Cart66 to Squarespace Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

A Comprehensive Guide to Transitioning Your E-commerce Store from Cart66 to Squarespace

Are you considering moving your online store from Cart66 to a more modern, design-centric platform like Squarespace? Whether you're seeking enhanced aesthetics, streamlined management, or a broader feature set, replatforming can be a significant step towards scaling your e-commerce business. This expert guide will walk you through the entire data transfer process, ensuring a smooth transition with minimal downtime and maximum data integrity.

Migrating your store's essential data—from products and customer information to orders and reviews—requires careful planning and execution. We'll leverage a professional migration tool to simplify this complex process, ensuring that your valuable digital assets are safely and accurately transferred to your new Squarespace store.

Prerequisites for Migration

Before embarking on your data migration journey, it’s crucial to prepare both your source (Cart66) and target (Squarespace) stores. Proper preparation is the cornerstone of a successful transition, mitigating potential issues and ensuring all necessary access points are established.

For Your Cart66 Source Store:

• Full Backup: Always create a complete backup of your Cart66 store's files and database. This safeguards your data in case any unforeseen issues arise during the migration process.
• Install Cart2Cart Migration Module: To facilitate a direct bridge connection, you will need to install the Cart2Cart Cart66 Migration module on your Cart66 instance. This module enables the migration tool to securely access your store's data.
• Admin Access: Ensure you have full administrator credentials for your Cart66 store, including the admin login, password, and URL. These are essential for the migration tool to connect and extract your data.
• FTP/SFTP Access: You'll need FTP or SFTP access to your Cart66 hosting environment. This is required to upload the bridge file (provided by the migration tool) to your store's root directory, enabling secure communication between your Cart66 instance and the migration service. Refer to our FAQ on root folders for more details.
• Review Source Data: Take time to audit your existing Cart66 data. Identify any outdated products, unused customer accounts, or redundant categories that you might not wish to transfer.

For more detailed information on preparing your source store, please consult our How to prepare Source store for migration? guide.

For Your Squarespace Target Store:

• Squarespace Account Setup: Ensure you have an active Squarespace account and a new site set up, even if it's currently empty. This will be the destination for all your Cart66 data.
• Enable HTTPS: Squarespace typically enforces HTTPS by default, which is a requirement for API access. Verify that your new Squarespace site is secured with an SSL certificate.
• Install Cart2Cart Squarespace Migration App: To enable API-based data transfer, you will need to install the Cart2Cart Squarespace Migration App. This app establishes the secure API connection required for the migration tool. Note that Squarespace utilizes API access, which may involve generating API keys, secrets, and access tokens for third-party applications.
• Admin Credentials: Have your Squarespace admin email and password readily available. You might also need to generate API keys, secrets, and an access token from your Squarespace developer settings to grant the migration tool the necessary permissions. Refer to The Short & Essential Guide to Access Credentials for Cart2Cart.
• Initial Store Configuration: While the migration tool handles most data, you might want to consider basic settings like currency, timezone, and language in Squarespace before the data transfer.

For more detailed information on preparing your target store, please consult our How to prepare Target store for migration? guide.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

With both your Cart66 and Squarespace stores prepared, you're ready to initiate the migration process. This guide outlines the key steps using a typical migration wizard interface.

Step 1: Initiate Your Migration

Begin by navigating to the migration service platform. You will typically find an option to start a new migration. Click the 'Start Your Migration' button to kick off the wizard.

Step 2: Connect Your Source Cart66 Store

In the migration wizard, you'll be prompted to specify your source platform. Select Cart66 from the dropdown menu.

Next, you will need to establish the connection:

• Upload the Bridge File: After selecting Cart66, the migration wizard will provide you with a unique 'bridge' file. You must upload this file via FTP/SFTP to the root directory of your Cart66 store. This bridge serves as a secure data conduit.
• Enter Store Details: Provide your Cart66 store's URL and the URL where you uploaded the bridge file. You will also input your Cart66 administrator login and password for verification.

The system will then verify the connection to ensure it can access your Cart66 data securely.

Step 3: Connect Your Target Squarespace Store

Now, it's time to connect your new Squarespace store. Select Squarespace as your target cart from the platform list.

To establish the connection:

• Install Squarespace Migration App: The migration wizard will guide you to install the Cart2Cart Squarespace Migration App. This app provides the necessary API access permissions.
• Provide API Credentials: You will typically need to input your Squarespace API Key, API Secret, and Access Token. These credentials grant the migration tool secure access to your Squarespace account for importing data. Ensure your Squarespace site uses HTTPS, which is a standard requirement for API interactions.

The system will perform a connection check to confirm it can communicate with your Squarespace store effectively.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Migration

This critical step allows you to choose exactly what data you want to move from Cart66 to Squarespace. You'll see a checklist of various data entities.

