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:
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.
