Shopify to BigCommerce Migration: Process and Options to Make the Move
If you’re on the brink of a Shopify to BigCommerce migration, you’ve likely weighed the benefits and are now searching for the safest route to transition. Look no further. Our focused article guides you through the essential steps for a successful Shopify to BigCommerce migration, ensuring a streamlined move and transparent look at what to expect. From initial backup to post-migration checks, we’ve got the details that matter to maintain your store’s functionality and SEO ranking.
Key Takeaways
BigCommerce offers greater scalability and reduced costs compared to Shopify, with unlimited bandwidth, support for more SKUs per product, no transaction fees, and better SEO capabilities.
Preparation for migration includes auditing the Shopify store, backing up data comprehensively using tools like Rewind, and understanding platform differences to strategize the migration effectively.
Following data migration, focus on post-migration actions such as setting up 301 redirects, testing all store functionalities, and continuously monitoring and optimizing SEO performance.
Reasons to Migrate from Shopify to BigCommerce
BigCommerce presents a compelling case for ecommerce migration, especially for businesses that feel constrained by Shopify’s limitations. Among its many advantages, the BigCommerce platform offers unlimited bandwidth and storage, a lifeline for eCommerce businesses planning to scale. Moreover, it supports up to 600 SKUs per product and 250 options, surpassing Shopify’s limit of 100 SKUs and three options. This flexibility and scalability have made BigCommerce the ecommerce platform of choice for businesses seeking growth.
Cost savings also rank high on the list of reasons to migrate. With BigCommerce, merchants can avoid transaction fees that Shopify applies except when using BigCommerce’s proprietary payment provider. Furthermore, BigCommerce’s transparent pricing model and comprehensive functionality, including advanced customization options and robust built-in features, provide a lower total cost of ownership. This cost-effectiveness, coupled with superior SEO capabilities, makes the Shopify to BigCommerce migration decision even more appealing.
Preparing for the Migration Process
Before you jump into the Shopify to BigCommerce migration, proper preparation is key. This involves careful evaluation of your existing Shopify store, thorough backup of your Shopify data, and a good grasp of the differences between the two platforms. These steps help ensure a smooth transition and prevent any data loss during migration.
Let’s delve into each of these preparation steps in more detail.
Evaluating Your Shopify Store
A detailed audit of your existing Shopify store is the first step in your preparation process. This audit should identify crucial aspects such as functionalities, product catalog, and customizations. Understanding these elements is critical in designing an effective migration strategy to BigCommerce. Moreover, a thorough assessment of your current Shopify store’s features and product catalog can guide you in planning a successful migration by informing you about what to expect during the process.
For example, you might discover that certain customizations on your Shopify store are not directly transferable to BigCommerce or that some product details need to be reformatted. Being aware of these potential hurdles can help you plan accordingly, ensuring your new BigCommerce store retains the essence of your Shopify store while also leveraging the advanced features and capabilities that BigCommerce provides.
Backing Up Your Shopify Data
Backing up your Shopify data is a crucial step in ensuring a smooth transition. This involves securing all your store data, including product details, customer information, and order history. Understanding the accessible Shopify APIs is key to performing a comprehensive backup of your shopify store url and data. However, keep in mind that Shopify APIs change over time, and this can pose a challenge when using them for backup solutions.
This is where automated and backup solution solutions like Rewind come into play. Recommended by Shopify itself, Rewind offers the following benefits:
Utilizes Shopify’s public APIs to offer precise backups
Continuously updates to account for any API changes
Ensures your data is safely backed up and ready for migration to BigCommerce without any loss.
Understanding Platform Differences
Understanding the differences between Shopify and BigCommerce is vital for a successful migration. For instance, BigCommerce offers a more transparent pricing model with fewer unexpected costs as businesses scale, whereas Shopify may incur additional costs due to its reliance on third-party apps. Moreover, while Shopify imposes additional transaction fees unless merchants use its proprietary Shopify Payments gateway, BigCommerce does not charge transaction fees regardless of the payment gateway choice, which is a significant benefit for high-volume merchants.
It’s also worth noting that Shopify and BigCommerce cater to slightly different audiences. Shopify is known for its ease of use for beginners and businesses selling directly to consumers. In contrast, BigCommerce caters better to companies with complex product catalogs and B2B operations. Understanding these differences can help you align your business needs with the best-suited platform and approach the migration process with a clear strategy.
Setting Up Your New BigCommerce Store
With your Shopify data backed up and a clear understanding of the platform differences, you’re ready to set up your new BigCommerce store. There are several steps involved in this phase, starting with:
Choosing a theme that resonates with your brand persona. BigCommerce offers 15 free themes and about 130 paid themes, giving you plenty of options to create a visually appealing online store.
Personalizing your store with branding elements can enhance the customer shopping experience and foster loyalty.
You can also connect a custom domain name to personalize your BigCommerce store further before starting to sell.
The next step is setting up integrated payment gateways, tax rates, and shipping options. BigCommerce supports payment gateways such as:
Authorize
NMI
PayPal
Stripe
Square
Apple Pay
This ensures a smooth checkout process for your customers. Proper configuration of tax and shipping options not only ensures compliance but also ensures accurate delivery for your customers.
Lastly, don’t forget to explore BigCommerce’s app catalog. Adding both free and paid apps can significantly enhance the functionality and services on your website.
