PHP Cart to PrestaShop Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

A Comprehensive Guide to Transitioning from PHP Cart (via CSV) to PrestaShop

Migrating your e-commerce store is a pivotal step towards enhancing functionality, scalability, and overall user experience. If you're currently running a store built on PHP Cart and are considering a move to PrestaShop, you're looking at a transition to a more feature-rich and actively developed platform. PrestaShop offers robust e-commerce capabilities, a vast community, and a flexible ecosystem that can significantly boost your online presence.

Since PHP Cart typically involves a custom codebase, the most reliable and efficient method for data transfer is often through a structured CSV file export. This guide will walk you through the entire replatforming process, detailing how to safely and effectively transfer your valuable store data from your PHP Cart setup (using CSV files as the source) to a new PrestaShop store. We'll cover everything from essential preparations to the final post-migration checks, ensuring a smooth transition for your products, customer data, orders, and more.

Prerequisites for a Successful Migration

Before initiating the data transfer, careful preparation is crucial to ensure a seamless migration and protect your valuable store assets. Taking these steps will help minimize potential issues and downtime.

• Backup Your Data: Always create a full backup of your existing PHP Cart store's database and files. This is your safety net in case any unforeseen issues arise during the migration process. Similarly, if you have any existing data on your PrestaShop target store, back that up too.
• Prepare Your PHP Cart Data (via CSV): As PHP Cart is a custom solution, you'll need to export your store data into CSV files. This includes critical information like products (with SKUs, variants, descriptions, images), product categories, customer accounts, orders, manufacturers, and reviews. Ensure your CSV files are well-structured and clean to facilitate accurate import. For more detailed guidance, refer to our CSV.File Data Migration service.
• Set Up Your PrestaShop Target Store: Install a fresh instance of PrestaShop on your chosen hosting environment. Ensure it meets all the system requirements for the PrestaShop version you plan to use. You will need full admin access to this new store. For comprehensive advice on preparing your new platform, read our How to prepare Target store for migration? guide.
• Install the PrestaShop Migration Module: PrestaShop requires the "Cart2Cart Universal PrestaShop Migration module" to facilitate the connection. This module is essential for the migration tool to communicate with your PrestaShop store.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

Follow these detailed steps to execute your e-commerce platform transition using the migration wizard:

Step 1: Initiate Your Migration Process

Begin by navigating to the migration wizard interface. This is where you'll start the process of setting up your source and target stores.

From this initial screen, you can choose to begin a DIY migration, request assistance, or estimate the migration cost.

Step 2: Configure Your PHP Cart Source Store (CSV File to Cart)

The next crucial step is to connect your PHP Cart store. Since PHP Cart is a custom solution, you will select 'CSV File to Cart' as your source platform.

You will then be prompted to upload your prepared CSV files containing all the data you wish to migrate. Ensure your files adhere to the necessary formatting for a smooth transfer. The connection method for CSV is 'File only', meaning data is read directly from your uploaded files.

Step 3: Connect Your PrestaShop Target Store

Now, it's time to set up your destination platform. Select 'PrestaShop' from the list of supported target carts and enter your PrestaShop store's Admin URL.

PrestaShop utilizes a 'Bridge only' connection method for robust data exchange. You will typically be given options to install the connection bridge: either by providing your PrestaShop admin credentials for an automated upload of the bridge, installing an add-on from the PrestaShop Marketplace, or by manually downloading the bridge file, extracting the 'bridge2cart' folder, and uploading it to the root directory of your PrestaShop store via FTP. For more information on finding your root folder, consult our What is a root folder and where can I find it? FAQ.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Migration

This stage allows you to specify exactly which data elements you want to transfer from your PHP Cart CSV files to PrestaShop. The supported entities include:

• Products
• Product Categories
• Product Manufacturers
• Product Reviews
• Customers
• Orders
• Invoices
• Taxes
• Stores
• Coupons
• CMS Pages
• Blogs & Blog Posts

You can choose to migrate all entities or selectively pick the ones crucial for your new store. A comprehensive transfer of all relevant data ensures a complete replica of your business information.

Step 5: Configure Additional Options and Data Mapping

Refine your migration with a variety of powerful options and ensure data consistency through mapping.

Additional Options

These options allow for a highly customized data transfer:

• Create 301 Redirects: Essential for maintaining your SEO rankings and link equity by automatically redirecting old PHP Cart URLs to their new PrestaShop counterparts.
• Migrate Customer Passwords: Allows customers to log into their accounts on the new PrestaShop store using their existing credentials.
• Preserve IDs: Maintain original Product IDs, Category IDs, Order IDs, and Customer IDs. Learn more about how Preserve IDs options can be used.
• Clear Target Store Data: This option will remove any existing data from your PrestaShop store before the migration begins, ensuring a clean import. Understand more about clearing target store data.

Data Mapping

The data mapping step is critical for ensuring that data structures like customer groups and order statuses from your PHP Cart files are correctly aligned with PrestaShop's system. You'll map corresponding fields, such as 'Pending Payment' from your source to 'Awaiting bank wire payment' or 'Payment accepted' in PrestaShop, to maintain data integrity and functionality.

Step 6: Run Demo Migration and Start Full Migration

Before committing to the full data transfer, we highly recommend performing a free Demo Migration. This allows you to transfer a limited number of entities (e.g., 10 products, 10 customers, 10 orders) to your PrestaShop store to verify data accuracy, identify any potential issues, and test functionality.

Once you are satisfied with the Demo Migration results, you can proceed with the Full Migration. This will transfer all selected data from your PHP Cart CSV files to your new PrestaShop store.

During this stage, you might also consider adding a Migration Insurance Service, which offers additional remigrations and support. Learn more about how Migration Insurance works. Additionally, for recently updated data, our Recent Data Migration Service can help keep your new store perfectly synchronized.

Post-Migration Steps

After the data transfer is complete, there are several crucial steps to ensure your PrestaShop store is fully operational and optimized:

• Thorough Testing: Conduct extensive testing of your new PrestaShop store. Verify product pages, pricing, inventory levels, customer accounts, order processing, checkout flow, payment gateways, and shipping methods. Ensure all links work correctly and images are displayed properly.
• Configure Design and Theme: Customize your PrestaShop theme to align with your brand identity and optimize the user experience. Review navigation, responsiveness, and overall aesthetics.
• Implement 301 Redirects: If you didn't enable the 301 redirect option during migration, it's crucial to set them up manually to preserve your SEO rankings and prevent broken links. This maintains valuable link equity.
• Set Up Payment & Shipping: Reconfigure and test all payment gateways and shipping methods on your PrestaShop store.
• Update Integrations: Reconnect any third-party integrations (e.g., email marketing, ERP, CRM) that were part of your PHP Cart setup.
• Monitor SEO Performance: Keep a close eye on your search engine rankings and traffic after the migration. Tools like Google Search Console can help you identify and address any potential drops.
• Announce Your New Store: Once everything is verified and running smoothly, inform your customers about your new and improved PrestaShop store!
• Decommission Old Store: Once you are fully confident in your PrestaShop store's performance, you can safely decommission your old PHP Cart setup.

Migrating from PHP Cart (via CSV) to PrestaShop is a significant undertaking, but with careful planning and execution, it can lead to a more robust and scalable e-commerce platform. If you encounter any challenges or require assistance at any stage, do not hesitate to Contact Us for expert support.