Migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0: Your Ultimate Guide

With the recent release of Shopify’s newest edition, many e-commerce startup founders are wondering,‘Should I be migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0?’ 

It’s a fair question to ask – millions of merchants use the platform for their livelihood, collectively making $543 billion worth of sales over the last 16 years. Understandably, sellers don’t want to risk it all for an update without knowing the details.

The e-commerce space continues to evolve, projected to grow by $10.87 trillion leading up to 2025. Those who don’t keep up with the latest trends and changes may fall behind in sales and revenue.

As such, Shopify continues to innovate to provide merchants in the e-commerce space with the best tools possible. Shopify Online Store 2.0 is packed with features that will help your business succeed online. 

At Sellry, our goal is to make the migration process to Shopify 2.0 smooth, efficient, and seamless, helping e-commerce store owners take advantage of its new features. This article will guide you on why you should consider migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0, and how to get started.

Moving To Shopify 2.0: What’s Changed?

Migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0 offers many improvements. Let’s have a look at them:

• Improved performance, stability, and faster load times.

• A new set of themes to create bespoke and personalized stores.

• Better user interface store management experience. 

• Enhanced app configuration due to modular app blocks.

• Vastly improved developer tools.

• A new checkout app for a faster, easier, and higher converting purchasing process.

• Metafields have been refined and improved for greater store flexibility.

• Loading times have been boosted so that visitors are less inclined to leave due to low speeds.

Many of these improvements resolve long-standing pain points for merchants. Many changes are geared toward improving the design and development process, while others boost the user experience for more sales.

Migrating to Shopify 2.0 is a relatively simple process, but it’s essential to have a plan to ensure a smooth transition. Sellry, a trusted e-commerce business development firm, offers help migrating to Shopify 2.0 so you can take advantage of the new features immediately.

How Do the New Features Improve Shopify?

Compared to Shopify 1.0, the new Shopify 2.0 is about 35% faster, thanks to the new Dawn theme (which we’ve further tuned and optimized to provide an outstanding base for a custom design). The improved performance means merchants can expect more stability and faster load times, which lead to higher conversion rates. 

In addition, Shopify 2.0 comes with an improved version of the metafields feature. Metafields allow merchants to add extra data to their products, customers, orders, and pages. This data can be in the form of text, images, files, or URLs. 

Metafields are a powerful tool that gives merchants greater control over their store data. With Shopify 2.0, creating metafields is now simpler and more accessible than ever before. Merchants can now create metafields directly from the Shopify admin, without having to use any code. 

This is a significant improvement over the old Shopify 1.0, where merchants had to hire Shopify experts or use third-party apps to create and manage metafields.

Shopify 2.0 also introduces modular app blocks. They essentially allow store owners to add dynamic elements on their store pages wherever they want. You can add reviews, pricing information, etc. Some merchants are even adding 3D models of their products using these blocks. The possibilities are endless. 

For developers, Shopify 2.0 comes with vastly improved developer tools when compared to 1.0. From admin interfaces to theme app extensions, everything has been enhanced to make development more efficient, reducing your store management cost and speeding up site development timelines. 

Finally, Shopify 2.0 introduces a checkout app that streamlines the purchasing process for customers. The app makes it faster and easier to buy products, making the process more visually appealing and engaging with photos and videos of products. 

How Merchants Benefit From Shopify 2.0

Migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0 offers a variety of benefits to merchants and vendors.

• Better UI and functionality

The Shopify development team has made significant updates to the system UI and functionality, so designing your store and interacting with the editing tools is a much smoother experience.

• Editable sections on all pages

The store editor in Shopify 1.0 was limited, but now, Shopify 2.0 has introduced Sections & App Blocks for every page of your store. It’s much easier to customize how each individual page looks.

• Better app extensions

Shopify 2.0 now has a much better system for adding and using extensions. The process is more efficient, meaning your load times are faster, too.

• Multilingual stores
  No need to add a language extension if you’re building a store in other languages – multilingual stores are now a native feature of Shopify 2.0.

• Metafields

Shopify 2.0 makes it much easier to add metadata to your products so that you can distinguish between different product types more easily.

For merchants, migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0 brings in crucial benefits that vastly simplify the creation and management of a successful online store.

