Any time your current platform sets limitations on the operations or growth of your business, you may find yourself in need of an eCommerce platform migration. There are many aspects of online operation that can be fixed with updates and developments, and then there are structures and features that limit or enhance the functionality of your store. If the platform you are currently on does not provide you with the functionality to offer the experience your customers demand, you may need to seriously consider an eCommerce platform migration.
eCommerce platform migration (or eCommerce replatforming) and eCommerce data migration can be some of the most intimidating subjects online business owners will ever have to face. Businesses considering website migrations have to consider the effects this would have on their business operations. A migration process can affect user experience and SEO, and if not performed properly, can leave you scrambling to recover lost data and customer accounts.
At 1Digital® Agency, we have performed hundreds of successful eCommerce platform and data migrations over the years – just look at our reviews. Whether our clients need to migrate from an open-source platform like WordPress or a platform like Volusion, Shopify, or Magento to an enterprise-level platform like Shopify Plus Enterprise, BigCommerce Enterprise, or Magento Enterprise, we work with them and leverage our time-tested, time-proven process to deliver results.
Let’s Start Scoping Out Your Project
1Digital® has migrated hundreds of stores from old outdated platforms to new eCommerce platforms. The difference in eCommerce platforms can be night and day. We’ve helped migrate clients from outdated Yahoo carts to BigCommerce or Magento, and we’ve seen 10x improvements! From usability to SEO, client engagement, e.g. You can’t afford not to move! Let 1Digital® help migrate your precious data from your old shopping cart to a new one we’ll pick together!
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eCommerce Platform Migration Services
Platform migrations occur for many reasons. Perhaps your current platform limits the growth of your online business, or maybe, with an increase in customer data, you are finding that your website is outdated, slow-performing, functions poorly or doesn’t offer the kind of shopping experience your customers want. Whatever the reason, your search for a better platform makes it clear to you that your business needs a change in order to continue to succeed online. To complete a successful platform migration, or replatforming, you’re going to need a team that can help migrate all of your files, products, customer data, and more to your new destination. 1Digital® is that team. We’ve conducted hundreds of successful platform migrations for a variety of eCommerce businesses on big-name platforms like BigCommerce, Shopify Plus, Magento, Volusion, and more.
Don’t Trust Your Data to “Just Anyone”
Go with the Experts
eCommerce Data Migration Services
eCommerce Website Migration Services
A Proven Track Record with Migration
Transferring data from one eCommerce website to another requires a thorough and meticulous process. It includes the transfer of product images and attributes, customer and order history data, cloud storage, SEO data, 3rd party integrations and workflows, and more. If you’re considering a data migration, it’s likely because your business is growing and you need to expand with it. However, it’s important to remember that the process of a data migration cannot be taken lightly. Poorly planned and executed data movements from one place to another could result in a loss of all the data you’ve worked hard to collect which could lead to poor website performance after the migration.
1Digital® Agency offers top-notch eCommerce migration services that will export your current data (including but not limited to on-page content, reviews, and blogs), restructure the data to ensure optimal performance, clean the data to ensure there is no duplicate, outdated, or incorrect data, and then, finally, import your newly organized data into your new target system and implement testing to ensure proper data integration, 301 redirects, URL structure, and more.
Unlike a platform migration or a data migration, a website migration usually involves changing URLs, changing domain names, merging websites, switching from HTTP to HTTPS, optimizing the URL structure and/or website architecture, and more. An unplanned or improper site migration plan can result in heavy data loss and operational system failure that results in a significant drop in rankings. To avoid any of the issues that could evolve from a website migration, it’s important to have migration experts that can address every step of a migration process from planning, prepping, testing, and launching to reviewing and fixing any bugs or issues that might pop up. 1Digital® Agency has led countless migration projects to success by following a proven step-by-step plan that carefully, diligently, and expertly handles all aspects of an eCommerce website migration.
