Big Cartel to WIX Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

A Comprehensive Guide to Transitioning from Big Cartel to WIX

Steering your e-commerce journey from one platform to another can feel like a monumental task. If you're currently operating on Big Cartel and contemplating a move to WIX, you're likely seeking enhanced features, greater design flexibility, and more robust marketing tools. This guide is crafted to walk you through the entire process of migrating your store data from Big Cartel to WIX, ensuring a smooth transition with minimal disruption to your business.

While Big Cartel serves as an excellent starting point for many, WIX offers a powerful suite of tools for growing businesses, including advanced customization options, integrated marketing, and scalable e-commerce functionalities. This transition, or replatforming, involves careful data transfer, including crucial elements like products, customer information, and order history, to maintain data integrity and preserve your SEO rankings.

We will leverage a systematic, step-by-step approach to move your valuable store data. Given that Big Cartel's architecture often necessitates a file-based export for comprehensive data extraction, our migration strategy will involve exporting your Big Cartel data into CSV files, which will then be imported into your new WIX store.

Prerequisites for Migration

Before you embark on your store migration, a few preparatory steps are essential to ensure a seamless data transfer and minimize potential issues:

• Back Up Your Big Cartel Store Data: Always create a complete backup of your Big Cartel store's information. This includes product details, customer lists, order history, and any unique content. While the migration process is secure, having your own backup provides an extra layer of safety.
• Set Up Your WIX Store: Create your WIX account and establish the basic framework of your new store. You don't need to add products or extensive content at this stage, but the fundamental store setup must be complete. For more guidance on preparing your target store, refer to our FAQ: How to prepare Target store for migration?
• Export Big Cartel Data to CSV: Big Cartel stores typically require data to be exported into CSV (Comma Separated Values) files. This will be the primary method for extracting your products, product categories, customers, orders, and other entities. Ensure your exported CSVs are well-organized and include all necessary data fields like SKUs, variants, prices, descriptions, and customer contact information.
• Access Credentials for WIX: Have your WIX login credentials readily available, along with any necessary API keys or access tokens if required for connecting external services.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

Follow these steps to transfer your e-commerce data from Big Cartel (via CSV) to WIX using an automated migration wizard.

Step 1: Initiate Your Migration

Begin by navigating to the migration service platform. This is your starting point for orchestrating the data transfer.

Step 2: Configure Your Source Store (Big Cartel via CSV)

Since Big Cartel requires a file-based export for comprehensive data, you will select 'CsvToCart' as your source platform in the migration wizard. This method is designated for source stores that connect via files only, meaning no plugin is required on your Big Cartel side for this connection. You will then upload the CSV files containing your Big Cartel data.

• Connection Method: File only
• Limitations & Notices: This is a source-only method, meaning it's used to extract data from your CSV files.
• Plugin Requirements: No plugin required.

For more details on migrating data using CSV files, please visit our CSV.File Data Migration service page.

Step 3: Set Up Your Target Store (WIX)

Next, select WIX as your target e-commerce platform. Provide the necessary store URL and any required API access details. The wizard will establish a connection to your WIX store, preparing it to receive your Big Cartel data.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Transfer

This critical step allows you to specify exactly what data you wish to move to WIX. You can choose to migrate all available entities or select them individually based on your business needs. Supported entities for migration from your Big Cartel CSV files include:

• Products, including variants and SKUs
• Product Categories
• Product Manufacturers
• Product Reviews
• Customers
• Orders
• Invoices
• Taxes
• Store information
• Coupons
• CMS Pages
• Blogs and Blog Posts

Step 5: Data Mapping Setup

Here, you will map your Big Cartel data fields to the corresponding fields in WIX. This ensures that customer groups, order statuses, and other custom attributes are correctly translated and organized in your new store. For example, you’ll match 'Pending' orders from Big Cartel to 'Pending Payment' in WIX, or 'Wholesale Customer' to a relevant customer group in WIX.

Step 6: Choose Additional Migration Options

The wizard offers several additional options to customize your data transfer. Consider these to enhance the migration and ensure data integrity:

• Clear Target Store Data: This option allows you to remove any existing data from your WIX store before the migration, ensuring a clean slate. Learn more about this option here: Clear current data on Target store before migration option.
• Preserve IDs: Keep original IDs for categories, products, customers, and orders. This is beneficial for maintaining historical data connections. Understand how this works: How Preserve IDs options can be used?
• Create 301 Redirects: Crucial for SEO, this option helps preserve your existing search engine rankings by automatically creating redirects from your old Big Cartel URLs to your new WIX URLs. This maintains valuable link equity.
• Migrate Customer Passwords: Securely transfer customer passwords to WIX, offering a seamless login experience for your returning customers.
• Migrate Images in Product Descriptions: Ensure all embedded images within your product descriptions are transferred correctly.
• SEO URLs: Preserve the SEO-friendly URLs from your Big Cartel store for improved search visibility on WIX.
• Create Variants from Attributes: If your Big Cartel products use attributes (e.g., size, color), this option can help generate corresponding product variants in WIX.

Step 7: Perform Demo or Full Migration

It's highly recommended to run a free demo migration first. This allows you to preview how a limited set of your data will appear on WIX, giving you a chance to make adjustments before committing to the full transfer. Once satisfied, proceed with the full migration. Consider adding a Migration Insurance Service for peace of mind, which offers additional remigrations if needed. You can learn more about its benefits here: How Migration Insurance works?

Post-Migration Steps

Once your data has successfully transitioned to WIX, several critical post-migration tasks remain to ensure your new store is fully operational and optimized:

• Verify All Migrated Data: Thoroughly check your WIX store. Confirm that all products, customer accounts, orders, images, and other content have been transferred accurately and completely. Pay attention to details like product SKUs, prices, descriptions, and customer order history.
• Test Store Functionality: Conduct comprehensive testing of your WIX store. This includes placing test orders, checking payment gateways, verifying shipping calculations, testing search functionality, and ensuring customer account logins work seamlessly.
• Configure 301 Redirects: If you didn't use an automated option during migration, manually set up 301 redirects from your old Big Cartel URLs to the new WIX URLs. This is vital for maintaining your SEO rankings and link equity, preventing broken links, and ensuring a smooth user experience.
• Update DNS Records: Point your domain name to your new WIX store by updating your DNS settings. This makes your WIX store live to the public.
• Set Up Shipping, Payment, and Taxes: Configure all your shipping zones, methods, tax rules, and payment gateways within your WIX dashboard.
• Customize Your WIX Store: Take advantage of WIX's design tools and app market to customize your store's appearance and enhance its features. Explore WIX apps for marketing, analytics, and customer service to optimize your operations.
• Communicate with Customers: Inform your existing customers about the platform change. Provide clear instructions if they need to reset passwords or re-login.
• Consider a Recent Data Migration Service: If there was a period between your initial data export from Big Cartel and the full migration, new orders or customer sign-ups might have occurred. A recent data migration can transfer these latest changes, ensuring no data is left behind.

By following this comprehensive guide, you can confidently navigate the migration from Big Cartel to WIX, setting your e-commerce business up for continued growth and success on its new platform.