Shopify Plus to BigCommerce Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

Migrate from Shopify Plus to BigCommerce: Your Expert Guide

As your e-commerce business evolves, the need for a more robust, flexible, or cost-effective platform often arises. Migrating from Shopify Plus to BigCommerce is a strategic move many merchants consider, driven by BigCommerce's powerful open SaaS architecture, extensive B2B functionalities, and advanced SEO capabilities. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the entire replatforming process, ensuring a smooth and successful transition of your valuable store data.

A well-executed migration is key to preserving your SEO rankings, maintaining data integrity, and providing a seamless user experience. We'll cover everything from initial preparations to the final launch, leveraging an automated migration solution to minimize downtime and effort.

Prerequisites for Migration

Before initiating your data transfer, careful preparation of both your source (Shopify Plus) and target (BigCommerce) stores is essential. This groundwork ensures that all your critical store data, including products, customers, and orders, moves efficiently and accurately.

Preparing Your Shopify Plus Store (Source)

Since direct API connections for Shopify Plus are not universally supported by all migration tools, the recommended approach is to export your store data into CSV files. This method ensures maximum compatibility and control over your data.

• Export Core Data: Navigate to your Shopify Plus admin and export your products (including SKUs, variants, images, descriptions), customer data, orders, and any relevant CMS pages or blog posts into CSV format. Ensure all essential fields are included.
• Cleanse Your Data: Before exporting, take the opportunity to clean up your Shopify Plus store. Remove outdated products, duplicate customer entries, or irrelevant order statuses. Clean data leads to a cleaner target store.
• Organize Files: Consolidate all your exported CSV files into a single, accessible location for easy uploading during the migration process.

For more details on preparing your source store, you might find our guide on source store preparation helpful, and specifically our CSV.File Data Migration service details.

Preparing Your BigCommerce Store (Target)

Your BigCommerce store needs to be ready to receive the influx of data from Shopify Plus. This primarily involves setting up the new store and configuring API access.

• Set Up Your BigCommerce Store: Create your new BigCommerce store. You don't need to add products or customers manually, as these will be migrated. Focus on initial store settings, currency, and basic configurations.
• Generate API Credentials: BigCommerce migrations require API access. You'll need to create a custom API account to allow the migration tool to connect and transfer data securely.
1. Log in to your BigCommerce Admin Panel.
2. Go to Apps > API Accounts.
3. Click Create API Account > Create V2/V3 API Token.
4. Give the API account a descriptive name (e.g., "Migration Tool Access").
5. Configure API Scopes: Grant the necessary permissions for data transfer. Essential scopes typically include:
   • Products: Modify
   • Customers: Modify
   • Orders: Modify
   • Information: Read-only
   • Content: Modify
   • Marketing: Modify
6. Click Save. BigCommerce will provide you with the Client ID, Access Token, and API Path. Make sure to copy these credentials immediately, as the Access Token will only be shown once.
• HTTPS Requirement: Ensure your BigCommerce store is accessible via HTTPS, as this is a requirement for API connections.
• Review Limitations: Be aware of BigCommerce's API rate limits, which can affect the speed of large migrations.

For a detailed walkthrough on setting up access credentials, refer to The Short & Essential Guide to Access Credentials for Cart2Cart. You can also review our FAQ on preparing your target store.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your stores prepared, you're ready to begin the data transfer using an automated migration wizard. This streamlined process minimizes manual effort and potential errors.

Step 1: Get Started with the Migration Wizard

Begin your migration journey by signing up for an account with your chosen migration service and initiating a new migration project.

Step 2: Source Store Setup (Shopify Plus via CSV)

In this step, you will configure the connection to your Shopify Plus data, using the CSV files you prepared.

• Select "CSV File to Cart" as your source shopping cart.
• Upload the CSV files containing your products, customer records, orders, and other entities. The migration tool will then parse these files to extract your data.

Step 3: Target Store Setup (BigCommerce)

Now, you'll specify BigCommerce as your new platform and provide the necessary API credentials.

• Choose "BigCommerce" from the list of supported target carts.
• Enter your BigCommerce store's URL.
• Input the Client ID (Username), Access Token (API Token), and API Path you generated earlier from your BigCommerce admin.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Migration

This crucial step allows you to specify exactly which data entities you wish to transfer from your Shopify Plus CSVs to BigCommerce. You can select "All entities" or pick specific items.

