Migration from Magento to Shopify Plus done the right way
E-commerce businesses all over the world are migrating in droves towards Shopify Plus.
Are you finally going to bite the bullet, too, and move your store from Magento to Shopify Plus?
Then, there are some things you need to consider first. So stay with us as we spell out the basics about migrating your Magento store to Shopify Plus.
Everyone knows that when it comes to e-commerce solutions, Shopify Plus is more robust, has higher customization options, and has a bevy of other benefits.
Why Migrate from Magento to Shopify Plus?
We’re not going to lie. Moving your store from Magento to Shopify requires a lot of work. So, you need to be sure of the move and be able to justify the shift in terms of effectiveness and potential business loss.
So, why migrate?
If you have done your homework, you have sorted out your options. In your research, you realize that Shopify Plus always pops up. This is because this eCommerce platform matches the most prominent businesses and their needs.
The benefits of moving your online store to Shopify Plus are plenty. Since you are a business person who knows what’s up, we will probably close the deal for you with the following:
Say you sell skin beauty products. Magento is open-source and requires you to give it constant maintenance, install patches, and apply a series of programming skills that you should not have to do as a beauty cream seller.
On the other hand, Shopify does all that for you. Hence, you focus on what you love most: making people’s skin look like a baby’s.
You need minimal support with Shopify Plus. All you have to do is pick up that mouse and click over here, and you are good to go!
Why Migrate from Magento
The time was 2008 when Magento 1 was released as an open-source for eCommerce. Pretty quickly, it positioned itself as a serious competitor in the arena. Then, in 2015, Magento 2 was released, providing solutions to all issues with the first version.
At first, M2 was not exactly stable, but eventually, it caught up, and more brands joined in to try it. Migrating from M1 to M2 was not exactly easy or cheap, so brands continued to operate in M1. Fast forward to June 2020, and M1 no longer has support.
Technically, it is still possible to operate a business in M1, but the support, security patches, and fixes are no longer available. In 2021, lacking all that for your store is just a big no-no.
Brands were now left with the option of either moving to M2 or finding some new horizons. Luckily, other platforms offered a better cost. Among these was Shopify Plus.
Today, even M2 does not represent the best solution to M1. So, we can safely say that you are better off with Shopify Plus when considering running costs, maintenance, and upgrades.
Photo by Igor Miske on Unsplash
Why Migrate to Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus launched in 2014 as a solution for large corporations that required a platform that matched their large-scale operations. High-growth merchants gravitate towards Shopify Plus thanks to its design built to withstand the world’s largest brands’ high volume, traffic, and velocity.
But why has Shopify Plus racked up such an increase in migrations, from Magento included? Here’s our crash on some of the reasons why:
Lower cost
Shopify Plus builder tends to be cheaper thanks to the lesser need for backend development and integration than Magento. As a result, there are significantly fewer hours invested in building the site.
Shopify is self-hosted, so no need to worry about security patches, which you need to manually handle in Magento. That represents a substantial investment.
Security
Shopify is safe and secure across online transactions. PCI compliance and SSL certificates are some things that are already done for you right out of the box.
Zero patching
With Magento, you need to invest time in constant patches and security updates. Shopify Plus handles all that for you.
It is more robust
Having a lot of traffic may cause peak trading periods. Shopify Plus is built to make heavy traffic a time of excitement and not worry.
Scalability
Shopify Plus grows with you by increasing your ability to handle more traffic or by accommodating larger and more complex operations.
Uptime
There is an engineering team behind Shopify Plus making sure that your site is always running. The site provides a 99.97% uptime and over 7,000 cores. We are talking about $3 billion sold by Shopify Plus merchants during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend with zero outages.
Flexible design
Whatever your brand needs, you can easily make your online store play the part. It is super easy to design, build, and customize your storefront.
Easy to use
Magento requires technical operations that can get daunting. With Shopify Plus, you only need to worry about getting those sales up and running.
Automations
Shopify’s eCommerce automation involves a set of tools designed to make you save time and money. Apps such as Shopify Scripts, Launchpad, and Klaviyo are designed to automate processes that would otherwise require enormous time to generate manually.
24/7 Support
Through the phone, email, and chat, the Shopify support team is always there whenever you need them.
Step by Step
While we don’t intend to create a guide on the entire process of migration, we do think we should point out the steps needed to complete it. This will give you an idea of what the process entails to help you set yourself on the right path.
In preparation for the migration, you need to make sure that all the necessary data is covered. This is perhaps the most challenging part of the process.
But there are other things to consider. The size of your store is, of course, an essential factor. You also need to be careful when mapping out and redirecting all pages from your current setup in Magento to Shopify Plus infrastructure.
Here are the basic steps you need to take:
- Make a backup copy of your Magento store. Your host may be making backups, but you need to make extra sure. So, take some time to go to the Magento Admin bar and back up your data.
- Set up your Shopify Plus account. Install your Shopify store and add features or apps that you will need. Within these apps, find one that will help you move your data seamlessly.
- Export your data from Magento. Stuff in Magento is ready to be handed out to Shopify. Go to System>Data Transfer>Export and select the Entity Type in the settings.
- Import your data to Shopify. Now that your data is all set and ready to be added to your new office, you must initiate the importing process. First, go to your Shopify admin page, click Apps>Import store, select Magento, and click “Add Files.” Next, select the Magento file you exported and Continue import.
- Review your imported data. This step is important to ensure that nothing is left behind and that your data was imported correctly.
- Customize your store. Now you can shape your store and make it striking to attract more customers.
What data can be migrated from Magento to Shopify
Also important, these are the data you can migrate from Magento to Shopify:
Product and Product categories
The data relating to products include name, description, SKU, images in the description, price, manufacturer, URL, meta title, meta description, size, weight, and status.
Orders Data
Pretty much everything related to Order Date, Status, and Products can be migrated. This includes name, SKU, price, discount price, tax price, total price, quantity, comments, and shipping price.
The entire shipping address, customer name, email, and complete billing address come along as well.
Static Page
All CMS pages, About Us, Contact pages, and Blogs can be imported to Shopify Plus.
Benefits
All coupons along with their codes and dates, and discounts.
While all these are pivotal to a successful transaction, there are other crucial points that you should consider to make sure not to hurt your business.
For example, set up 301 redirects from your old pages to your new ones so that your traffic does not suffer while migrating. Also, ensure that the graphic content from your pages not stored in the database works well in the new platform.
Finding the right team to do the job
In conclusion, the process of migrating your store from Magento to Shopify Plus is not easy. Let expert hands take care of it for you. Imagine just waking up to a safer and more robust eCommerce website that you can customize to your taste.
We are only a message away. Get in touch and find out why so many stores have found the shift so remarkable.