you can’t just migrate your theme directly as it is.

This is because Magento 2 is completely different from Magento 1 and even your theme will need quite a few changes in its coding to help make it compatible with Magento 2, and this is exactly why you need to give it some serious thought.

So unless you have a team of Magento development experts or are a Magento professional yourself, it’s in your best interest to hire Magento developers from a reputed Magento 2 development company to perform the theme migration for you.

Magento Theme Migration: How To Go About It and Decide What You Want

How you should go forward with the theme migration depends on several factors and most importantly, it depends on what your specific needs and requirements may be. What you think of the following factors and the questions that arise because of them should determine your next steps.

How To Create New Custom Magento Theme

It’s very possible that with a new store, you want to change the look and feel of it and give your customers the best there is. So you try to make your dream theme ideas into reality and end up building a unique custom theme from scratch. For this to work properly, you will have to have much more than an idea.

You will not only need to know exactly what you want your store to look like and feel like, but you will also need to determine all the functionalities and features you want your website to have and how you want to incorporate them into your theme.

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However, custom themes require bigger budgets and also frontend as well as backend developers. They also require more time but in the end, get you exactly what you want. You can always take inspiration from other themes you like and ask your developers to clone them in order to save time and resources.

How To Migrate To The Exact Same Magento Theme

Let’s say your customers are extremely comfortable with the existing theme and the way things are going, and you don’t want to change their shopping experience for them. In this case, you will want to migrate the exact same theme that you currently have on Magento 1.

In this scenario, your migration specialists and developers will have to recreate your theme for you on Magento 2, because as explained, Magento 1 themes can’t just be “transferred”. This replication of your Magento 1 theme may cost you more time and money, but it will surely get your customers the exact same user experience as before, except only faster.

Budget Constraints? How About A Free Magento Theme?

You don’t have an unlimited budget, and who can blame you for that? The good news for you is that there are several free Magento 2 themes in the market and you can choose one that suits your needs. Having said that, you need to keep in mind that free themes will have a fairly simple layout most of the time and that they will offer limited functionality.

This is because the more complex features and functionality you want, the more it costs to build the theme. Choosing a free Magento 2 theme may take you a considerable amount of time especially since you will have to spend time testing them out as well to ensure that they run smoothly and work well without any glitches.

Time Constraints? How About a Ready-Made Magento Theme?

Perhaps you are already running out of time and don’t have enough time to build a theme all over again. In this scenario, you need a quick solution for a theme, and we have the perfect solution for your challenge.

A ready-made theme! This way, you can choose a theme that is closest to what you want in terms of how it looks and functionality and you can also customize the layout, colors, as well as your product and category pages to own the theme and help it sync with your store.

Paid Magento 2 themes offer the needed functionalities and features to get your eCommerce store up and running in little to no time. Moreover, they also offer other features such as built-in widgets, smoother navigation, and sharing options on social media.

What’s Your Verdict?

You have already decided you want to migrate to Magento 2 but have you decided on how you want to migrate your theme? After taking all the factors into account, did you arrive at a verdict? It all depends on your priorities and what is most important to you.

Is it more important for you to save money or time? Or is it of utmost importance for your customers to be able to have the exact same user experience? Perhaps you have made your decision or maybe you need help in deciding and figuring out what’s best for your new Magento 2 store.

Whether you’re a B2B store or retail eCommerce store, you can always get in touch with a Magento B2B development company or B2C development company offering Magento migration services, and leverage their experience to help you make better decisions and also enable a smoother transition.

FAQs:

1.  What is the cost of Magento theme migration?

The cost of Magento theme migration can range from $100 to more than $1800. This is because it depends greatly on what kind of theme you choose and how much customization you require. It also depends on who you hire for the customization.

2.  How to perform theme migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2?

There are several ways to go about this but it all depends on what you want and where your priorities lie in terms of budget, time constraints, and getting exactly what you want.

Themes cant be directly migrated when one is upgrading from Magento 1 to Magento 2, hence one can either choose to purchase and customize an existing Magento 2 theme, get a free one, or even get a developer to build you one exactly the way you want from scratch. 

3. How to choose the right company for Magento Theme Migration in the US?

You should choose a company that has experience in Magento development one that specializes in Magento migration.

However, the best Magento theme migration company for you would be one that understands your requirements and builds your theme exactly how you want it to look and feel to your customers, all while staying within your budget. 

4. How is Folio3 the right choice for Magento Theme Migration?

Folio3 is a certified Magento development company with nearly fifteen years of Magento development experience. Moreover, it has dedicated Magento migration specialists and development experts to cater to all your migration needs. Our experience and our success stories and our customer testimonials are the biggest reason for being the perfect choice for Magento theme migration. 

5. How much time does it take for Magento Theme migration?

It can take up to 3 months for a complete Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration. The time it requires for a theme migration is difficult to estimate because it depends on what theme one chooses and how much customization one requires.