No matter how many times you’ve performed a data migration (trust us, we’ve done quite a few), unexpected twists and turns are bound to arise. Every system of data exhibits little idiosyncrasies, such as a unique naming scheme here or a set of duplicate products there. The advantage of working with an agency, like 1Digital®, that’s experienced in platform and data migrations, is that we see those issues coming from a mile away. An automatic migration program will just dump your data into the new platform, and if something doesn’t fit quite right, that’s a shame. You get what you get, and you’ll need to fix it later. Our migration scripts, however, are set up manually by our developers after taking the time to investigate your data. We’ll let you know if there’s an issue with the way your data is configured, so we can fix it before you end up on your new platform with half the information you thought you had.
We’ll Make Sure Nothing Gets Left Behind
Product Data
Customer Data
Order History
SEO Data
and a lot more!
Migrate to/from any Platform
The Most Accurate Data Migration
Every platform is a little different. Data will rarely align perfectly between two different systems, but you can mitigate those changes if you’re smart about it. That’s where a professional data migration agency, like 1Digital®, comes in. We can create custom fields or rename certain values to make sure that all your data finds a new home in your new system. Your new platform won’t be exactly like your old one, but with a little effort, your data will stay familiar and accessible.
If your platform can no longer offer the support and functionality your online business needs to grow, it may be time to look elsewhere.
An eCommerce platform migration may be able to solve some of your current problems, but migration comes with risk and some of these risks involve the issues of data security and data loss. Information like product data, customer data, and order history data are all critical to the operation and success of your eCommerce business. Without them, customers would come to your site one day and be greeted by an error – that’s not good for user experience.
The issues that can arise from data management are innumerable. Every platform is a little different from the next. Without careful planning and delivering the right data migration processes, data will not fit or synchronize perfectly when making the switch from one system to another. Issues that might arise from an eCommerce site migration, however, can be mitigated if careful and thorough planning and consideration.
That’s where a professional data migration agency, like 1Digital®, comes in. Our processes are proven, effective, and thorough. It’s no secret that we’ve performed hundreds of successful site migrations over the years that include creating custom fields and customer groups, search tool functionality, retail and B2B pricing, subscription boxes, and more. An upgraded platform will be able to offer your website additional functionality over your old platform, and with some help from the professionals at 1Digital®, all of your data will end up right where it needs to be and exactly how it should.
OUR DATA MIGRATION PROCESSInitial Data Transfer
The majority of your data will go into your new platform while we’re working on the design and development of your new site. This saves everyone a lot of time because our migration scripts can run in the background while we focus on other things. Once the data has fully migrated you’ll be able to check it out and see how it fits into the backend of your new eCommerce platform. You’ll be able to take a second look at how your data fits into the frontend after the new site design has been migrated as well. At each stage, we’ll be able to do a thorough double-check to make certain that all the data has found a new place to live on both the backend and frontend of your new eCommerce site.
Pre-Launch Data Resync
A new site redesign, on a new platform, can take weeks or months. We would never ask you to stop running your business, or run it with one hand tied behind your back, while we work. Instead, we include a complimentary data re-sync as part of every data migration we do. You can continue to update products, prices, and categories after we’ve taken your data. You will most certainly take more orders and get more customers during that time. Just before launch, we’ll simply resync the changes that have been made on to the data in the live store during development. That way your data remains as current as possible when you launch your new eCommerce store.
301 Redirects & Google Search Console Support
When you change platforms your URLs will change ever so slightly, even when you keep the same domain. As part of our platform migrations, we include a 301 redirect. 301 Redirects are kind of like giving Google your website’s forwarding address. We’ll let them know that, even though your URLs may look different, they should still confer all the domain authority and positive rankings onto your new site that they did on your old one. 301 Redirects are an essential part of any platform to platform migration.
In addition to 301 redirects, we also offer extended Google Search Console Support. Even when your 301 redirects are done perfectly, it’s possible Google will get confused when crawling your brand new site. They may slap errors or even organic ranking punishments on you for things you’re not even aware of. As part of our Google Search Console Support, we’ll keep an eye on your Google Search Console for a few weeks after the new site launches. If we do see Google has raised any flags, we’ll investigate them and recommend fixes if they’re something you need to be worried about.
