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

As an e-commerce merchant, the decision to replatform your online store is a strategic one, often driven by the need for greater flexibility, scalability, and enhanced control over your digital storefront. If you're currently operating on Rakuten and considering a move to Magento, you're looking to transition from a marketplace model to a robust, self-hosted e-commerce platform renowned for its powerful features and extensive customization options.

This comprehensive guide is designed to walk you through every critical step of migrating your store data from Rakuten to Magento. Given Rakuten's nature as a marketplace, the migration process will primarily involve exporting your valuable data into CSV files and then importing it into your new Magento environment. We'll cover the essential preparations, the detailed migration wizard steps, and crucial post-migration tasks to ensure a smooth transition, preserving your SEO rankings, customer data, and overall store integrity.

Prerequisites for Migration

Before embarking on your data migration journey, ensuring both your source (Rakuten) and target (Magento) environments are properly prepared is paramount. This foundational work will significantly reduce potential hurdles and streamline the entire process.

Preparing Your Rakuten Store (Source)

• Data Export: As Rakuten typically operates as a marketplace, direct API connections for a full data transfer are generally not available in the same way as with self-hosted carts. You will need to export your store data – including products (with SKUs and variants), customer information, order history, and potentially product reviews – into CSV (Comma Separated Values) files. Familiarize yourself with Rakuten's seller dashboard to locate and download these export functionalities.
• Data Audit: Before exporting, perform a thorough audit of your Rakuten data. Clean up any outdated product listings, redundant customer profiles, or irrelevant information. This ensures you're only migrating clean, essential data.
• Access: Ensure you have full administrative access to your Rakuten seller account to perform all necessary data exports. For more details on preparing your source, refer to our guide on source store preparation.

Preparing Your Magento Store (Target)

• Magento Installation: You must have a fully installed and operational Magento store ready to receive data. This includes setting up your hosting, domain, and a fresh Magento instance.
• Administrative Access: You'll need full administrative login credentials for your Magento backend (adminLogin, adminPwd, adminUrl).
• FTP/SFTP Access: To establish a connection for data transfer, you'll need FTP or SFTP access to your Magento server's root directory. This is where you'll upload the connection bridge file. Unsure what a root folder is? Read our guide on finding your root folder.
• Hosting Resources: Ensure your hosting environment meets Magento's system requirements and has sufficient resources (CPU, RAM, disk space) to handle the incoming data and Magento's demands.
• Backup (Optional but Recommended): Although you'll be migrating to a new Magento instance, it's always good practice to perform a full backup of your Magento database before any significant data operations.
• Plugin Requirements: Magento password migration often requires a specific module, and review migration may require checking the reviews table dependency. Be prepared to address these plugin needs.
• Target Store Readiness: For a deeper dive into preparing your target store, consult our guide on target store preparation.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your preparations complete, you're ready to initiate the data transfer. This guide outlines the process using an automated migration tool, simplifying the complex task of moving your e-commerce assets.

Step 1: Kickstarting Your Migration

Begin by accessing the migration wizard. This is your starting point for setting up and managing your store migration. You can choose to start a full migration or opt for a free demo migration to see how the process works with a limited dataset.

Step 2: Configuring Your Source (Rakuten via CSV)

Since Rakuten is a marketplace platform, data will be migrated from CSV files. In the wizard, you will select 'CSV File to Cart' as your Source Cart Type. Then, upload the CSV files you exported from your Rakuten seller account, containing your products, customer information, orders, and other relevant entities.

Step 3: Setting Up Your Target (Magento)

Next, configure your target Magento store. Select 'Magento' from the dropdown list of supported platforms. You will then be prompted to provide your Magento store's URL. Crucially, you'll need to download a 'Connection Bridge' file. Unpack this file and upload the 'bridge2cart' folder to the root directory of your Magento installation via FTP/SFTP. This bridge facilitates a secure connection for data transfer between the migration tool and your new Magento store. You'll also input your Magento admin credentials for verification.

Step 4: Selecting Data Entities

This critical step allows you to choose exactly which types of data you want to transfer from your Rakuten CSV files to Magento. The most common entities include:

• Products (including SKUs, descriptions, images, variants from attributes)
• Product Categories
• Customers (including customer IDs)
• Orders (including order IDs, statuses, and invoices)
• Product Reviews
• Manufacturers
• Coupons
• CMS Pages

You can select all entities with a single click or meticulously pick and choose based on your needs. This ensures that only the relevant data is moved, maintaining data integrity and a clean store environment.