• Common Entities: Products, Product Categories, Manufacturers, Customers, Orders, Coupons, Blog Posts, CMS Pages.
• Considerations: While CSV files often contain data like Products Reviews, BigCommerce's API primarily supports entities like Products, Products_Categories, Customers, Orders, Coupons, Blogs_Posts, and CMS_Pages. Ensure that the entities you select are supported by both the CSV format and the BigCommerce API for a smooth transfer.

Step 5: Configure Additional Migration Options

Enhance your migration with various optional features that can significantly improve the outcome and SEO performance of your new BigCommerce store.

• Clear Target Store Data: The "Clear Target" option is highly recommended for fresh BigCommerce installations to prevent data duplication. Read more about clearing target store data.
• Create 301 SEO URLs: Essential for preserving link equity and SEO rankings. This option automatically creates redirects from your old Shopify Plus URLs to your new BigCommerce URLs.
• Preserve IDs: Retain original Product IDs, Category IDs, Customer IDs, and Order IDs. This is critical for internal systems and record-keeping. Learn more about preserving IDs.
• Create Variants from Attributes: If your products have attributes that define variants (e.g., size, color), this option ensures they are correctly recreated as product variants in BigCommerce.
• Migrate Images in Description: Ensure product images embedded within descriptions are transferred.
• Password Migration: For a seamless customer experience, migrate existing customer passwords securely.

Step 6: Map Data Fields

Data mapping is crucial for ensuring that customer groups and order statuses from your Shopify Plus data are correctly matched with their equivalents in BigCommerce.

• Customer Group Mapping: Match customer roles (e.g., "Wholesale Customer", "Retail Customer") from your CSV to BigCommerce customer groups.
• Order Status Mapping: Align order statuses (e.g., "Pending", "Processing", "Fulfilled") to ensure historical order data is accurately represented.

Step 7: Perform a Demo Migration

Before committing to a full data transfer, always run a free demo migration. This allows you to transfer a limited number of entities (e.g., 10 products, 10 customers, 10 orders) to your BigCommerce store.

• Review Transferred Data: Carefully inspect the migrated data in your BigCommerce admin to ensure accuracy, proper formatting, and integrity. This is your chance to identify and resolve any mapping issues or data discrepancies.
• Test Functionality: Check that products display correctly, customers can log in, and order histories are accurate.

The demo migration is a critical step for validating your setup and ensuring a smooth full migration.

Step 8: Launch Full Migration

Once you are satisfied with the demo results, you can proceed with the full migration of all your Shopify Plus data to BigCommerce.

• Final Review: Double-check all selected entities, additional options, and mappings.
• Consider Migration Insurance: For large-scale or complex migrations, consider Migration Insurance, which offers a certain number of remigrations within a specified period, providing peace of mind. Read more about how migration insurance works.
• Initiate Transfer: Launch the full migration. Depending on the volume of data, this process can take from a few minutes to several hours.

Post-Migration Steps

Completing the data transfer is a major milestone, but your work isn't over. Several crucial post-migration tasks are necessary to ensure your new BigCommerce store is fully operational and optimized.

• Verify Data Integrity: Conduct thorough checks of all migrated data. Spot-check product details (SKUs, pricing, images, descriptions, variants), customer accounts, order histories, and CMS pages to ensure everything is correct and complete.
• Configure Store Settings: Set up essential BigCommerce store configurations, including shipping zones and rates, payment gateways, tax settings, and general store preferences.
• Install Apps and Integrations: Explore the BigCommerce App Store for essential apps that match the functionality you had on Shopify Plus or add new capabilities (e.g., marketing, accounting, customer service tools).
• Design and Theme Customization: Customize your BigCommerce theme to align with your brand identity and optimize for user experience. Ensure all elements are responsive and visually appealing.
• Set Up 301 Redirects: Reinforce the 301 redirects created during migration by setting up any additional necessary redirects for specific pages or URLs that may have changed. This is vital for preserving SEO rankings and avoiding broken links.
• Update DNS Settings: Point your domain name to your new BigCommerce store. This is the final step to make your new store live to the public. Plan this carefully to minimize downtime.
• Test All Functionality: Thoroughly test every aspect of your new store: customer registration, login, product searches, adding to cart, checkout process, payment processing, contact forms, and email notifications.
• Update External Links: Update any external links pointing to your old Shopify Plus store, such as those on social media profiles, advertising campaigns, or partner websites.
• Monitor Performance: After launch, continuously monitor your BigCommerce store's performance, site speed, and SEO rankings. Utilize tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track traffic, conversions, and identify any potential issues.

By following these steps, you'll ensure a smooth transition from Shopify Plus to BigCommerce, setting your business up for continued success on its new platform.