Magento Imagine 2016: Magento 2 Panel Discussion

I had the chance to hear first-hand from Magento 2.0 Beta Merchants and their system integrator partners about their journey moving from Magento 1.x to Magento 2.0. In this session, they shared thoughts and ideas for how to prepare for a Magento 2.0 project, how key improvements in the platform helped their companies, and gave us a great primer on how the features/functions enhanced the overall customer experience.
SOL Lingerie wanted a strategy to bring a new retail experience online. SOL founder Jeanie Peterson and Brain Beck of Guidance talked about how she used Magento to support the transition from brick and mortar to online retailer. Magento 2.0 was a no-brainer because not only did they needed to scale but they also needed to do so quickly. Magento 2.0 gives them the flexibility of Magento 1 but enhances their growth ability.
Loom Decor is a startup that needed three key benefits that Magento 2 provides: 1) mobile responsive design, 2) enhanced performance and 3) serve as a solid base from which to do future upgrades and scale as CEO Ashley Gensler grows her business.  Ashley knew that they had a lot of extensions and customizations that they needed to migrate.
Leading Lady is an online retailer specializing in maternity and full figured lingerie that wanted to create a new experience for clients. William Mahar, VP of Marketing & eCommerce, commented that they are on Magento 1.7 and moving to 2.0. He realized the immediate benefits of this new version that gives companies the necessary tools to migrate data regardless of what version they currently use.

Benefits of Magento 2 as assessed by the panel:

• Loom Decor is a very complex implementation. The number of combinations and pricing structures added layers of complexity that are  handled natively in Magento 2.
• The Magento 2 migration tool is “self-aware” of the database mappings and saved hundreds of hours of time during conversion. Customization still needs to be done, but the heavy lifting of the implementation is already complete.
• It took only 2 hours in dry runs to move 3,600 products, 50 CMS pages, customers and orders, promotion and catalog rules, and extension settings.
• The architecture helps performance tremendously, especially when you have a lot of bundled product combinations and prices.

Top planning considerations for the move to Magento 2:

• Evaluate your whole site, look at your brand requirements and then build the brand story
• Take a long hard look at your extensions and site map, and review what is working so that it’s not lost in the migration
• This upgrade is the opportunity to think about your site differently
• Take time to understand the new feature set – take a step back and evaluate what features will enhance the experience for your customers

Tips for how to prepare your business users on Magento 2:

• Several members of the panel mentioned that having multiple training sessions of the admin console was important so that people know where the old and new functions reside.
• Identify and highlight the new features and functions
• The admin console is very different and offers amazing improvements.
• Train the trainer is the most successful way. Choose a few people that know the solution inside and out, and then have them train others.

Favorite features & pleasant surprises for Magento 2:

• Product catalog and the ease with which our customers can choose products and purchase is the key to a successful online retailer
• Search is better, customers can find specific products and build their product (on the Loom Decor site)
• The ability to visually show slideshows of pictures of their products
• Native, responsive design
• The quickness and ease of integrating Varnish
• Drop and drag visual merchandiser

Magento indicated that as they move forward with Magento 2, they will have more rapid development and more releases. This is the platform that has the ability to provide the performance and serve as the base for many companies to scale on this platform.