Step 5: Data Mapping

Data mapping is where you match the fields from your Rakuten CSV data to the corresponding fields in your new Magento store. This ensures that information like customer groups (e.g., 'Wholesale' in Rakuten mapping to a 'Wholesale' group in Magento) and order statuses (e.g., 'Pending' in Rakuten mapping to 'Pending' in Magento) are correctly assigned. Accurate mapping is vital for preserving the logic and structure of your store's operations and customer interactions.

Step 6: Additional Migration Options

This step presents a range of powerful additional options to customize your migration, optimize performance, and ensure SEO preservation. Consider these valuable enhancements:

• Migrate Images in Description: Ensure product images embedded in descriptions are transferred.
• Clear Target Store Data: This option, explained further in Clear current data on Target store before migration option, removes existing data from your Magento store before migration, ensuring a clean slate.
• Preserve IDs: Maintain original Category, Product, Customer, and Order IDs. Learn more about how Preserve IDs options can be used.
• Create Variants from Attributes: If your Rakuten products have attributes that define variants (e.g., size, color), this option helps structure them correctly in Magento.
• SEO URLs & Create 301 SEO URLs: Crucial for maintaining your search engine rankings and link equity. This option ensures that your old Rakuten product/category URLs redirect seamlessly to their new Magento counterparts, preventing 404 errors.
• Password Migration: Migrate customer passwords to Magento. Note that this typically requires a specific Magento module for secure transfer.
• Migrate Store Config: Transfer essential store configuration settings.

Step 7: Launching the Full Migration

After reviewing all your selections, including entities, mapping, and additional options, you're ready to initiate the full data transfer. At this stage, you might also consider a Migration Insurance Plan, which offers a set number of remigrations for a specified period, providing peace of mind. Our FAQ on Migration Insurance provides more details. Once started, the migration process runs on secure servers, meaning you don't need to keep your browser open or your computer on.

Post-Migration Steps

Once the data transfer is complete, there are several crucial steps to finalize your Magento store, ensuring everything operates smoothly and efficiently.

1. Verify Data Integrity: Systematically check your new Magento store. Ensure all products, categories, customer accounts, orders, images, and reviews (if migrated) have transferred correctly and display as expected. Pay close attention to product SKUs, prices, stock levels, and customer order histories.
2. Configure Magento Specifics:
   • Reindex Magento Data: This is a critical step for Magento. After a bulk data import, you must reindex all Magento data (products, categories, prices, etc.) to ensure your catalog and search functionalities work correctly and reflect the new data. Failure to reindex can lead to missing products or incorrect information on your storefront.
   • Install Theme and Extensions: Set up your chosen Magento theme and any necessary extensions (e.g., payment gateways, shipping modules, SEO tools, analytics).
   • Configure Store Settings: Reconfigure payment methods, shipping zones, tax rules, currency settings, and email templates specific to your new Magento environment.
3. SEO Optimization:
   • Verify 301 Redirects: Double-check that all 301 redirects set up during the migration are functioning correctly. This is vital for preserving your hard-earned SEO rankings and ensuring a seamless user experience.
   • Update Google Search Console: Inform Google of your site's new structure and submit new sitemaps.
   • Check for Broken Links: Use a broken link checker to identify and fix any internal or external links that might have been missed.
4. Thorough Testing: Conduct extensive testing of your entire Magento store. This includes:
   • Product browsing and search functionality.
   • Adding items to the cart and the complete checkout process.
   • Customer account registration, login, and order history.
   • All forms (contact, newsletter, etc.).
   • Responsiveness across different devices.
5. Go Live: Once you are confident that your Magento store is fully functional and all data is accurate, update your DNS records to point your domain to the new Magento site.
6. Recent Data Migration: For any new orders or customer registrations that occurred on your Rakuten store during the migration period, consider using a Recent Data Migration service to transfer these latest updates.

Migrating from Rakuten to Magento is a significant undertaking, but with careful planning and execution, it can lead to a powerful, flexible, and scalable e-commerce platform. If you encounter any unique challenges or require specialized solutions, our team is ready to assist with migration customization services. Don't hesitate to contact us for expert guidance throughout your transition.