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

A Comprehensive Guide to Transitioning from Lazada to Volusion

Are you looking to move your online store from a bustling marketplace like Lazada to a dedicated, feature-rich e-commerce platform such as Volusion? This strategic business decision offers greater control over your brand, customer data, and overall user experience. While migrating an e-commerce store can seem daunting, this guide will provide you with a clear, actionable roadmap for a smooth data transfer from Lazada (via CSV export) to Volusion, ensuring your online presence continues to thrive without significant disruption.

We will walk you through each phase of the replatforming process, from initial preparations to post-migration checks, helping you preserve critical elements like your SEO rankings, customer relationships, and product catalog.

Prerequisites for Migration

Before you embark on your migration journey, proper preparation is key to a successful data transfer. Here’s what you need to have in place for both your Lazada source store and your new Volusion target store.

For Your Lazada (Source) Store: Exporting Data via CSV

Since Lazada, as a marketplace, does not offer direct API access for third-party migration tools in the same way a traditional e-commerce platform does, your migration will be facilitated through CSV file export. This means you will need to manually export your critical store data into CSV files.

• Data Export: Identify and export all essential data from your Lazada seller center. This typically includes:
  • Products: SKUs, product names, descriptions, prices, images, variants (size, color), and categories.
  • Customers: Customer names, email addresses, shipping addresses, and billing information.
  • Orders: Order IDs, statuses, purchase dates, product details within each order, and customer associations.
  • Reviews: Product reviews and ratings.
• Clean CSV Files: Ensure your exported CSV files are well-organized and correctly formatted. This will significantly simplify the import process into the migration tool. For more details on this method, refer to our CSV.File Data Migration service.
• Access Credentials: While not direct API access, ensure you have full administrative access to your Lazada seller account to perform these exports.

For additional guidance on preparing your source store, you may find our How to prepare Source store for migration? FAQ helpful.

For Your Volusion (Target) Store: Setup and Access

Your new Volusion store needs to be set up and accessible for the migration tool to inject your data.

• Volusion Account Setup: Ensure you have an active Volusion account and your new store is provisioned. You don't need to populate it with products or categories yet, as these will be migrated.
• Administrative Access: You'll need full administrative login credentials for your Volusion store. This includes your admin username, password, and the URL to your admin panel. For a detailed guide on required access, see The Short & Essential Guide to Access Credentials for Cart2Cart.
• Cart2Cart Volusion Migration Module (Bridge): Volusion uses a connection method called a "bridge." This lightweight piece of software facilitates secure data transfer between your source and target stores. You will need to install the Cart2Cart Volusion Migration module on your Volusion server. This typically involves uploading a folder to the root directory of your Volusion installation via FTP. You can find more information about the root folder in our What is a root folder and where can I find it? FAQ.
• FTP Access: Have your FTP client details (hostname, username, password) ready to upload the migration bridge files.

Consult our How to prepare Target store for migration? FAQ for more details on target store readiness.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your preparations complete, let's proceed with the data transfer using a specialized migration service like Cart2Cart. This process is typically handled through an intuitive online wizard.

Step 1: Initiate Your Migration

Begin by navigating to the migration service platform. You will typically find options to start a new migration process.

Step 2: Configure Your Source Store (Lazada via CSV)

This is where you tell the migration tool about your current Lazada store's data.

First, select "CSV File to Cart" from the dropdown menu as your Source Cart. Then, proceed to upload the CSV files you exported from Lazada, containing your product, customer, and order data.

Ensure all relevant CSV files are uploaded correctly for a comprehensive data transfer.

Step 3: Configure Your Target Store (Volusion)

Next, you'll specify your new Volusion store as the destination for your data.

Select "Volusion" from the dropdown list of Target Carts. Then, enter your Volusion store's URL. You will also be prompted to provide the administrator credentials and confirm the installation of the Cart2Cart Volusion Migration module (bridge) on your Volusion server. This bridge allows the migration tool to securely connect to and transfer data to your Volusion database.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Transfer

This crucial step allows you to choose exactly which types of data you want to migrate from your Lazada CSV files to your Volusion store. The supported entities include:

• Products: Including product names, descriptions, images, SKUs, and variants.
• Product Categories: The structure and hierarchy of your product organization.
• Customers: Their accounts, contact information, and addresses.
• Orders: Full order history, statuses, and associated customer data.
• Product Reviews: Valuable customer feedback.
• Manufacturers, Invoices, Taxes, Coupons, CMS Pages: And other relevant store data.

