Regardless of why you’re leaving BigCommerce for Shopify, switching between the 2 platforms is an endeavor.

Sadly, a fast copy and paste job gained’t work. However, a BigCommerce to Shopify migration is definitely carried out once you comply with this step-by-step course of.

BigCommerce vs. Shopify

At first look, evaluating BigCommerce vs. Shopify doesn’t yield many variations. The characteristic units are extremely comparable, and the value factors are practically equivalent.

Shopify pricing ranges from $29 to $299 a month. BigCommerce pricing ranges from $29.95 to $299.95. Each platforms provide a free trial. BigCommerce offers clients an additional day for a 15-day trial. Each provide a ten% for committing to an annual plan. It can save you 20% with Shopify when you commit to 2 years.

The true distinction lies of their audience. The Shopify platform is best suited towards smaller boutique shops and dropshipping companies. The BigCommerce platform, then again, is geared towards bigger manufacturers and on-line shops.

There’s no simple copy and paste migration answer as a result of the underlying structure that helps the software program as a service (SaaS) answer is completely different.

Methods to Migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify

There are 3 ways to strategy migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify. Which one it’s best to use relies on how a lot time, cash, and technical expertise you may have. In the event you don’t have the funds to rent somebody to do it for you or pay for an automatic app, then you definitely’ll have to make use of the handbook technique we define right here.

Rent Somebody to Assist You

You possibly can rent an expert or an company to help you with the migration. They’ll overview your technical necessities after which get the information from BigCommerce and set up it in your Shopify account.

You gained’t must spend time doing it your self, and in the event that they run into any technical points, will probably be as much as them to repair them.

This strategy, nevertheless, may turn into fairly costly. Most net improvement companies will cost lots of to 1000’s of {dollars} for the service. Your quote will rely on the scale of your retailer and the way shortly you want the undertaking accomplished.

Use a Migration Software

A number of instruments make it doable emigrate between ecommerce platforms. Utilizing a platform like Cart2Cart could make the migration course of simple because it automates all the things. For as little as $29, you may have the instrument deal with all the things for you. However, if you’d like the instrument to care for your 301 redirects from BitCommerce to Shopify, you’ll pay one other $59.

Nevertheless, the nice factor is you could join and arrange the migration totally free. You utilize a migration wizard to set issues up. If you wish to see the way it works earlier than beginning the method together with your retailer, you should utilize the free demo migration. After about half-hour, the entire thing is completed, and you’ll overview the goal retailer pattern to find out it’s what you anticipate it to be.

Past Cart2Cart, you can too use:

Guide Migration

Even when you don’t have a variety of technical experience, you may simply migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify by yourself. The migration course of solely takes a few hours.

The majority of this time goes to reviewing the information after importing it to the Shopify platform. It solely takes a couple of minutes to obtain all of the CSV information from BigCommerce and add them to Shopify.

Step 1: Join Your Shopify Account

Earlier than starting the BigCommerce to Shopify migration course of, you have to first create your Shopify account. Whenever you join, you’ll have a 14-day free trial. It’s essential to present your billing info to take away the password safety out of your retailer and begin processing gross sales.

You’ll fill out some details about your retailer, corresponding to your business and income. It’s okay when you’re simply getting began. The ultimate step is offering a billing tackle and indicating whether or not or not it is a registered enterprise.

At this level, you’ll wish to use the assigned subdomain. Including your area will cease your BigCommerce retailer from functioning appropriately throughout the transition.

Configure Primary Administrative Settings

Earlier than gathering the information you could import, take a number of moments to finish the preliminary retailer setup, together with transport settings, tax settings, employees accounts, and many others.

Step 2: Export BigCommerce Knowledge

When you’ve created your Shopify account, you’ll want to collect the information from BigCommerce.

Product Knowledge

Out of your BigCommerce dashboard:

1. Go to Merchandise > Export.
2. Choose the Default Export Template and File Format choices.
3. A dialog field will seem. Click on Export my merchandise to a CSV file. Shut the dialog field. The CSV file will obtain to your pc.
4. Now, return to the Export Template and File Format Choices. Choose Bulk Edit and click on Proceed.
5. Click on Export My Merchandise to a CSV file, then click on Shut. One other CSV file that accommodates further product particulars and variant information will obtain to your pc.