Keep Your Data and Your Custom Functionality
Your data isn’t the only thing that might have to change to fit in nicely with your new eCommerce platform. If you’ve had custom elements designed for your current store, chances are good they won’t interact the exact same way when integrated into the new eCommerce system. When a client comes to us with a lot of custom functionality and they want to change platforms, we roll up our sleeves and get to work. We identify each piece of non-standard functionality on your store and figure out how best to rebuild it to work with your new eCommerce platform. With the help of a professional data migration agency, you can have your new eCommerce platform and keep your current customizations too.
Accounting for data management is critical to a successful migration, but data is not the only thing that needs to transfer across the platforms smoothly. Any custom design elements that were created for your online store, or even apps or other custom developed features, may not interact with the new platform exactly as they did on the old one.
No two websites are the same, no two platforms are the same, and no two eCommerce migrations are the same. It takes a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work to identify each element of non-standard functionality on your website. At 1Digital®, we identify how to integrate this functionality with your new store before we even begin the process of data transfer and migration. It’s critical that all design elements, applications, and data integrate well into your new platform to ensure that it is ready to roll once it goes live.
Our process is proven by results, and there’s no reason to go through with a platform or data migration project if you can’t even keep the custom functionality on your online store. As a full-service eCommerce platform and date migration company, our complex, multi-step process ensures that when you get to your new platform, everything is synched, integrated and functional, just as it’s supposed to be.
Stover & Company
Scaling with Migration and Advanced Development
Stover & Company specializes in wholesale distribution of bakery and confectionery supplies, as well as packaging. If it goes into something sweet, they sell it. Much of their business is done with other businesses, and they have robust warehousing, packing, and logistical capabilities that they wanted to come across from a newly designed website. They also had a vast amount of customer, order, product, and category information that they needed handled diligently and transferred responsibly - all over to a new store that was easier to manage and scale.
Platform to Platform
Stover & Company had previously built their online operations on an open-source platform. This gave them a lot of flexibility with customization and design but was resource-intensive to develop, manage and support. BigCommerce, with its out-of-the-box functionality, gave Stover & Company most of the flexibility they desired, and our developers all of the ability they needed to create a virtual storefront that promotes Stover’s enterprise-level, storing, and shipping capabilities, along with their encyclopedic collection of specialty products and ingredients.
Custom Advanced Development
In addition to creating an entirely updated, more modern looking online storefront for Stover & Company, 1Digital® Agency also enhanced their navigational hierarchy and product categorization, as well as promoting their capabilities on their product pages. We created a new mega menu that neatly presented their carefully arranged product categories, giving their highest-selling products the top spot. We also provided product-page visuals to enhance the customer experience, displaying the in-stock status of products as well as Stover’s ability to add cold packing, with special badges.
Maintaining Traffic and Growing Business
Transferring all of Stover’s data without an adverse impact on traffic or business was vital. Our migration process includes extensive 301 redirect implementation - that way, even when URLs change, there’s no loss of traffic. Stover & Company also partnered with 1Digital® Agency for a large SEO campaign targeting a slew of highly competitive keywords. During the course of their campaign and migration, traffic has actually increased significantly, with more and more organic traffic reaching their website every month.
Website Redesign for Integrated Results
Parallel eCommerce Services
When you consider data migration, it’s worthwhile to think about other aspects of your eCommerce website to update as well. Transitioning to a new environment requires all-hands-on-deck attention and coordination. Here at 1Digital®, we have specialized teams that work together seamlessly to update your website to an optimized, well-designed, and more reliable solution.
Custom Design
Ready to migrate your eCommerce store but the design can use some work? We’re experts at eCommerce custom design, theme integration and creating an overall website that converts users. Our designers are known for creating powerful, but simple aesthetics that help users enjoy and convert.
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Digital Marketing
1Digital® is a leading eCommerce digital marketing agency with SEO experts and PPC professionals specializing in all things eCommerce. Our team of experts utilize industry best practices for successful eCommerce SEO, PPC, and social media marketing so you can reach your target audience with carefully honed campaigns on all your major platforms.
