In the early stages, when merchants decide to bring their business online, it is seen that they tend to opt for the eCommerce platform they are comfortable working with. But with the time, when a business grows their traversing from one platform to another is inevitable and important for the sake of their business.
Such scenarios of platform migration are pretty common with Magento e-commerce. And the reason behind this is the complexity of the Magento platform which requires a certain level of technical expertise for store management. This could be a problem for many who don’t have technical knowledge.
In such cases, the platform which emerges as a perfect alternative is Shopify. Since it provides a user-friendly interface and functionalities almost similar to the Magento. Therefore, for those who are looking for migration from Magento to other more convenient store management platforms, Shopify is the best choice in affordable pricing.
Why Shopify?
Shopify is one of the most preferred eCommerce platforms other than Magento. It provides an easy to use dashboard along with a large number of themes as well as apps. That assists merchants in personalizing their software.
Other than this, it offers flexibility and security like Magento and allows you to make use of customized apps as well. Some other benefits of using Shopify are as follows.
• Shopify has an easy to use backend that makes store management much easier for the merchants. Even they don’t require any technical knowledge.
• With plenty of ready-to-use solutions available, Shopify allows the extension of functionalities and improving user experience. That too at least cost-effective.
• The highly flexible nature of the platform makes merchants extend the functionalities of the store using custom solutions.
After knowing the reasons and benefits, why we should choose Shopify if we are looking for migration from Magento for our online eCommerce business. Let’s move to the steps which ensure seamless migration of sites without breaking or losing a single piece of data.
Following are the six easy steps to migrate from Magento to Shopify
1. Set Up an account on Shopify
To start with Shopify, you need to visit the website and click on ‘Start Free Trial’ as the platform offers a 14 days trial period to get familiarized with one of the highly recommended store management tools. Yet once the trial period is over, you need to sign up for a paid plan. Shopify packages and their pricing are as follows.
Package Cost/month
Basic Shopify $29/month
Shopify $79/month
Advanced Shopify $299/month
Brief description of all the packages-
• Basic Shopify: This package avails you with all the necessary features to start a new business.
• Shopify: This package comes with an extra set of tools that allows the expansion of the business.
• Advanced Shopify: Packed with an advanced set of tools, this package is meant for those who want to scale up their business to the next level.
Note: None of the packages offers free setup, its charges are included in the monthly payment.
2. Create a backup of your Magento store
Before moving ahead to migrate data from Magento to Shopify, creating a backup of your store is one of the crucial steps you need to follow. It ensures the safety and security of your data in case the migration falls apart then you won’t end up losing important data like details of customers, products, and payments.
Following the given directions you can easily create a backup of your Magento store.
Go to the Admin sidebar > Systems > Tools > Backups. There you need to select which type of backup you want to create.
• System Backup: it facilitates the creation of complete backup from your database to the file system
• Database and Media Backup: Using this option, you can create a backup of your customer information and product photos, etc.
• Database Backup: it is the facility of creating automatic backup provided through your hosting provider. You may have already used this facility for having a timely backup of your database. To tackle unpleasant events like system crashes and others. Download the Import Store App
Shopify has a plethora of wonderful apps in its app store. But the app that will support your store migration from Magento to Shopify is the Import Store. Download this app and initiate transferring data like your product and customer details to Shopify without any hassle.
It is easy to download the Import Store App, just go to the Shopify admin page, click the option ‘Apps’ and proceed with the ‘Import Store’ and follow downloading instructions. If you don’t like the Import Store App then there are several other apps you can choose from to perform migration from Magento to Shopify.
A few examples of highly rated migration apps are
• Multichannel Importer
• Bulk Product Editor and Sync
• OEasy AliExpress Import and Order
• Excelify
3. Export Your Data from Magento
It's time to export your data from Magento but before doing so make a file of data containing crucial information like your unique customer and product data. So that it became easier for other applications like Shopify to understand it.
You can perform exporting of data from the same Admin Sidebar you used to create a backup of your store. Though this process will follow steps like
• Go to the Admin Sidebar, click ‘System’ then ‘Data Transfer’ > ‘Export’.
• Don’t forget to select Entity Type in the Export settings like Products, Customer Main File, or Customer Addresses.
• Proceed with selecting Export File Format. Choose ‘XML’, if you are using the Import Store App, or CSV, if you want to import data manually. Or you have the option of choosing an alternative app like ‘Transporter’ for exporting data manually.
For other entities like products, customer main files, and customer addresses, you need to repeat the process each time for every entity. Once you have done data migration for different entities, you will have a formatted spreadsheet of transferred data that can easily be accepted by Shopify software, for a seamless migration.
4. Import your Data to Shopify
Now, you are all set to import your store data into Shopify. The only thing you need to do is follow the following easy steps:
• Go to the Shopify Admin Page, click ‘Apps’ then ‘Import Store’.
• Select Magento from the drop-down menu.
• Further, proceed with the ‘Upload Files’, Click ‘Add File’ there and select files you want to export
• Now select the Magneto file that you downloaded.
• And finish with tapping ‘Continue Import’ And then ‘Import’
In case you face any trouble saving data as XML (really important to use the recommended app, the Import Store) then choosing another app from the suggested ones is the right way to complete the process. Or you can perform data migration manually without using an app.
5. Reassess your Imported Data
It’s crucial to double-check what you have imported so that you can eliminate the chances of data loss or errors. With Shopify, it’s easier to review and update your imported data in no time. While importing your data if you lose some of your products or customers then no need to worry. You can import them manually from options like ‘Products’ or ‘Customers’ on the admin page. It allows the addition of other important information as well depending upon your requirements.
Other than this, you may encounter several other issues while data migration from Magento to Shopify. Like
Successful import yet requires minor changes to data: Such kind of issue is highly prone to witness while migrating a whole bunch of data. To overcome such encounters, the only and highly efficient way is to edit imported information manually. You can check missed data from your import summary by clicking on View Items.
Historical Orders: Basically, it is the information of your previous data that reached to the Shopify’s Archive while data migration.
Bundled products failed to import: It has been noticed several times that bundled products face issues while data migration. Therefore, Bundle Products and Discount apps are the best solutions to import bundled data manually.
Products imported but not published: This scenario takes place when you had some products on Magento set to ‘hidden’ and to make them available for the customers on Shopify, you need to reset the product visibility.
Imported products have no dimensions: it is one of the problems that is mostly experienced while the store's data migration. The only way to rectify this is by adding correct dimensions from the product description page.
Product variants failed to import: Several times, it happens that a few product attributes miss out while migrating data. Importing products manually is the only solution to this problem.
6. Restyle Your New Shopify Store
Once you have done with data migration, it’s time to customize your new Shopify store. As the platform offers lots of themes and other visual cues to help you out creating an appealing, engaging online store that suits your business.
You can choose from 10 free and 64 premium websites themes which will cost you around $140 to $180 each. These are responsive themes that ensure a mesmerizing view of your online store even on the mobile phone.
Conclusion
So these are the steps you need to follow for secure data migration from Magento to Shopify. It ensures safe and seamless store data migration without losing a single piece of data. Even the issues you may face during the process are also mentioned here along with their solutions. To perform these data migration steps you don’t need to have technical knowledge as the steps are elaborated in a way that even a non-technical can perform Magento store data migration to Shopify without any hassle.
Author: Hemendra Singh
The NineHertz is a leading global IT, software consulting, and mobile app development company in Jaipur, India.