Magento to Shopify Migration Checklist and Guidelines [2021]

While Magento is a fantastic shopping cart solution with lots of great features, some online store owners are ready to expand their horizons with the Shopify platform. The problem lies in how to make the switch from Magento to Shopify not only without losing data, but also without disrupting business and confusing end users. Read on to get the most detailed Magento to Shopify migration checklist for 2021.

The ecommerce migration is a great opportunity to tidy the store's data, remove the clutter, and potentially present things in a better way. Despite all the benefits associated with a store migration - it's still an endeavor that most online store owners would rather avoid. If you're still running your e-business on a Magento solution and want to migrate it to Shopify - we'd love to walk you through the Magento to Shopify migration process step-by-step.

If you're looking for other Magento alternatives, check out our post. Additionally, here's a list of ecommerce platforms for a small business.

Magento vs Shopify

The Magento vs Shopify debate has been raging for too long. With both being on par in terms of popularity and efficiency, making the right decision is not a one-click affair.

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According to Google trends, Shopify's popularity is growing day by day, leaving the robust Magento far behind. Its flexibility and ease of use are the standout features that draw more than 1,000,000 users around the globe gravitate towards the platform.

According to Cart2Cart statistics of migrations performed during January-October, 2019 - the transfer path from Magento to Shopify takes about 10% of all migrations, while the share of data migrations from Shopify to Magento is only 1%.

• If you want to migrate your Magento Enterprise store data to the Shopify Plus platform, you can do it in a totally automated way.

Please, follow the link link to get all the details about Cart2Cart Magento to Shopify migration.

Therefore, business owners usually opt for refreshing the design and developing new and more exciting features.

How Can I Protect My Data?

For those unaware, Magento and Shopify have different data fields. Thus, there are product attributes in Magento that don't have the exact corresponding fields in Shopify. In this case, it is advisable to map what data is being moved and to which field so you know where everything is located.

Magento vs WooCommerce vs Shopify vs OpenCart vs PrestaShop 2021 Review

Will Migration Impact My SEO?

Indeed, replatforming can have a significant impact on your traffic and search results, but that doesn't have to be the case. Pay special attention to the new site structure and set up 301 redirects, which are recommended to keep the SEO juice flowing.

Can I Migrate Design?

If the design of an existing Magento store is good and there is no reason to change it, you can recreate it with the help of a developer. Design migration is not possible from the technical side.

Magento to Shopify Migration Checklist: 3 Possible Scenarios

Manual migration

This way means copying the store data from Magento and pasting it into Shopify (in other words, import-export process), as well as manually uploading any related images and updating the navigation links. This is quite a labor-intensive method of migration that requires a high level of technical background knowledge. Moreover, it cannot be applied to large stores with, say, 10,000 customers or products, as it is simply impossible to move everything by hand.

Assisted migration

Those Magento store owners who don't have the relevant experience should consider hiring a third-party agency to move their store between platforms. The path involves a developer or group of techies overseeing the shopping cart migration process, keeping track of milestones, and coping with all of them. Usually, they break down the entire process of product migration from Magento to Shopify into smaller phases (data, design, functionality) and delegate responsibilities to members of the team. Even though this option is much more reliable, it is often considered very time- and money-consuming.

Magento vs Shopify: 5 Сrucial Differences You Cannot Afford to Ignore

Automated migration

As there is a growing tendency to automate all sorts of processes, data migration converters are becoming more popular with each passing day. There are services and tools (like Cart2Cart) designed to minimize human involvement in the data migration process and transfer store entities from one cart to another for a one-time fee. These providers offer a simple self-service model where you select the current cart and the one you want to switch to and automate the transition.

How to Prepare for Magento to Shopify Store Migration

Good preparation and planning is crucial for any project, and e-commerce migrations are no exception. Consider the following recommendations on how to identify the potential risks of migration and determine the necessary activities ahead of time.

Manage Your Magento Store

Backup data

The Cart2Cart service does not delete any data from your Magento store during the switch. The information will be copied and moved to the new Shopify store. However, to ensure data security and avoid all related risks, it is highly recommended to backup your database (for example, you can use a backup option provided by your hosting service).

Perform Magento store data audit

Performing the store data audit should help you create an accurate inventory of all your Magento data (such as products, categories, customers, passwords, orders, reviews, and others). Be prepared to map the existing data types and determine the ones that you plan to keep, delete, or rewrite.

Find Magento store access details

To connect your stores, find the current Magento store access data - the URL and FTP/SFTP/SSH/cPanel credentials.

How to Prepare Your Shopify Store

Get your Shopify store ready

Install the Shopify store without any additional modules or modifications and make it available online. To do this, start a free Shopify trial during which you can perform the migration to the temporary domain (e.g., https:/www.myshopify.com). It's fine to migrate your data to a test store with a free Demo migration to see how it works.

Choose a theme

We recommend choosing the default Shopify theme and not make any customizations until the migration is complete (as this can disrupt the process). Once the Magento store data is transferred to your Shopify, you can choose the theme you want.

Install the necessary apps/features

If there are user reviews on your Magento that need to be transferred to Shopify, we recommend installing the Product Reviews app (free). Learn how to install the app without much hands-on here.

Best Shopify Alternatives of The Most Popular Magento Extensions

Estimate the Exact Migration Price

The cost of store migration with Cart2Cart depends on the amount of data and additional migration options you need to move from Magento to Shopify. Use the Migration Estimator feature to calculate the exact price for your specific migration case from Magento to Shopify.

Magento to Shopify Migration Checklist. Cart2Cart Route

Once you have everything ready for replatforming, it's time to start the actual website migration. So click start Free Demo and follow the Migration Wizard.

