A nicely designed website is not strong enough for you to engage more shoppers in the eCommerce world. Your online store needs to have the design, functionality, and capabilities to meet your customers’ needs. For this reason, choosing the right platform to run your business is the first thing that helps you win the eCommerce race.
Since Magento officially announced the Magento 1 End of Life in 2018, there has been a considerable loss of Magento stores. Along with the sunset of Magento 1, some of the flaws of this version made many retailers decide to choose another solution. Among different alternatives for Magento, Shopify is a heavyweight champion.
According to W3Tech statistics, the global content management system (CSM) market share of Magento decreases from October 2018 to July 2020. Meanwhile, the global CSM market share of Shopify is increasing from 2.4% to 4.3%.
Both Magento and Shopify are giants in the eCommerce world. To uncover why Shopify is an ideal alternative for Magento, find out the latest analysis in Magento vs. Shopify’s detailed comparison (updated 2020).
This article will show you all the steps and methods to migrate from Magento to Shopify.
Step 1: Backup and restore
Before making any changes in your online store, you should back up your file and database. Some retailers even back up their backups to make sure the data is safe. Magento also encourages its users to backup before setting extensions and updates.
The Magento site restoring process is pretty straightforward. You can do back up easily by following these steps:
- Log in to the Magento admin panel.
- Go to System → Tools → Backups
- There are three available backup types in the upper-right corner you may want to create:
- System Backup packs the entire source code and the database into one archive.
- Database and Media backup creates a backup of the content of the database and media folder. If you want to include the media folder, select the Include Media folder to the System Backup checkbox.
- Database Backup takes your Magento store database.
- Please turn the store into maintenance mode to inform your customers to come back after the backup finishes. This mode will be turned off automatically when the backup is complete.
Backups are stored in the var/backups directory. You can restore the backups any time using the Magento setup: rollback command.
Step 2: Set up New Shopify Store
Before switching from Magento to Shopify, you need to create a Shopify store first. Start your business on Shopify by signing up and experiencing a 14-day trial. The paid plan can be selected then.
- Go to the Shopify website and click the “Start Free Trial” button on the home screen.
- Enter your Email address, Password, and Store name.
At this step, bear in mind that your store name should be unique. This name will become your default URL (storename.myshopify.com). You cannot change this, but you can buy a custom domain (yourstore.com, for instance) later on.
- Click “Create your store.”
- Fill in related information.
- Click “Enter my store,” and then you will be redirected to the Admin screen for your new site.
Step 3: How To Perform Magento to Shopify Data Migration?
Automated shopping cart migration service is the most advanced method to switch your online store from one eCommerce platform to another.
LitExtension is the World’s Leading Shopping Cart Migration Service. All your data, including products, customers, and other entities, will be migrated automatically. Currently, LitExtension has successfully performed the migration for more than 140.000 stores and over 40. our global customers, with customer satisfaction of 98%.
“LitExtension team helped us to move our e-Commerce from Magento to Shopify. Very professional and proactive service.”,
Shahram Bahadori reviewed on Trustpilot.
You can migrate by yourself or have the specified expert team do it for you. LitExtension will carry out all your moving from Magento to Shopify process from the beginning to the end.
Let’s see how easy it is to migrate your store from Magento to Shopify with LitExtension!
First, sign in to the LitExtention website with your Google account.
After registering, click the “Create new migration” green button.
In the main Dashboard, you will see four stages of the Magento to Shopify migration process: Setup, Demo Migration, Full Migration, and Complete.
- Setup
Setup Magento as your target store:
- Choose Magento as your Source Cart Type
- Insert your Magento store URL
- Download file “le_connector.” This connector will connect your Magento database with LitExtension App. Please unzip this file and upload the Connector folder to Magento’s root folder on your server.
Setup Shopify as your target store:
- Choose Shopify as your Target Cart Type
- Insert the Shopify store URL
- Enter the API Password
Here’s how you can get your Shopify API Password with LitExtension:
After filling in all the above information, click “Next: Configure your Migration.”
- Tick the data you want to transfer
The next step of your Magento to Shopify migration process is choosing which entities you want to move to your new site.
You can choose either all the data, including Products, Customers, etc. or certain entities. LitExtension supports the migration of almost all of the data, and please read and tick on the entities you desire for switching carefully.
Don’t forget to choose Additional Options that meet your business needs and requirements. For example, the “Create the 301 redirects on your target store after migration” option automatically redirects your customers from the old store to the new one when they find your store by the old URLs.
Also, Languages, Order Status, and Customer group are matched together to be displayed correspondingly in your new store.
- Run Free Demo and Full Migration
Before completing your full Magento to Shopify migration, LitExtension encourages you to run the Demo Migration. With Demo Migration, you can visualize the result on your new site.
Plus, for the migrations that cost more than $150, you can get $5 in your balance and use it to deduct the full migration!
Or, you can skip Free Demo and move to Full Migration. The full migration process automatically runs, even if there is no internet or browser connection. Therefore, you needn’t keep the browser open until migration completes. You can take a break and receive a notification email once the migration completes.
Plus, your Magento store still runs during the migration. No loss in revenue!
Here is a tutorial video of the Magento to Shopify full migration process.
Step 4: Go-live Checklist for Shopify stores
After your Magento to Shopify migration is complete, don’t forget to take extensive tests to ensure your customers’ solid experience.
- Check migration results
This step makes sure that you migrated everything correctly.
- Check products data
The products migrated are in Catalog or appear through onsite search. You should check the product details, including product descriptions, images, variants, and meta descriptions.
You can find Categories and Subcategories in the Collections and Product tags sections.
- Check customer and other data in the store’s back end.
- Design themes
After ensuring the data migration is correct, it’s time to design your storefront.
Attractive website designs have always played an essential role in successful online sales and marketing strategies. Therefore, you should pick one that is attractive, responsive, and suitable for your site content.
Shopify currently provides 73 themes, including nine free ones. You can also get beautifully designed themes from Themeforest, where there are over 1,000 Shopify themes and templates relating to Fashion, Health&Beauty, and so on.
- Set up your shipping
You need to set up shipping rates and shipping methods before letting your store go live. There are ways to minimize eCommerce shipping costs to make an efficient shipping plan for your online business.
- Establish payment methods
Paying is the last step of order processing. You can refer to some payment tips to improve your eCommerce conversion rate.
- Run Recent migration
During your Magento to Shopify migration, your Magento store still stays active and can receive orders as usual. Therefore, after performing the full migration, the old store might receive some new data.
In this case, you should use the Recent migration service. This solution will help you to transfer all these new data from Magento to Shopify. Here is how to perform it:
- Change DNS and switch domain.
DNS stands for Domain Name System. It translates your domain name to the IP address. When you migrate to a new online store, the existing domain may be invalid. As a result, all the links pointing to your sites under the previous domain will be invalid as well. Therefore, you need to change DNS to point to the new IP address and switch the domain once your migration completes.
You may find it complicated, or you don’t want to face unexpected errors when doing this switching domain by yourself; we recommend you referring to the Change DNS and Switch Domain Service.
Conclusion
To sum up, in the world of eCommerce, it is undeniable that there is an upward trend of leaving Magento. And if you are looking for another ideal platform to move to, Shopify surely is.
Please note that the migration from Magento to Shopify will require a lot of time and tech skills. Therefore, to avoid unpredictable errors and easily walk through the switching process, you can migrate the data with LitExtension.
If you have any questions, please contact the dedicated support team to have further detailed instructions. Plus, you can try a free demo migration to check how the process is carried out.
Good luck with your migration! See you in the next post!
