Is Migrating to Shopify Plus the Right Choice?
Although new business owners debating between Magento and Shopify might choose the easiest option to start up their business, companies considering migrating from Magento to Shopify Plus are likely to be more established. This means that they have more data to migrate and more integrations that must be replicated on the new platform. For this reason, even if a company would realize significant cost savings by migrating, the migration itself might be expensive. The cost and benefits of any ecommerce platform migration should be carefully considered before embarking on the process.
For more information on the pros and cons of each platform, take a look at our Magento vs. Shopify article.
Step 1: Keep Your Magento Store Running For Now
Although it might be tempting to switch off the old store as soon as the new one appears to be working, it’s best to keep the Magento store running as usual during the migration process. This way, there will be no downtime or other issues caused by the switch.
Step 2: Make a Backup of Your Magento Store
Even with every precaution, data loss is still possible during the migration process. It’s possible that an important piece of information is found missing from the Shopify Plus store long after shutting down the Magento instance. In this case, it’s very valuable to have a complete backup of the Magento store. Also, if a company chooses to migrate back to its old configuration, having a complete backup is essential.
Step 3: Take Inventory of Your Data
After making a backup of the entire server, the next step is to figure out what information needs to be migrated. Aside from obvious data like catalog information, check to see what kinds of Magento settings will need to be moved over to Shopify Plus. Some Magento-specific features don’t have direct equivalents in Shopify Plus, so be sure that stakeholders know which ecommerce site elements will not be able to transfer.
Step 4: Get Shopify Ready
Before importing data from Magento into Shopify Plus, companies should perform basic setup tasks on their Shopify stores to make sure that the migration goes smoothly.
Verify that the following tasks are completed before proceeding to import data:
First, download CSV files containing customer, product, and order records from Magento. Go to System>Export in the Magento admin dashboard, selecting the CSV file type and choosing the Customers, Products, and Orders entity types in turn.
Verify that the following tasks are completed before proceeding to import data:
- Create your Shopify Plus account with accurate store settings and contact information
- Check billing information and store addresses
- Add staff accounts to securely delegate permissions to other users with separate login information
Next, determine a plan for transferring information into Shopify. Options include manual transfer, migration apps from the Shopify App Store, a custom app using the Shopify Admin API, and the Shopify Transporter app.
Step 5: Migrate Most Information Automatically
The easiest way to migrate customer data from Magento into Shopify is through the official Transporter app, which is only available for Shopify Plus customers. Transporter takes data exported in CSV files and imports it into Shopify.
First, download CSV files containing customer, product, and order records from Magento. Go to System>Export in the Magento admin dashboard, selecting the CSV file type and choosing the Customers, Products, and Orders entity types in turn.
Once this data has been downloaded, the Transporter app allows Shopify store admins to upload these CSV files and import the data into Shopify Plus automatically.
More specific details are available at the Transporter app help page.
Step 6: Manually Import Other Data and Integrations
Although customers, products, and orders form the majority of the data that companies need to migrate from Magento into Shopify, other information might also need to be migrated depending on the particular situation. Magento integrations will need to be replaced by existing Shopify apps or custom apps utilizing Shopify’s APIs.
Generally, the imported products list will not be organized the same way as it was in the Magento storefront. At this time, shop admins can organize products in the correct hierarchies.
Step 7: Configure Shipping, Taxes, and Payment Processing
Although the general considerations are similar, shipping works differently in Shopify than it does in Magento. To configure shipping, go through the shipping configuration process using the values chosen for the Magento store and the official documentation.
Like Magento, Shopify can ease sales tax calculations through automatically-generated reports. The way that taxes work depends on the places goods are sold to. Just like with shipping, the values and choices used in the Magento system will work with Shopify as well.
Shopify offers its own Shopify Payments payments provider, which can save on payment processing fees compared to other payment methods. While most payment processors that work with Magento also work with Shopify, it’s worth taking a look at Shopify Payments as well.
Step 8: Test Everything
Although most everything will work out of the box with Shopify, it’s still important to test every common user interaction to make sure that nothing breaks. Going through the entire process, including making a real purchase, is the only way to know for sure whether the site works.
Step 9: Add Redirects
During the migration to Shopify, the URL scheme for individual products will have changed. To make sure that users can still access the site using old bookmarks or links made before the migration, add redirects using this process.
Step 10: Make Shopify Look Pretty Using Themes
Now that all of the functional changes have been made, it’s time to make the Shopify site look the same (or better) than the Magento site. Shopify offers a large number of premade themes and ways to create custom themes.
Takeaways
Moving to Shopify Plus from Magento may be a good decision for some businesses. With the automated import and export tools built into both platforms, the migration process is largely automatic, especially with the Transporter tool. By following the steps in this guide, companies making the move from Shopify to Magento should have a fast and painless experience.
If you’re having trouble with this process, Elogic can help. With years of experience building ecommerce websites, we have what it takes to get your migration up and running.
