DrupalCommerce to PrestaShop Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

Seamlessly Transition Your E-commerce Store from DrupalCommerce to PrestaShop

Replatforming your e-commerce store is a strategic decision that can significantly impact your online business's growth and operational efficiency. If you're currently running on DrupalCommerce and considering a move to PrestaShop, you're looking at transitioning to a platform renowned for its flexibility, rich feature set, and strong community support. This guide provides a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough to ensure a smooth and successful migration, preserving your valuable data and maintaining your store's integrity.

Migrating your store's data, including products, customer records, and order history, can seem daunting. However, with the right approach and a reliable migration solution, this complex process can be streamlined, minimizing downtime and safeguarding your SEO rankings. By following these instructions, you'll be well-equipped to perform a complete data transfer from your existing DrupalCommerce setup to a brand new PrestaShop installation.

Prerequisites for a Successful Migration

Before embarking on your migration journey, proper preparation is key. Ensuring both your source DrupalCommerce store and your target PrestaShop store are ready will prevent common issues and ensure a more efficient data transfer.

• Set Up Your PrestaShop Store: Have a fresh installation of PrestaShop ready. You don't need to populate it with data, but ensure it's accessible and configured correctly. For comprehensive guidance, refer to our FAQ on How to prepare Target store for migration?.
• Backup Your Data: Always create a full backup of your DrupalCommerce database and files before starting any migration. This is a critical safety measure to protect your data in case of unforeseen circumstances. Similarly, backup your new PrestaShop installation. Learn more about preparing your source store here: How to prepare Source store for migration?.
• Gather Access Credentials: You will need administrative access (admin login and password) and potentially FTP/SFTP access for both your DrupalCommerce and PrestaShop stores. This allows the migration tool to establish a secure connection and perform the data transfer. For details, consult The Short & Essential Guide to Access Credentials for Cart2Cart.
• Install Necessary Modules/Plugins: For a seamless migration using a dedicated tool, you'll likely need to install specific modules. For DrupalCommerce, the "Cart2Cart Drupal Commerce Migration module required" is essential. For PrestaShop, the "Cart2Cart Universal PrestaShop Migration module required" will facilitate the data import.
• Review Your Current Store: Clean up any unnecessary or outdated data in your DrupalCommerce store. This can include old products, inactive customer accounts, or redundant categories, which will streamline the migration and improve the performance of your new PrestaShop store.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

Migrating your store involves a series of steps typically managed through a migration wizard. This guide will walk you through each stage, from connecting your stores to launching your new PrestaShop platform.

Step 1: Initiate Your Migration

Begin by accessing your chosen migration service's dashboard. This is where you'll start the process of setting up your DrupalCommerce to PrestaShop data transfer.

Select the option to start a new migration. You'll be prompted to choose your source and target shopping carts.

Step 2: Connect Your DrupalCommerce Source Store

First, specify DrupalCommerce as your Source Cart. To establish a secure connection for data extraction, you will need to provide your store's URL and, as indicated by our platform data, use the "Bridge only" connection method. This typically involves downloading a connection bridge file from the migration service, extracting it, and uploading the 'bridge2cart' folder to the root directory of your DrupalCommerce store via FTP/SFTP. Ensure the "Cart2Cart Drupal Commerce Migration module" is installed as required.

Once uploaded, verify the connection. The bridge acts as a secure conduit, allowing the migration tool to access your DrupalCommerce database and extract your store's entities like products, customer records, and order details.

Step 3: Connect Your PrestaShop Target Store

Next, select PrestaShop as your Target Cart. Similar to the source store, the connection method for PrestaShop is also "Bridge only." You'll need to provide your PrestaShop store's Admin URL. The process involves downloading the PrestaShop connection bridge, extracting the 'bridge2cart' folder, and uploading it to the root directory of your PrestaShop installation. Additionally, confirm that the "Cart2Cart Universal PrestaShop Migration module" is properly installed in your PrestaShop admin area.

After uploading the bridge, verify the connection. This step ensures that your new PrestaShop store is ready to receive and process the incoming data from DrupalCommerce.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Migration

This crucial step allows you to choose exactly which data types, or entities, you want to transfer from DrupalCommerce to PrestaShop. Both platforms support a comprehensive range of entities, ensuring a complete transition of your e-commerce ecosystem.