• Common Entities: You can choose to migrate core e-commerce data such as Products (including SKUs and variants), Products Categories, Customers, Orders, Products Reviews, CMS Pages, and Coupons. Squarespace also supports Gift Cards and Blog Posts, which can be migrated if present in your Cart66 store and mapped correctly.
• Select All or Specific: You can either select all available entities for a comprehensive transfer or pick and choose specific items based on your needs.

Step 5: Configure Additional Options & Data Mapping

This stage is vital for fine-tuning your migration and ensuring data integrity and SEO preservation.

Additional Migration Options:

You'll find a list of checkboxes to enhance your data transfer. Consider these valuable options:

• Clear Target Store Data: The 'Clear current data on Target store before migration' option is useful if your Squarespace store has placeholder data you want removed prior to import.
• Preserve IDs: Opt to preserve Product IDs, Order IDs, and Customer IDs. This is crucial for maintaining historical data links and ensuring consistency with external systems.
• SEO URLs & 301 Redirects: Selecting 'Create 301 SEO URLs' is highly recommended. This generates redirects from your old Cart66 URLs to your new Squarespace URLs, preserving your valuable SEO rankings and link equity.
• Migrate Customer Passwords: This option securely transfers customer passwords, ensuring a seamless login experience for your returning customers.
• Migrate Images in Description: Ensure product images embedded within descriptions are transferred correctly.
• Create Variants from Attributes: If your Cart66 store uses attributes to define product variations, this option will properly create product variants in Squarespace.
• Migrate Groups to Tags: This option helps organize customer groups or product groups from Cart66 into tags within Squarespace.

Data Mapping Setup:

The wizard will guide you through mapping fields between Cart66 and Squarespace. This ensures that data like customer groups, order statuses, and product attributes are correctly aligned with Squarespace's structure.

• Customer Groups Mapping: Match your Cart66 customer roles (e.g., 'Registered', 'Wholesale') to their corresponding roles or tags in Squarespace.
• Order Statuses Mapping: Align your Cart66 order statuses (e.g., 'Pending', 'Processing', 'Shipped') with the equivalent statuses in Squarespace.

Step 6: Run Demo Migration & Full Migration

Before committing to the full data transfer, it's highly recommended to perform a free demo migration. This transfers a limited number of entities (e.g., 10 products, 10 customers, 10 orders) to your Squarespace store, allowing you to:

• Review Data Accuracy: Check if products, prices, images, customer data, and order details have been transferred correctly.
• Identify Issues: Spot any potential mapping errors or data inconsistencies early.
• Understand the Process: Familiarize yourself with how the data appears in Squarespace.

After a successful demo, you can proceed with the full migration. At this stage, you might also consider adding a Migration Insurance Plan, which offers a certain number of remigrations for a specified period, providing peace of mind. Learn more about How Migration Insurance works?.

Once you are satisfied with the demo results, initiate the full migration. The tool will then transfer all selected data entities from Cart66 to Squarespace.

Post-Migration Steps

The migration tool handles the data transfer, but a few crucial steps remain to ensure your new Squarespace store is fully operational and optimized.

1. Thorough Data Verification: Once the migration is complete, meticulously review all migrated data. Check a sample of products (SKUs, descriptions, images, variants, prices), customer accounts, orders, and reviews. Ensure all links are working and that metadata is correctly displayed.
2. Configure Payment & Shipping: Set up and test your preferred payment gateways (e.g., Stripe, PayPal) and configure all shipping zones, rates, and methods within Squarespace.
3. Design & User Experience (UX): Customize your Squarespace theme to align with your brand identity. Optimize the layout, navigation, and product pages for an intuitive user experience.
4. Test Functionality: Conduct extensive testing of critical store functions:
   • Add to cart process
   • Checkout flow with various payment methods
   • Customer account creation and login
   • Search functionality
   • Contact forms and other interactive elements
5. SEO & 301 Redirects Review: While the migration tool can create 301 redirects, it's essential to verify them. Use a crawling tool to check for broken links and ensure that your old Cart66 URLs correctly redirect to their new Squarespace counterparts. This preserves your hard-earned SEO rankings and link equity.
6. Update DNS: Once you're confident everything is working perfectly, update your domain's DNS settings to point to your new Squarespace store. This is the moment your new store officially goes live.
7. Monitor Performance: After launch, continuously monitor your store's performance using analytics tools. Keep an eye on traffic, conversions, and any potential error messages.
8. Remove Old Store Data: Once you are absolutely certain your new Squarespace store is fully functional and stable, you can consider decommissioning your old Cart66 store.

Migrating to Squarespace can bring numerous benefits to your website, including improved aesthetics and simplified management. By following these steps, you can achieve a successful and stress-free transition from Cart66 to Squarespace, empowering your e-commerce business for future growth.

Should you require any assistance or have complex migration needs, don't hesitate to Contact Us. Our team offers specialized services like Migration Customization and Recent Data Migration to ensure a tailored and flawless transfer.