ThriveCart to Volusion Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

Seamlessly Migrate Your E-commerce Store from ThriveCart to Volusion

As your online business evolves, so do your platform needs. While ThriveCart excels as a robust checkout and sales funnel platform, you might be looking to transition to a more comprehensive, full-featured e-commerce solution like Volusion. Volusion offers extensive store management, advanced product catalog features, and integrated marketing tools, making it an ideal choice for businesses seeking greater control and scalability for their entire online presence.

This expert guide will walk you through the entire process of moving your essential store data from ThriveCart to Volusion. Since ThriveCart primarily focuses on checkout processes and doesn't offer a direct API for full store data export, we'll leverage a CSV file-based migration approach for your source data, combined with a secure bridge connection for your new Volusion store. Our goal is to ensure a smooth, secure, and accurate transfer of your products, customer information, orders, and more.

Prerequisites for a Successful Migration

Before initiating your data transfer, adequate preparation of both your source (ThriveCart) and target (Volusion) platforms is crucial to minimize downtime and ensure data integrity.

Preparing Your ThriveCart (Source) Store

• Data Export: ThriveCart is designed for sales processing, so your comprehensive product and customer data will need to be exported into CSV files. Carefully export all relevant information, including product details (SKUs, pricing, descriptions), customer records (names, emails, addresses), and order history. Consolidate this data into well-organized CSV files, ensuring all necessary fields are present.
• Data Cleaning: Review your exported CSV files for any inconsistencies, duplicates, or outdated information. Cleaning your data at this stage will prevent errors in your new Volusion store.
• CSV Structure: Familiarize yourself with the expected CSV format for import. While our migration tool is flexible, understanding your data's structure will aid in a smoother mapping process. For more details on CSV migrations, visit our CSV.File Data Migration service page.

For additional preparation tips, consult our How to prepare Source store for migration? FAQ.

Preparing Your Volusion (Target) Store

• Volusion Store Setup: Ensure your new Volusion store is fully set up and accessible. This includes completing the initial onboarding steps and having administrative access.
• FTP/SFTP Access: You will need full FTP or SFTP access to your Volusion store's root directory. This is necessary for installing the migration bridge, which acts as a secure conduit for data transfer. You'll need credentials like your admin login, password, and the URL for both your admin and storefront. Understanding access credentials is key; read The Short & Essential Guide to Access Credentials for Cart2Cart.
• Install Cart2Cart Volusion Migration Module: Volusion requires a specific migration module to facilitate the data transfer. This plugin will need to be installed in your Volusion environment.
• Bridge Installation: Once the module is in place, you'll upload a 'bridge' file to the root folder of your Volusion store via FTP. This bridge securely connects your Volusion store to the migration tool. If you're unsure about the root folder, refer to What is a root folder and where can I find it?

For more detailed target store preparation, check our How to prepare Target store for migration? FAQ.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

Follow these steps to migrate your e-commerce data using our automated migration wizard. The process is designed to be intuitive, guiding you through each stage.

Step 1: Initiate Your Migration

Begin by navigating to our migration wizard. You'll be presented with options to start a do-it-yourself migration, request expert assistance, or estimate the cost.

Step 2: Set Up Your Source Store (ThriveCart via CSV)

In this step, you'll define your current platform. Since ThriveCart is not a direct API-connected cart for full store data, you will select 'CSV File to Cart' as your Source Cart from the dropdown menu. You will then upload the prepared CSV files containing your ThriveCart data (products, customers, orders, etc.). The system will prompt you to map your CSV fields to standard e-commerce attributes.

Step 3: Configure Your Target Store (Volusion)

Next, choose 'Volusion' as your Target Cart. You'll need to enter your Volusion store's URL and proceed with the secure connection via the migration bridge. Ensure the Cart2Cart Volusion Migration module is installed and the bridge files are uploaded to your Volusion root directory via FTP, as mentioned in the prerequisites.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Transfer

Now, specify which data types you wish to migrate from your CSV files to Volusion. You can choose to migrate all available entities or selectively pick them. Common entities include products (with their categories, manufacturers, reviews), customers, orders, invoices, taxes, and coupons. Note that Volusion's capabilities for entities like blogs might differ.

Step 5: Configure Additional Migration Options

Enhance your migration by selecting from various additional options. These can significantly impact data integrity and SEO. Consider options like:

• Preserve Product, Customer, and Order IDs: This helps maintain historical data relationships and is often recommended. Learn more about How Preserve IDs options can be used?
• Migrate Images in Description: Essential for retaining product imagery embedded in descriptions.
• Password Migration: If your CSV data supports it, this allows customers to log in to their new Volusion accounts with existing credentials.
• Create 301 SEO URLs: Crucial for maintaining search engine rankings and link equity by redirecting old ThriveCart URLs (if applicable) to their new Volusion counterparts.
• Clear Target Store Data: If your Volusion store contains demo data or old information, you can opt to clear it before migration to ensure a clean slate. Read about Clear current data on Target store before migration option.

Step 6: Map Data Fields

This critical step involves aligning specific data fields from your source CSVs to their corresponding fields in Volusion. You'll typically map customer groups (e.g., 'Wholesale' to 'Customer Group A') and order statuses (e.g., 'Completed' to 'Shipped'). This ensures semantic consistency for your migrated data.

Step 7: Run a Free Demo and Initiate Full Migration

Before committing to the full data transfer, we highly recommend running a free demo migration. This allows you to preview a limited set of your data in the Volusion environment and verify the mapping and additional options. Once satisfied, you can proceed with the full migration. At this stage, you can also consider a Migration Insurance Plan, which offers additional remigrations for peace of mind. Learn more about How Migration Insurance works?

Post-Migration Steps

Completing the data transfer is a significant milestone, but a few crucial steps remain to ensure your new Volusion store is fully operational and optimized.

• Thorough Data Review: Log into your Volusion admin panel and meticulously check all migrated data. Verify product listings (SKUs, variants, images, descriptions), customer accounts, order histories, and reviews. Ensure all critical information is accurately transferred and displayed.
• Configure Volusion Settings: Set up essential store configurations specific to Volusion, including shipping methods, tax rules (Volusion supports multi-tax), payment gateways, and store currency.
• Design and Customization: Select and customize your Volusion store's theme to align with your brand identity. Install any necessary Volusion apps or integrations to enhance functionality and user experience.
• Implement 301 Redirects: If you enabled 301 redirects during migration, verify their functionality. If not, manually set up 301 redirects for any old ThriveCart URLs (e.g., specific product landing pages you might have used) to their new Volusion counterparts to preserve SEO rankings and link equity.
• Update DNS Records: Once you are confident that your new Volusion store is fully functional, update your domain's DNS settings to point to your new Volusion storefront. Plan this step carefully to minimize downtime.
• Extensive Testing: Conduct comprehensive testing of your entire store. This includes testing the checkout process, customer account creation, product searches, contact forms, and all payment methods.
• SEO and Marketing Updates: Submit your new Volusion sitemap to search engines (Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools). Update any external links, social media profiles, and marketing campaigns to reflect your new store URLs.
• Consider Ongoing Sync: For businesses with continuous data changes, explore options like our Recent Data Migration Service to keep your store updated with new orders or customer data from any remaining operations on your old platform.

By following these detailed steps, you can confidently transition your e-commerce operations from ThriveCart to Volusion, unlocking new capabilities and opportunities for growth.