Alternatively, you can also try Cart2Cart Store Migration App Cart2Cart Store Migration to make replatforming from Magento to Shopify even easier.

Connect your Shopping Carts

Select Magento from the drop-down menu. When you're done, enter the URL of your web store. Then install Connection Bridge on your Magento to enable data exchange between your stores. After downloading, extract the Connection Bridge from the zip archive and paste it into the root directory using an FTP client.

Watch our video tutorial to get a 360-degree view of the installation of Connection Bridge.

Install the Migration for Shopify App to connect to your newly-established Shopify store

Select Data for Migration

In the Migration Wizard, specify the entities you want to transfer from Magento to Shopify - products, customers, orders, manufacturers, reviews, etc. or all of them together.

What data can I migrate from Magento to Shopify?

The following types of data can be migrated from Magento to Shopify:

• goods (product name, images, description, a number of goods in stock, price);
• visuals related to the products (color, shape, size of the product);
• the total amount of the purchase, a list of purchased goods, payment information;
• static pages (like Contacts, About Us, Return Policy, Terms & Conditions);
• images;
• information about customers (name, email address, phone number, location, etc.);
• SEO settings (including 301 redirects);
• integrations.

What Are Additional Migration Options?

There are some additional migration options that you can choose depending on your specific needs and requirements, making the transfer between e-commerce solutions more seamless.

• Since Shopify and Magento have different ways of organizing store entities (Magento categories are called collections on Shopify, while subcategories become product tags), it is recommended to select “Migrate Source Store categories into Shopify Automated Collections” option. This will let you define a single product as belonging to several collections and organize your store better.
• Once you have set up the Shopify site (new server) and your domain pointing to this server, your old host is irrelevant. You can set up URL redirects in the Shopify > Online Store > Navigation. Otherwise, you can use the "Create 301 redirects on your target store after migration" option, which allows you to keep old product and category URLs working at Shopify.
• If you choose the "Migrate Categories and Products SEO URLs" option, the current link structure to your products will be maintained, preserving your old customers and your store's SEO ranking.

Map Customer Groups & Order Statuses

Cart2Cart does not migrate your Customer groups and Order statuses. Instead, it allows you to match your Magento store customer groups and order statuses with the corresponding ones on your new Shopify store.

If there are no required Order statuses on the Shopify store, you can easily create them by clicking the appropriate buttons.

Note: During the migration of Customers to Shopify, the Cart2Cart migration tool automatically generates a new default "unknown" email address if customer email on the Magento store is invalid. The same default email will be created during the migration of Orders if they are not linked to particular customers and were made by guest users - not registered customers. Therefore, during the data migration, you'll receive email notifications about the creation of new orders, though, in fact, they were migrated. To get rid of these messages, log in to Shopify, go to settings->notifications and click “Disable” in the right bottom corner of the page.

Map Countries, Languages & Currencies

Shopify offers the ability to set which countries you ship to in the shipping settings. If the orders in your Magento store contain countries other than those selected on Shopify, those orders will be skipped during migration. To avoid this, check all the countries in the source store countries and configure them in the Shopify settings before the migration.

Also, make sure you use the option to map the corresponding languages and currencies of Magento and Shopify stores. Check if the Shopify settings allow support for multiple languages and perform the mapping in the Cart2Cart Wizard.

Run Free Demo Migration

Now you are ready to start the free Demo migration. It allows you to transfer a limited number of entities in about 10-30 minutes. It is highly recommended not to skip the Demo migration step to check the functionality of Cart2Cart during the process. Do not close the browser window until the demo migration is complete.

Next, check the result of the migration in your Shopify store. Make sure to check the migrated data in the backend, as it is not always visible in the Shopify frontend. You can also use the file with the list of Product IDs that were migrated (you can download it on the Demo Results page) and check if they are found in the Shopify store.

If you have any problems with this step, feel free to contact our Support Team and get all possible questions answered in a short time.

Start Full Migration

At this point, you can start the Full Migration. You will be prompted to fund your account if there is not enough money to complete the migration. Provide a discount coupon, if you have one, in the appropriate field.

Magento to Shopify Migration Checklist: What Should You Do Once the Migration Is Complete?

Despite the fact that the migration from Magento to Shopify is now complete, your new store may still have a long way to go before it is "launch-ready". There are still a few steps to take to make sure your Shopify store is working properly and no data is lost.

Test your Shopify store

Even if you've gone through the migration process seamlessly and flawlessly, you still need to perform a post-migration audit. Take time to check your new store for any potential issues. Make sure the domain name is active and the navigation links are working correctly. Then go to the front end to see if the products are visible in the catalogs and the onsite search is working. When you're done, go through the links in the menus, header, footer, and within the pages. To finish testing your new Shopify store, run a test purchase to see if everything is working properly. Do this a few times to be sure.

Find the apps you need with Shopify store

There are over 1,000 apps offered in the Shopify marketplace, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding extensions to take the place of those that you've been using in Magento.

Invite customers to reactivate their accounts

First of all, inform your customers about the change of e-commerce platform and ask them to inform you about any errors they found - this way, you can get your new Shopify store up and running very quickly. It is also necessary to invite customers to reactivate their accounts on Shopify. You can use the app “Bulk Account Invite Sender” to send an invitation to all your customers.

Conclusion

With all that said, we have compiled all the must-do activities described above into a short Magento to Shopify migration checklist for you. Sure, it's not a definitive list, you'll probably need to add some items, but it's a good starting point.

Have you already made the jump from Magento to Shopify? If so, what were the difficulties that you issued during the switch? Please share your story with us in the comments section below! If you’re still hesitating, don’t miss the chance to run the free Demo migration today!