How Developers Benefit From Shopify 2.0

Migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0 also benefits developers significantly, providing several enhancements and new features that make building apps for Shopify more powerful, efficient, and productive. 

These features include GraphQL for easier data retrieval, improved APIs for more flexibility, and Liquid markup language for more control over Shopify themes. 

Shopify Online Store 2.0 also offers the ability to use Shopify as a headless e-commerce platform, meaning you can update the customer-facing aspects of your store without significant development required to the back end. 

Another new addition is a dedicated Developer Portal with extensive documentation to help you get started quickly.

These benefits allow developers to create new custom functionality and designs and simplify the creation of custom themes and apps.

Will My Data Be Lost?

As an e-commerce startup founder who has put a lot of time and effort into your Shopify store, it’s understandable to worry if some of your data will be lost during the migration process. Rest assured, all of your current data will be safely migrated to Shopify 2.0, including data about:

• Products 

• Product Images 

• Shopify Customizations 

• Shopify Order Data 

• Customers 

• Customer Addresses 

• Shopify Tags

• Settings

However, there are some areas in which we recommend that you review your data before starting the migration process.

Product Images

If you’re using CDN (Content Delivery Network) with Shopify 1.0 for product images, those images will no longer appear in your store after the migration. We recommend downloading a copy of all your product images and uploading them into Shopify 2.0 before starting the migration. 

Shopify Payments

For Shopify Payments, please note there will be a short downtime while migrating your account. During this time, your customers will not be able to check out. We recommend disabling Shopify Payments before starting your migration and re-enabling it once the migration is complete.

Third-Party Apps

Some third-party apps are not compatible with Shopify 2.0. Contact the developers of any apps you’re using to confirm compatibility with Shopify 2.0 (or partner with a team like Sellry to help advise you on these apps) and disable any that are not compatible before starting the migration.

How to Customize and Scale your Shopify Online Store 2.0

Now that you have decided to move to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0, you can take advantage of the new features to customize and scale your store. You can customize your storefront, manage products and inventory, or connect to Shopify POS to start selling in person. 

With the many new features available, a migration can feel overwhelming. It’s only natural. This is where an experienced, and trusted professional can help you with the process.

Sellry does precisely that, helping from-scratch startup businesses and established e-commerce brands get the most out of Shopify 2.0. With Shopify website development as one of Sellry’s core expertise areas, we are well-equipped to help you make a hassle-free and seamless transition to the new version of Shopify. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Shopify 2.0

When is Shopify Online Store 2.0 available?

Shopify 2.0 was officially launched on June 29, 2021. Migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0 is now possible and many stores have been successfully ported over and continue to scale their ecommerce businesses.

Is Shopify Online Store 2.0 headless?

Shopify Online Store 2.0 is not a headless solution out of the box; its editing tools and Storefront API have been significantly improved, and stores using Shopify 2.0 are well-positioned to move to headless using a third-party platform or a custom development using Hydrogen and Oxygen.  Merchants with in-house development teams may be able to use Hydrogen to develop their own store components, or you can partner with an agency to create a solution customized for your goals.

Will all new stores be built on Shopify 2.0?

Yes, all new stores will automatically be built on Shopify 2.0.

Which themes are compatible with Online Store 2.0? 

There are many themes available that are compatible with Shopify Online Store 2.0. You can check out a list of compatible themes here. 

How much does Shopify 2.0 cost?

Shopify 2.0 is a free upgrade for all Shopify 1.0 customers.

How long does migrating to Shopify 2.0 from Shopify 1.0 take?

The time it takes to migrate to Shopify Online Store 2.0 varies depending on the size of your store and the number of products you have. 

Want to Upgrade? Let’s Get Started!

To sum it up, Shopify 2.0 is an essential update that offers many new features and improvements to the platform. At Sellry, we understand that change can bring uncertainty, but with our guidance, you can feel comfortable upgrading to Shopify 2.0.

With deep experience helping e-commerce merchants from startup to enterprise size, Shopify 2.0 is the best choice for those looking to upgrade their platforms. 

So, if you’re thinking how to best use Shopify 2.0 to benefit your e-commerce startup, Sellry offers assistance with Shopify website development – and we’re passionate about it! 

Get in touch with us to make the smooth transition from 1.0 to 2.0 and supercharge your brand growth. Let’s talk!