Usablenet to Magento Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

Seamlessly Transitioning Your E-commerce Store from Usablenet to Magento

Migrating your e-commerce store is a pivotal decision that can significantly impact your business's future. If you're currently operating on Usablenet and contemplating a move to Magento, you're looking at a powerful upgrade. Magento offers robust scalability, extensive features, and a thriving ecosystem, making it a compelling choice for growing online businesses. This guide provides a clear, step-by-step roadmap to successfully transfer your valuable data from Usablenet (via CSV export) to your new Magento platform, ensuring data integrity and minimal downtime during the transition.

While Usablenet has served its purpose, Magento stands out with its comprehensive capabilities for product management, customer relationship management, order processing, and advanced marketing tools. A carefully executed replatforming process will allow you to leverage these advantages, enhance user experience, and secure improved SEO rankings.

Prerequisites for a Smooth Migration

Before initiating the data transfer, thorough preparation of both your source (Usablenet) and target (Magento) environments is crucial. This proactive approach helps mitigate potential issues and ensures a more efficient migration.

Preparing Your Usablenet Store (CSV Export)

• Data Export: Since Usablenet is not directly integrated with most migration tools, the migration will be conducted via CSV file export. You'll need to export all essential data entities from your Usablenet store, including products (with all their attributes, SKUs, and variants), product categories, customer records, order history, and any available reviews or CMS pages.
• Data Cleansing: This is an excellent opportunity to clean up your data. Remove outdated products, inactive customer accounts, or redundant information that you don't wish to transfer to your new Magento store.
• File Formatting: Ensure your exported CSV files are correctly formatted and adhere to a consistent structure, which will facilitate easier import into the migration tool. For more details on preparing your source store, read our How to prepare Source store for migration? guide.

Preparing Your Magento Store

• Magento Installation: Ensure you have a fresh installation of Magento (versions 1.1.0 or 2.0.0 are typically supported) on your hosting environment.
• Server Environment: Verify that your server meets Magento's system requirements to ensure optimal performance post-migration.
• Essential Extensions: Consider installing any necessary Magento extensions prior to migration. For instance, password migration to Magento requires a specific module to be installed. Also, review table dependency checks might be needed.
• Backup: If your Magento store is not entirely new and contains existing data, perform a full backup before migration.
• Access Credentials: Have your Magento admin login details, URL, and FTP/SFTP access handy, as these will be required to establish a connection via the migration bridge. Refer to The Short & Essential Guide to Access Credentials for Cart2Cart for more information.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

This section outlines the process of moving your e-commerce data using a specialized migration tool, detailing each step from connection to launch.

Step 1: Start Your Migration

Begin by accessing the migration wizard. Here, you'll choose to start a self-service migration, calculate costs, or request assistance from experts.

Step 2: Connect Your Source Store (Usablenet via CSV)

Select 'CSV File to Cart' as your source platform. You will then be prompted to upload the CSV files containing your Usablenet store's data. This method allows for the transfer of a wide range of entities including Products, Categories, Customers, Orders, and more. For more comprehensive information, explore our CSV.File Data Migration service.

Step 3: Connect Your Target Store (Magento)

Choose 'Magento' as your target platform. Provide your Magento store's URL. To enable secure data transfer, you'll need to download a unique connection bridge file. Unzip this file and upload the 'bridge2cart' folder to the root directory of your Magento installation via FTP/SFTP. This bridge acts as a secure gateway for the migration tool to access your Magento database. For clarification on finding your root folder, please see What is a root folder and where can I find it?

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Transfer

In this crucial step, you'll specify which data types, or entities, you wish to migrate. Common entities include products, product categories, manufacturers, customer accounts, order history, reviews, invoices, taxes, stores, coupons, and CMS pages. You can choose to migrate all available entities or select specific ones based on your business needs.

Step 5: Configure Additional Migration Options

Enhance your data transfer with a range of additional options:

• Clear Target Store Data: This option allows you to Clear current data on Target store before migration option, useful for fresh installations.
• Preserve IDs: Maintain original IDs for products, customers, and orders to ensure data consistency. Learn more about How Preserve IDs options can be used?
• Create 301 SEO URLs: Crucial for maintaining your SEO rankings and link equity by automatically redirecting old Usablenet URLs to their new Magento counterparts, preventing broken links.
• Password Migration: Migrate customer passwords securely. Note that this requires a specific Magento module to be installed.
• Migrate Images in Description: Ensure product images embedded within descriptions are transferred.
• Create Variants from Attributes: Properly transfer product variants by creating them from existing attributes.

Step 6: Map Data Fields

This step involves mapping different data fields between your Usablenet (CSV) and Magento stores. You'll typically map customer groups (e.g., 'Wholesale' to 'Wholesale Customer') and order statuses (e.g., 'Pending' to 'Processing') to ensure data consistency and proper functionality in your new Magento store.

Step 7: Perform a Demo Migration (Highly Recommended)

Before committing to a full migration, conduct a free demo migration. This transfers a limited number of entities (e.g., 10 products, 10 customers, 10 orders) to your Magento store. The demo allows you to inspect the transferred data, check for any issues, and make necessary adjustments to your migration settings before the full data transfer. This step is invaluable for ensuring data integrity and a smooth transition. Learn more about our Migration Preview Service.

Step 8: Launch Full Migration

Once you are satisfied with the demo migration results, proceed with the full migration. During this stage, all your selected data will be transferred from your Usablenet CSV files to your Magento store. Consider adding a Migration Insurance Service, which offers a set number of remigrations, allowing you to re-run the process if any issues arise or if you need to transfer new data. You can find more details on How Migration Insurance works?

Post-Migration Steps

After your data has been successfully transferred to Magento, a few critical steps remain to ensure your new store is fully operational and optimized.

• Verify Data Integrity: Thoroughly review all migrated data. Check product listings (SKUs, variants, images, descriptions), customer accounts, order history, and other critical information to confirm everything transferred accurately and appears as expected.
• Configure Magento Settings: Set up essential Magento configurations, including shipping methods, payment gateways, tax rules, and store-specific settings. Reindex all Magento data, as this is strongly recommended after migration to update product prices, categories, and attributes.
• Install and Customize Theme & Extensions: Install any additional Magento extensions and customize your chosen theme to align with your brand's aesthetics and provide an optimal user experience.
• Set Up 301 Redirects: If you didn't configure 301 redirects during the migration, it's crucial to do so now. This maintains your SEO rankings by redirecting old Usablenet URLs to their new Magento counterparts, preventing 404 errors and preserving link equity.
• Perform Thorough Testing: Conduct comprehensive testing of your new Magento store. This includes testing the entire customer journey (browsing, adding to cart, checkout process), administrative functionalities, search features, and cross-browser compatibility.
• Update DNS and Go Live: Once satisfied with testing, update your domain's DNS settings to point to your new Magento store. Monitor your site's performance, traffic, and sales closely in the initial days after going live.
• Monitor and Optimize: Continuously monitor your Magento store for performance, user experience, and any potential issues. Implement ongoing SEO strategies and regularly back up your store data.

By following these steps, you can confidently navigate your store migration from Usablenet to Magento, unlocking a new era of growth and capability for your e-commerce business.