Learn MorePartnered with the Best
We’ve always had a sharp focus on eCommerce here at 1Digital® Agency, and occasionally our clients are in need of eCommerce migration services including data migration and eCommerce replatforming services. Our eCommerce migration process has been painstakingly developed over the years, and results in efficient, effective, painless migrations, every time. No matter how much data you have to move, or how much organic traffic you’re currently bringing it, you can trust that an eCommerce migration project with 1Digital® Agency will be executed without a hitch.
eCommerce Website Development for BigCommerce Stores
Benefits of BigCommerce
Like Shopify, BigCommerce is built for eCommerce and has tons of powerful tools that are geared for selling online. It allows for comprehensive account management, customer management and inventory management, and integrates seamlessly with many critical third-party apps that will elevate your user experience and make for a stellar online store.
However, your business might need BigCommerce development to create the ideal mobile-friendly design, integrate custom-developed apps or to set up the ability to sell through numerous channels, which BigCommerce is geared to do. Additionally, wherever you need some custom functionality that will take a lot of experience and know-how to pull off, you may need to work with a BigCommerce developer. The platform makes it possible, but it still requires a large degree of technical expertise to execute. If you want to learn more about BigCommerce development and how we can help, contact our team.
eCommerce Website Development for Shopify Stores
Benefits of Shopify
Shopify is a robust eCommerce platform trusted by many eCommerce businesses in different industries around the world. It is well known for its robust security features, fast loading speed and high uptime, great customer service, excellent support, and more. At the same time, Shopify has been designed to make it relatively easy for developers to create a responsive design as well as accepting and integrating with many different third-party apps; Shopify also offers a lot of tools to enable online merchants to create a visually stunning, brand integrated online store.
However, creating the ideal Shopify store can be much more involved and, oftentimes, can require a large degree of familiarity with the platform. Shopify developers with a lot of experience can streamline a Shopify development project to create a Shopify store that is visually appealing and offers the custom functionality and design necessary to satisfy your customers. If you need development work on your Shopify store, our Shopify experts can help!
Other Platforms
eCommerce Platform & Data Migration FAQs
What is eCommerce platform migration?
An eCommerce platform migration is the process of taking your entire online store off one platform and moving all of it to another platform. Oftentimes migrations become necessary when a current platform cannot scale with the growth of a business or offer the functionality needed for high-quality user experience. There are a lot of businesses that choose to migrate from platforms like WordPress to Shopify or from Volusion to BigCommerce because full-service eCommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce offer a lot of out-of-the-box functionality for eCommerce stores.
Is there a difference between eCommerce platform migration and eCommerce data migration?
eCommerce platform migrations specifically entail migration of an entire online store onto another platform, typically for reasons associated with functionality. This involves the transfer of not only all of a store’s data, including product data, product structure, and customer data, but all of its design features and integrated apps as well. Data migration, on the other hand, only involves the transfer of data. Sometimes a data migration is necessary to remove data to a location that facilitates data management and from which the other platform can draw it. While they are not expressly the same, there are some fine points of difference and a lot of common ground. For more information, contact our team.
Why might I need an eCommerce platform or data migration?
Perhaps you need to migrate to a platform that offers more functionality and resources or different pricing options that fit your business needs better. Every eCommerce platform provides a range of different features and one platform may be a better fit than another, and that’s okay. 1Digital® will help you recognize if your eCommerce website could benefit from a migration and what you stand to gain from the process based on the functionality that your online store needs.
How can an eCommerce site migration positively affect my business?
There are many ways that an eCommerce site migration can positively affect your business. For example, some of the most common reasons that businesses may require a platform migration are associated with price, growth, marketing, and integration with third-party applications and functionality. If you move to a more capable eCommerce platform, your business can experience fewer roadblocks associated with growth, order processing, inventory management and so much more.
How long does a website migration take?
Every migration is different, every online store has different needs, and every online store varies in the size of its scope. For that reason, it is impossible to issue a blanket statement regarding the length of time a migration will require to be properly executed. 1Digital® Agency prides itself on the thoroughness of its work and the consistency of its results. Therefore, we take the time necessary to ensure that every migration is successful. If you want to get a more concrete estimate of how long a migration might take for your online store, contact our team.
