Is your ecommerce store loading slowly? Has your product line outgrown your website’s capabilities? Is your business falling behind its competitors? It may be time to move to a new ecommerce platform.

In this ecommerce platform migration guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about moving your site to a new platform, including:

• What ecommerce platform migration is
• Deciding whether to migrate your ecommerce site
• Choosing an ecommerce platform
• Deciding whether to migrate your site yourself or work with a third party
• Steps for migrating your ecommerce site to a new platform

What is ecommerce platform migration?

Ecommerce platform migration, also called ecommerce replatforming, is the process of transferring your ecommerce website from one platform to another.

You might transfer your site from one website builder, such as WordPress or Shopify, to another. You could also move your site from an ecommerce platform to a custom-built site or vice versa.

Should you migrate your ecommerce site?

Why do businesses switch their ecommerce stores over to new platforms, and is this something you should do?

Migrating your site is a big decision. It can be expensive and require significant time and effort. It also comes with risks and requires a transition period while your team learns how to use the new platform and you work out any bugs with your new site.

However, staying with a platform that isn’t working for your business can be much more costly in the long run.

You’ll need to weigh the costs and benefits of migrating your website to determine if it’s worth it for you.

Here are some of the reasons you might need to upgrade to a new platform.

• Poor performance: If your site isn’t performing well due to the platform it’s on, you may need to upgrade it. Perhaps your site loads too slowly, or you experience frequent technical difficulties.
• Outdated technology: Technology changes rapidly, and if you’re using an old, outdated platform, you may need to upgrade to keep up with the competition, especially if your site is missing important modern features.
• Business growth: As your company, sales, and product line grow, you might find that your old platform isn’t powerful enough for your needs.
• Opportunities for increased efficiency: Consider migrating your site if a new platform would give you significant improvements in efficiency, whether through additional automation capabilities, enhanced analytics, or simpler content management.

Evaluate the benefits your company will gain in the above areas. Then, compare those benefits to the costs, including:

• The costs of the platforms themselves
• Site maintenance costs
• The costs of hiring ecommerce platform migration specialists
• The time required to complete the transition.

Which ecommerce platform should you choose?

The platform you choose to migrate to is, of course, a crucial decision in the ecommerce replatforming process. You need to pick the right platform to make the changeover worthwhile and ensure you get the most value from your ecommerce platform migration.

Consider factors such as the following when choosing a new ecommerce platform:

• Input from multiple stakeholders: Talk with various stakeholders and departments and find out what they want from your website’s ecommerce platform.
• Platform features and capabilities: Compare the features and capabilities each platform offers and look for those that best fit your company’s needs.
• Compatibility and integrations: Make sure the platform you choose integrates well with any other tools you currently use and can work with any you plan to use in the future.
• The capabilities of your team: While it will always take some time to set up and learn a new platform, try to choose one that matches reasonably well with your team’s knowledge and abilities.
• Long-term outlook: Take a long-term view when choosing a new ecommerce platform. Select one that will meet your needs well into the future and one that’s likely to keep up with changing technology.
• Customer support: Consider the quality and accessibility of each platform’s customer support.

Should you migrate your site yourself or work with a third party?

One important question to consider when it comes to ecommerce platform migration is whether to complete the migration yourself or hire professionals to assist you.

If you choose to complete the site migration yourself, you’ll need to dedicate sufficient time to planning your migration. You must carefully prepare for and execute the changeover to avoid losing data.

Consider how comfortable and experienced you and your team are with the tasks required, such as setting up a new site, backing up data, and transferring data to the new platforms.

If you don’t feel comfortable completing the migration yourself or would rather leave it to the professionals and spend your time elsewhere, hiring a data migration company is an excellent option.

Some companies that perform data migration services can also help you design your new site. You might choose to hire a web designer and transfer the data yourself or work with one company that can handle the whole process.

Steps for migrating your ecommerce website to a new platform

What steps should you follow when migrating your ecommerce website to a new platform? Take a look at this ecommerce migration checklist and read about each step in our ecommerce platform migration guide in more detail below:

• Outline the steps of your ecommerce platform migration
• Catalog your existing content
• Design your new site
• Back up your data
• Migrate your data
• Connect plugins, email, and other tools
• Test your website
• Launch your new site
• Communicate your migration to existing customers
• Monitor your results

Outline the steps of your ecommerce platform migration

Ecommerce replatforming requires careful planning. The first step of the process is outlining everything your migration will include.