Buyer Knowledge

Out of your BigCommerce dashboard:

1. Go to Prospects > Export.
2. Choose the Default Export Template and File Format choices.
3. A dialog field will seem. Click on Export my clients to a CSV file. Shut the dialog field. The CSV file will obtain to your pc.

Word: You possibly can’t migrate buyer passwords due to encryption. Prospects should reset passwords and activate their accounts. Shopify Plus customers can use the Bulk Account Inviter instrument to ship clients an e-mail to immediate them to reset their password and create their accounts.

Order Knowledge

Out of your BigCommerce dashboard:

1. Go to Orders > Export.
2. Choose the Default Export Template and File Format choices.
3. A dialog field will seem. Click on Export my orders to a CSV file. Shut the dialog field. The CSV file will obtain to your pc.

Step 3: Import BigCommerce Retailer Knowledge to Shopify Retailer

After you’ve downloaded the CSV information you want from BigCommerce, it’s time to import information into your Shopify Retailer. The simplest approach to do that is to make use of the Retailer Importer app from the Shopify App Retailer.

Out of your Shopify Admin panel:

1. Go to Apps > Retailer Importer.
2. On the Import your information into Shopify web page, select BigCommerce from the drop-down menu.
3. Underneath Add information, click on Add file and select the exported information. You possibly can select as many information as you want.
4. Click on Proceed Import > Import.

Notes: Whenever you import product information, be sure to add each the default and bulk edit templates to permit for correct information import.

In the event you discover that the Retailer Importer web page has chosen the fallacious platform, scroll to the underside of the web page. Click on Choose a distinct platform, then select BigCommerce from the drop-down menu.

Step 4: Preview and Audit Content material for Accuracy

If the information import was profitable, all of your product, buyer, and order information is on the market within the Shopify dashboard.

Evaluate the information to verify all the things imported appropriately. You possibly can add them manually when you discover that particular orders, clients, or merchandise haven’t imported correctly.

Orders imported from BigCommerce or another ecommerce platform are solely migrated for historic functions. The orders are routinely set to Archived standing. It’s doable to unarchive them, however you gained’t have the ability to carry out duties on these orders such as you would with Shopify orders.

Step 5: Manually Add Knowledge if Essential

In the event you discover that your import disregarded some info, you’ll wish to add any lacking information manually.

Importing a Second Time (If You Discover Errors)

In the event you missed one thing in your first import, you may import retailer information once more on high of the prevailing import. Click on Begin new import.

If the earlier import contains buyer information, then the shoppers are up to date. They’re matched by e-mail tackle after which phone quantity if an e-mail tackle is unavailable. When matches are discovered, data are up to date accordingly.

• Advertising subscriptions and tax-exempt statuses are overwritten.
• Notes, addresses, and tags from the import are added.
• If the prevailing document has empty first title, final title, or phone fields, however the info is within the imported document, will probably be up to date to incorporate the knowledge.

In case your new import information accommodates merchandise already in your Shopify retailer, the brand new import skips them. You’ll see an inventory of skipped merchandise within the import abstract after the import completes.

 

Manually Add Merchandise

To manually add merchandise to your Shopify retailer out of your desktop:

1. Go to your Shopify dashboard and navigate to Merchandise.
2. From that web page, click on Add product.
3. Enter your product title, description, and extra info.
4. Click on Save.

The method is comparable on the Android and iPhone apps.

 

Manually Add Prospects

To manually add clients to your Shopify retailer out of your desktop:

1. Go to your Shopify dashboard and navigate to Prospects.
2. From that web page, click on Add buyer.
3. Enter your buyer info. If the client has agreed to obtain advertising e-mail and you’ve got their e-mail tackle, verify the Buyer agreed to obtain advertising emails field within the Buyer Overview part.
4. Within the Tax Exemptions part, verify Acquire tax for purchasers the place you cost gross sales tax. If the client lives in Canada and is tax-exempt, click on Browse or search exemptions and choose all of the tax exemptions that apply.
5. Click on Save.

The method is comparable on the Android and iPhone apps.

 

Step 6: Design Components and Ending Touches

As soon as the knowledge is imported, reviewed, and corrected as wanted, it’s time to make sure all of the design components are in place.

You should utilize one of many free themes within the Shopify Theme Market or pay for a premium one. In the event you can’t discover something that works for you, there’s all the time the choice of getting a customized theme constructed, however this could get costly shortly.