You can migrate:

• Products: Including SKUs, variants, descriptions, images, and other product-related metadata.
• Products_Categories: The entire category structure.
• Products_Manufacturers: Manufacturer information associated with your products.
• Products_Reviews: Valuable customer feedback on your products.
• Customers: Customer data, including contact information and account details.
• Orders: Historical order information and statuses.
• Invoices: Associated invoice data.
• Taxes: Your store's tax rules and configurations (multi-tax allowed).
• Stores: Data related to multiple store views, if applicable.
• Coupons: Existing discount codes and promotions.
• CMS_Pages: Static content pages.

PrestaShop also supports Blogs and Blogs_Posts, which will be migrated if selected and present in your DrupalCommerce store's data structure, though note the general limitation "SEO options excluded for blogs." You can select "All entities" or pick and choose based on your specific needs.

Step 5: Configure Additional Options & Data Mapping

This stage allows you to fine-tune your migration. Utilize the additional options to enhance the data transfer and ensure data integrity.

Key options available for your DrupalCommerce source data include:

• Preserve IDs: Maintain original Product IDs, Category IDs, Orders IDs, and Customers IDs. This is highly recommended for SEO and historical data consistency (How Preserve IDs options can be used?).
• SEO URLs & 301 SEO URLs: Preserve existing SEO URLs and create 301 redirects to maintain link equity and prevent drops in SEO rankings.
• Password Migration: Transfer customer passwords securely.
• Create Variants from Attributes: Ensure product variants are correctly established.

For your PrestaShop target store, consider options such as:

• Migrate Images in Description: Ensure product images embedded in descriptions are transferred.
• Clear Target: This option allows you to Clear current data on Target store before migration option, useful for fresh installations.
• Skip Custom Attributes: If your target store has different attribute structures.

You'll also need to perform data mapping. This involves matching customer groups (e.g., 'Wholesale' to 'Professional') and order statuses (e.g., 'Pending' to 'Awaiting Payment') from DrupalCommerce to their corresponding fields in PrestaShop. This step ensures consistent categorization and reporting in your new store.

Step 6: Run a Demo Migration and Full Migration

Before committing to a full data transfer, it's highly recommended to perform a free demo migration. This allows you to transfer a limited number of entities (e.g., 10-20 products, customers, orders) to your PrestaShop store. Reviewing this demo data helps confirm the migration settings are correct and that data integrity is maintained.

Once you're satisfied with the demo results, proceed with the full migration. At this stage, you may also consider Migration Insurance Service, which offers additional remigrations within a specific period, providing peace of mind (How Migration Insurance works?). The full migration will then commence, transferring all your selected data to PrestaShop.

Post-Migration Steps

The migration doesn't end when the data transfer is complete. A few critical post-migration steps are essential to ensure your new PrestaShop store is fully functional, optimized, and ready for your customers.

• Verify Data Accuracy and Integrity: Thoroughly check all migrated data. Browse through products, verify customer accounts, review orders, and check CMS pages. Ensure all images, descriptions, SKUs, and pricing are accurate.
• Test Store Functionality: Conduct comprehensive testing of your new PrestaShop store. This includes:
  • Placing test orders and checking the checkout process.
  • Testing customer registration and login.
  • Verifying search functionality.
  • Ensuring all links work correctly.
  • Testing contact forms and other interactive elements.
• Configure SEO: If you opted for 301 redirects during migration, verify they are working correctly. Update your sitemap and submit it to search engines. Monitor your SEO rankings closely after the transition to maintain your search visibility.
• Install and Configure Theme & Modules: Apply your chosen PrestaShop theme and install any necessary modules or apps to replicate the functionality of your DrupalCommerce store. This is crucial for user experience and administrative tasks.
• Update DNS Settings: Once you are confident that your new PrestaShop store is fully operational, update your domain's DNS settings to point to your new PrestaShop hosting. Plan this carefully to minimize downtime.
• Ongoing Monitoring: Keep an eye on your store's performance, load times, and error logs in the initial weeks after launch. Consider utilizing a Recent Data Migration Service if you need to transfer any data accumulated on your old store during the DNS propagation period.

By diligently following these steps, your migration from DrupalCommerce to PrestaShop will be a success, paving the way for enhanced features, improved performance, and a better user experience. For further assistance or complex migration scenarios, do not hesitate to Contact Us for specialized services like Migration Customization Service or Database Dump Migration Service.