What changes will you make to your site? Are you moving everything over exactly as is, or are you going to alter your site’s navigation, product categorization, or other elements? Consider creating an ecommerce migration checklist to assist you with the transition.

Also consider the following factors:

• Domain: Make sure you have access to your domain That way, if you’re changing your website’s host, you can point your domain name server (DNS) record to the correct servers.
• Secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate: Also check on your SSL certificate to make sure you can transfer it to your new server and that it will be compatible.
• URLs: Will your URLs change after you migrate your site? If they do, you’ll need to set up 301 redirects. It’s crucial to complete this step correctly to avoid losing search engine rankings and to make sure users who access your new site via links get to your new pages.

Catalog your existing content

To successfully move everything over to your new site, you must organize all the content you want to move over from your old site.

Create an outline showing all your pages and where they’re located on your site. This list will help you keep track of all your content as you move it over to the new platform.

Design your new site

Before you can start moving your data, you’ll need to have the design for your new site ready. Design your site with your new platform in mind and set it up on a staging site — a website that isn’t live where you can test your new design.

Back up your data

Before you start migrating any of your data, make sure you back up your site. You’ll be happy you have a backup of the most recent version of your website if something goes wrong during your ecommerce data migration.

Migrate your data

Next, you can start migrating your data. Begin by migrating part of your site and test it to make sure everything works correctly. If it does, you can continue your ecommerce data migration.

You can use a file transfer protocol (FTP) agent such as FileZilla to transfer static files. If you have a dynamic site that runs on a database, you can import your database to your new web host or platform.

If the new platform’s structure is different than that of your old platform or you want to change your content, the migration process will be more involved. You’ll either manually reformat and move your data or have a developer write a custom script that automatically reads and reformats the data across platforms.

You may need to map out a separate migration process if you keep customer accounts or order histories on your current platform.

Connect plugins, email, and other tools

Once you’ve migrated your content, you can start connecting any other tools you use on your site, such as your checkout platform, chatbot service, shipping platform, and email.

If your email is hosted on your old platform’s server, you’ll need to set up your new email and have mail forwarded from your old account to the new one. Before moving your email account, back up the account, including your contacts and messages.

Test your website

Testing is essential throughout the ecommerce replatforming process. Thoroughly test pages, site elements, and functionalities as you move them over to your new site.

Some important elements to test include:

• Your website’s key pages
• Product filtering and search functions
• Website navigation
• Checkout process
• Email

These are just a few examples of the items you should test during your ecommerce platform migration. Your testing should be as comprehensive as possible.

Launch your new site

Once your content is moved over to your staging site and everything is set up, you’re ready to launch your new website. Ideally, you’ll want to launch your site at a time when few customers are online, such as late at night or early in the morning.

Once you launch your site, check your most important pages to ensure they’re working correctly and double-check that your robots.txt file allows search engines to crawl your site. Also, verify that you’re receiving form completion and checkout notifications.

Any time you make a major change to your website, you’ll likely encounter bugs. Be prepared to fix these issues quickly to make the transition as smooth as possible. Keep a backup of your old site in case anything is missing on your new site.

Communicate your migration to existing customers

You’ll also want to let your top customers know about your ecommerce platform migration. They’ll appreciate being kept in the loop, and it will keep them from getting confused when they see your site and it looks different than usual.

Monitor your results

An essential final step in our ecommerce platform migration guide is monitoring your results. In the months following your ecommerce replatforming, keep an eye on your website’s traffic, search engine rankings, conversions, and other metrics using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and MarketingCloudFX.

It’s normal to see a dip in metrics like rankings and traffic immediately following your migration, but if you completed the migration correctly, your site should recover over time.

Maximize your ecommerce platform migration’s benefits

Ecommerce platform migration is a huge job, but if you plan your process carefully and follow this guide, you’ll be on your way to success.

If you’d like professional help with your ecommerce replatforming, consider WebFX. We have more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing and a team of more than 300 experts in ecommerce web design and development, search engine optimization (SEO), and other areas.

To learn more about how we can help with your ecommerce platform migration, contact us online or at 888-601-5359.