Step 7: Join Your Area to Your Shopify Retailer

After you’ve confirmed and reviewed the imported information, you may join your area to Shopify. As soon as linked, your clients will go to your Shopify retailer slightly than your BigCommerce one. Till you add your area, your clients will solely entry the brand new retailer with the Shopify retailer URL, which appears like this: subdomain.shopify.com.

Out of your Shopify admin panel:

Go to Settings > Domains.

Click on Join Present Area. In the event you don’t see this, click on Actions, then Join Present Area.

Click on View Directions. This can information you by pointing your area to your Shopify account for the reason that directions fluctuate barely relying in your area registrar.

Comply with the directions together with your area registrar, and return to Shopify to confirm the connection. It might take as much as 48 hours for the method to finish. In the event you’re nonetheless having points after 48 hours, contact your area registrar for assist.

Alternatively, you may switch your area to Shopify if you wish to handle your area from inside your Shopify admin.

After the area is connected, when you couldn’t use the identical URL construction throughout all of your pages and merchandise, you’ll have to arrange 301 redirects. This tells Google that the previous BigCommerce URL ought to ahead to the brand new Shopify URL. This step is essential to making sure you don’t lose any search engine rankings.

In your Shopify dashboard, go to On-line Retailer > Navigation. Search for URL Redirects. This can permit you to redirect your BigCommerce URLs to the brand new Shopify ones. Utilizing an app like Straightforward Redirects will save time when you’ve got a big website.

Troubleshooting Your BigCommerce to Shopify Migration

In an ideal world, your retailer import will run easily. Nevertheless, some customers could have points with transferring information from BigCommerce to their new on-line retailer.

Widespread Import Points

After the information switch is full, you’ll see an import abstract web page with particulars. Right here’s what these messages imply and what to do to unravel the problems.

Some merchandise, clients, or orders didn’t import

In the event you discover this occurs, you may manually add what’s lacking. Remember that when you’ve got a number of clients with the identical e-mail tackle or telephone quantity, these is not going to be a part of the import. If two extra clients have the identical e-mail or telephone, then you definitely’ll solely see the latest buyer entry.

Merchandise imported efficiently however aren’t printed

In the event you had any BigCommerce merchandise hidden once you exported all the information, the merchandise are imported to the goal retailer as hidden. Make it out there on your chosen gross sales channels if you wish to publish the product.

Product variants didn’t import

In case your product has variants and one is lacking an possibility, the product gained’t be imported. You’ll want so as to add the product manually.

For instance, when you promote necklaces in numerous lengths and colours, every product wants info for each the size and the colour. If one of many variants contains shade info however not size, the product gained’t import.

Imported merchandise now not have their dimensions

If you could add product dimensions on your clients, add the knowledge on to the product description.

Tags utilized to imported data

The Retailer Importer app routinely provides tags to imported data. It provides tags to make it simpler to search out stuff you’ve imported so you may overview them and make edits the place essential.

The tags fluctuate based mostly on the platform you’re importing information from. In the event you use tags to arrange your retailer, these tags could create points. Your clients may even see these tags. To alleviate this problem, take away the tags after you’ve reviewed the imported data.

Deleting a Knowledge Import

In the event you’re sad with the information switch, you may delete it. In case your import accommodates many failed gadgets, it might save time to take away the import and take a look at once more.

It’s solely doable to delete the latest import. It’s essential to look forward to the information to utterly delete earlier than beginning one other import.

1. On the “Import Full” web page, click on “Delete import.”
2. On the dialog field that seems, click on “Delete import.”
3. As soon as the imported information are deleted, click on “Begin new import” to begin one other import.

Able to Make the Transfer?

In the event you’re prepared to maneuver from BigCommerce to Shopify ecommerce platform, you’ll have to do some prep work earlier than you get began. Examine all of your retailer information to verify it’s crammed out as utterly as doable earlier than beginning the export course of.

As soon as all the things is transferred over, spend time trying over all the things at your new on-line retailer. Double-check search engine marketing URLs for all pages. Evaluate web page titles and meta descriptions. Examine that every one pictures are in place and hyperlinks work accordingly.

Have you ever migrated from BigCommerce to Shopify earlier than? What technique did you utilize? Did the method work as anticipated for you? Share your expertise within the feedback to assist our readers.