Migrating Data from Shopify to BigCommerce
Now comes the core of the migration process – transferring your data from Shopify to BigCommerce. This step involves moving data types such as products, customers, and orders. Several automated services like Cart2Cart and LitExtension can simplify this process. However, we recommend the BigCommerce’s Shopify Data Migration App for its effectiveness in transferring product details and customers from Shopify to BigCommerce with minimal limitations, making it an ideal choice for your bigcommerce store recent data migration move.
Despite the convenience of automated tools, it’s critical to ensure data accuracy and compatibility during the process platform migration. Let’s break down this process into two critical steps: exporting Shopify store data and importing this data into BigCommerce.
Exporting Shopify Store Data
The first step in migrating your customer data is exporting it from your Shopify store. To migrate your Shopify store customers data, you can manually export product details, customer information, and order history by generating CSV files. Content like blogs and pages that cannot be directly exported to CSV can be manually copied and pasted into a CSV file.
Exporting order data is also crucial. While sales and order data can be transferred via the Shopify Data Migration App, exporting orders in CSV format is key to maintaining accurate records and fulfilling tax obligations. By carefully exporting your Shopify store data, you ensure a solid starting point for the next step—importing this data into your new BigCommerce store.
Importing Data into BigCommerce
Once you’ve exported your Shopify store data, the next step is importing it into BigCommerce. You can use the Shopify Data Migration App for this process. However, manual data import may be necessary in some cases, such as when the app doesn’t import categories correctly or encounters issues with product variants.
To manually import data from Shopify to BigCommerce, follow these steps:
Format the Shopify-exported CSV files to match BigCommerce’s CSV structure.
Upload and import the formatted file using the ‘Import’ feature in BigCommerce’s admin under ‘Products’.
To ensure a successful CSV import, limit the file size to a few hundred SKUs at a time.
Consider using external apps for specific tasks, such as transferring Shopify product reviews.
After the import, a careful review migrate data used is necessary to ensure data accuracy and correct display within your BigCommerce storefront.
Post-Migration Steps
After successfully migrating your data, you aren’t quite done yet. There are several crucial post-migration steps to undertake. These steps include:
Setting up 301 redirects to maintain your SEO rankings
Testing your store functionalities to ensure a smooth user experience
Monitoring your SEO performance
Let’s delve deeper into each of these steps.
Setting Up 301 Redirects
One of the most critical post-migration steps is setting up 301 redirects. Preserving your search engine rankings and preventing broken links is crucial as it could negatively affect your SEO and user experience. In BigCommerce, you can set up each 301 redirect by following these steps:
Navigate to Settings.
Choose ‘Create Redirect’.
Enter both the old and new URLs.
Save the changes.
Moreover, if you need to manage multiple 301 redirects just a few clicks, BigCommerce makes it efficient by allowing you to export and import them in bulk using CSV files. It’s also worth noting that BigCommerce supports both manual and dynamic 301 redirects, giving you the flexibility to redirect to new URLs or dynamic links to internal resources like product pages.
Testing Store Functionalities
After setting up your 301 redirects, it’s time to test your new BigCommerce store’s functionalities. This step is important to ensure your new store functions correctly and provides an optimal shopping experience. BigCommerce stores have a slower average load time than Shopify, which may affect user experience and SEO, necessitating thorough performance testing.
Testing should focus on key store functionalities, such as payment gateways and checkout processes, in your new BigCommerce store as well as your target store. Conducting test purchases is also vital to understand the customer’s shopping experience. By rigorously testing performance, security, and user experience, you can ensure your new BigCommerce store delivers a seamless shopping experience.
Monitoring SEO Performance
Maintaining and improving your SEO performance post-migration is vital for your store’s success. Regular SEO audits can help ensure your search rankings are preserved. It’s also important to regularly evaluate and evolve your SEO strategies as part of your ongoing operations to improve Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
To monitor your SEO performance effectively, you’ll need to track KPIs such as:
Keyword rankings
Backlinks
Page speed
Organic traffic
Click-through rates (CTR)
Bounce rate
Pages per session
Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Monitor Backlinks can enhance your keyword performance tracking.
Google Analytics, on the other hand, provides insights into organic traffic, CTR, bounce rates, and pages per session, helping you assess user engagement and overall SEO performance.
Hiring Migration Experts
While the Shopify to BigCommerce migration process may seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be. Hiring BigCommerce migration experts can provide the following benefits:
Technical expertise and support for a seamless and secure migration process
Fast-track project completion
Insights that enhance your online store performance and user experience
Before hiring migration experts, it’s important to evaluate their practical expertise, problem-solving abilities, and quality of past work. You can do this by looking at their portfolios and case studies. Partnering with the right agency can give you access to a diverse skill set, scalability of resources according to project needs, and a proven track record for successful project outcomes.
Summary
To wrap things up, migrating from Shopify to BigCommerce can be a game-changer for your eCommerce business. From providing more scalability and cost-effectiveness to offering advanced features, BigCommerce is designed for growing businesses. Though migration requires careful preparation, data backup and transfer, and post-migration steps, the process can be made easier and more efficient with the help of a migration tool and experts. So, if you’re ready to take your eCommerce store to the next level, consider making the move from Shopify to BigCommerce.