Migrating from Magento to Shopify: A detailed guide

Every great organization is continuously progressing – that’s true more than ever when it comes to ecommerce. Magento has long been a go-to platform for online shops, but these days more and more merchants are taking their company to Shopify.

If your store is on Magento, there are lots of reasons that you might be considering moving Magento to Shopify. Factor # 1 is apparent: it’s hosted for you. That indicates less worrying about traffic spikes and slow-down on important shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It likewise implies understanding your website is safe, upgrading your shop and stock more quickly, and gaining from first-class consumer support.

If you resemble many long-time Magento users, you might likewise find that for many years your shop has ended up being bogged down by old, outdated functionality, workarounds and code-hacks, with extra features duct-taped together using third-party add-ons and plugins. The fact is, it can be time-consuming and expensive to pay somebody to keep your store updated, protected, efficient, and looking great in 2021.

For a great deal of store owners, migrating from Magento is just about starting fresh: taking what you have actually learned about running your service, and applying it effectively so that you end up with a shop that works for you, not versus you. It means a fresh makeover – albeit one that includes all of your essential data like orders and customer details.

When it concerns selecting a brand-new platform, we can not suggest Shopify enough. Its ease of use, friendly interface, and marketplace of fantastic styles and apps have actually made it an excellent fit for more than 600,000 organizations worldwide. There are other options to consider (BigCommerce, Weebly, Big Cartel, Mozu (by Volusion), and TicTail), but these platforms aren’t experiencing the development of Shopify.

As soon as you’ve decided to leave Magento, there are a number of important actions to ensure a smooth migration. A pragmatic technique is essential to make sure you’re taking what is essential with you and leaving behind what’s not. This isn’t an extensive how-to guide, but it will give you a solid context for the actions needed to move your shop effectively.

Keep your organization running

Your migration will take some time! That suggests until your brand-new shop is fully set-up and optimized, it is necessary to keep your organization working on your Magento store.

Step 1: Choose what you want to move

You’ll want to migrate your items and consumer details to your new Shopify store, and you’ll most likely likewise wish to bring order history and status data. If you have actually been running your web store on Magento for a long period of time, there may be dated details that you would rather leave behind. We always advocate collecting as much information as possible, however if you find yourself continuously weeding through stacks of old, obsolete data, it might be time to trim the fat. Thankfully, there are some fantastic apps that assist with this part of the migration.

Similarly, you may have marketing material and other products you want to migrate post and static HTML pages, for instance in addition to other content you ‘d rather leave. Whatever you choose to bring over to your brand-new website will require to be redesigned to fit your shop’s new look. You can do that yourself, or work with a firm that concentrates on migrations.

Step 2: Start an account on Shopify

Shopify uses a free trial, so you can get your feet wet prior to making a dedication. Before you begin doing business in your brand-new store, you’ll want to acquaint yourself with Shopify’s features, menus, collections and page designs. Do not be reluctant to lean on their excellent client support group who will be your buddies throughout this process.

Step 3: Back up your Magento store

This is essential! On the occasion that your migration doesn’t go as planned the very first time, you’re going to wish to keep a complete backup of your Magento store. It is necessary to ensure any custom-made information is stored, together with basic details, so take your time doing this. You may opt to utilize a partner to assist perform the migration, but don’t depend on a 3rd party to get the backup best. To perform your own backup, use one of the more in-depth tutorials online.

Step 4: Move your information

Now comes the heavy lifting. Apps like Cart2Cart and Shopify’s Magento Importer are designed to facilitate your migration, or you can export and import the data by hand. If you choose the latter alternative, you’ll likely export your Magento data as a CSV file. There are tutorials online for importing this information into hosted platforms, however if you’re not tech-savvy (and even if you are), your best bet may be to hire a designer who focuses on Magento migrations to help you. Our Services team is experienced in moving businesses of all sizes, so if you ‘d rather conserve yourself the inconvenience and make sure a smooth migration, get in touch with us.

Step 5: Test, test, and evaluate some more

Ensure whatever is operating in your new shop. Run some test orders all the way through the checkout. Ensure that client information is arranged and displayed correctly, which you’re able to handle every aspect of your organization as if it were a live shop.

Step 6: Restyle your brand-new website

Your new store isn’t going to look similar to your old one. Whether you’re utilizing a pre-made style or designing something from scratch, the nature of moving platforms means making front-end changes in addition to back-end ones. Fortunately, that’s excellent news! With how rapidly ecommerce has developed in the past couple of years, your store is likely overdue for a makeover. Now is a great time to elevate your brand name by giving it the style it is worthy of. There are lots of fantastic Shopify themes to pick from, or you can hire a specialist group of designers and developers to develop you a custom-made ecommerce shop.

As soon as you have your brand-new style, make sure your content fits well and looks consistent from item to item, and from page to page. Verifying whatever on your website is well worth the time, as first impressions really count. As soon as things look great, you’ll pick a suitable moment in time to make the switch (we suggest recognizing the quietest duration in your week). After this is done, you’ll probably have a couple of orders that came in after the final backup was taken you’ll require to match these up. It’s a great concept to have a clear calendar and some help to ensure whatever is working as anticipated on both the front and back ends.

Moving your store can feel like an almost impossible task, however approaching it piece-by-piece is the crucial to a successful move. When the job is ended, and you have actually had a minute to capture your breath, you’ll be more than happy with your decision to move.

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