You can choose to migrate "All entities" or select them individually based on your specific requirements.

Step 5: Configure Additional Options and Data Mapping

This step offers powerful customization features to optimize your data migration and ensure data integrity.

Additional Migration Options

You’ll find a list of checkboxes to tailor your migration:

• Clear Target Store Data: This option (Clear current data on Target store before migration option) is highly recommended for a fresh start, especially if your Volusion store has any pre-existing sample data.
• Preserve IDs: Options like Preserve Product IDs, Preserve Order IDs, and Preserve Customer IDs are vital for maintaining consistency with external systems or for historical record-keeping.
• Create 301 SEO URLs: Absolutely critical for maintaining your search engine rankings and link equity. This ensures that old Lazada product and category URLs redirect seamlessly to their new Volusion counterparts, preventing broken links and a drop in SEO performance.
• Migrate Images in Description: Ensures all embedded product images within descriptions are transferred.
• Password Migration: Allows your customers to log in to the new Volusion store with their existing passwords.
• Create Variants from Attributes: Important for products with different options (e.g., size, color) to be correctly represented in Volusion.

Data Mapping

This is where you match specific data fields from your Lazada CSV files to their corresponding fields in Volusion. For example, you’ll map customer groups and order statuses to ensure consistency in your new store's backend.

Step 6: Run a Free Demo Migration

Before committing to a full transfer, it's highly recommended to run a free demo migration. This trial run migrates a limited number of entities (e.g., 10 products, 10 customers, 10 orders) to your Volusion store. It allows you to:

• Preview the data transfer and verify its accuracy.
• Identify and resolve any potential mapping issues or errors.
• Familiarize yourself with the Volusion environment with actual data.

Review the demo results carefully to ensure everything looks as expected.

Step 7: Initiate Full Migration

Once you are satisfied with the demo results, you can proceed with the full migration. This will transfer all the selected data entities from your Lazada CSV files to your Volusion store.

Before starting, consider adding a Migration Insurance Service. This service provides options for remigrations, allowing you to re-run the process if any issues arise or if you need to transfer recently added data. Learn more about How Migration Insurance works?.

The duration of the full migration will depend on the volume of your data. You can track the progress through the migration wizard, and you'll typically be notified upon completion.

Post-Migration Steps

After your data has been successfully transferred to Volusion, a few critical post-migration steps are necessary to ensure your new store is fully operational and optimized.

• Thorough Data Review: Log into your Volusion admin panel and meticulously check all migrated data. Verify that products (SKUs, descriptions, images, variants), categories, customer accounts, order histories, and reviews are all present and accurately displayed. Pay close attention to pricing, inventory levels, and image paths.
• Test All Store Functions: Perform comprehensive testing of your new Volusion store. Place test orders, simulate customer registrations and logins, use search functionalities, test your checkout process, and verify that all payment gateways are working correctly.
• Configure SEO and Redirects: While the migration tool can create 301 redirects, it's vital to verify their functionality. Use tools like Google Search Console to monitor for crawl errors and ensure your SEO rankings are preserved. Update your sitemap and resubmit it to search engines.
• Update DNS Settings: Once you are confident that your Volusion store is fully operational, update your domain's DNS settings to point to your new Volusion store. This is the moment your new store goes live!
• Disable/Archive Old Lazada Presence: To prevent duplicate content issues and ensure all traffic goes to your new Volusion store, effectively disable or archive your old product listings and store on Lazada.
• Set Up Analytics & Marketing Tools: Re-integrate your analytics (e.g., Google Analytics), email marketing, and other essential marketing tools with your Volusion store.
• Notify Customers: Inform your customers about the move to your new Volusion store, highlighting any new features or improvements.
• Consider Recent Data Migration: If new orders or customer registrations occurred on Lazada during the migration process, consider using a Recent Data Migration Service to transfer this latest information.

For any further questions, please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions or feel free to Contact Us for expert assistance.