Are there any risks involved with eCommerce platform migration?
There are many risks associated with eCommerce platform migration. Poorly timed or improperly planned migrations can result in data loss, apps that will not integrate with the new platform, website designs that don’t present as they should, and much worse. However, working with a partner that provides a proven process can help mitigate these risks. For example, our comprehensive process involves an initial data transfer to a third party server so we can arrange it in a manner that will be compatible with the new platform. We also set up 301 redirects to prevent loss of SEO value and offer Google Search Console (GSC) support to help track the success of the new website.
What data migration services does 1Digital® Agency offer?
1Digital® offers several migration services including data migration services. We offer our clients a Free Migration Evaluation service where we will take an analytical look at your needs as a business as well as the structure of your website and make recommendations about how to proceed. This is only preliminary; we also offer full data migration services as well as complete eCommerce replatforming services to help your online store end up on the best possible platform for its needs. Even if you only need to move your data management into another virtual location or ease of management, we can help with that.
What is 1Digital®’s eCommerce data migration process?
Our eCommerce data migration process is thorough, complete, and helps to ensure that no data gets lost and ends up precisely where it should be. First, we require access to your data, after which we perform an initial data transfer to get your data over to the new location and check it for accuracy. Then we perform front-end data alignment testing and a resync to ensure that your store is updated before we go live. Before launching the new site, we perform front-end alignment testing once more to ensure that data has transferred faithfully and ends up where it needs to be.
Can an eCommerce migration impact my SEO?
An eCommerce migration can impact your SEO when simple protocols are not followed or planned for. At 1Digital®, however, we do everything with SEO in mind and that includes migrations. As a part of our process, which includes numerous redundant checks and measures to ensure everything proceeds according to plan, we set up 301 redirects to your new pages to ensure the same traffic gets there, along with offering Google Search Console support to track any changes to traffic to your new site.
What measures will 1Digital® take to ensure that my eCommerce website runs smoothly after data migration?
One of the many services we provide is sending out email blasts to your customers letting them know they will need to reset their password to access your new store. We also monitor your Google Search Console for a few weeks after launch to identify and address any issues that may arise and we offer a free support period to address any issues or bugs that might pop up after launching. Aside from our free support period, we also offer additional support for those interested to maintain any future issues with new app installation or any additional updates you might want to implement as you grow.
Will customer data remain intact during the data migration process?
Customer data is an important part of the process when it comes to data migration as your existing customers should still retain access to your website once it has been migrated. Part of our data migration services ensures that customer data is moved over to your new platform correctly and any data storage or order history is maintained and preserved.
What can I expect my site to look like for shoppers after the eCommerce data migration process?
After eCommerce data migration, shoppers should expect to notice that your website is more responsive with better functionality. You might see a drop in bounce rate or an increase in traffic based on upgrading to a platform that can better accommodate your growing business and thus better accommodate your customers. You should also expect to have more control over the internal aspect of your eCommerce store for your own business needs.
Is redesign a part of the 1Digital® Agency’s data migration service?
Our migration services at 1Digital® take design and development into account when needed. Together, we will work closely to determine if redesign will be necessary to improve the overall experience of your store. We have conducted data migration projects that needed redesign in the past and would be more than happy to assist if yours does as well. Our designers and developers are experts and their knowledge and input could boost the effects of your migration.
What eCommerce platform options are available for my website migration?
1Digital® provides full-scale eCommerce site migration and data migration from any eCommerce platform to another. Whether you have a WooCommerce store and are trying to get started on BigCommerce or if you are currently on Volusion are ready to move on to Shopify, we will put together a custom solution for you that addresses the specific requirements of your website.
What if my store requires custom functionality?
It’s important that your eCommerce platform meets all of the different needs of your business. If you lack certain functionality, it could limit your ability to run your store how you want. If your eCommerce website already has custom functionality such as unique product/category hierarchies and third-party integrations, you can be sure that 1Digital® will be able to translate these features to your new platform, retaining the full functionality of your website just how you want it.
How long will my site be down during migration?
We know that having your eCommerce store up and running is important to you and your business. That is why we always try to complete our migrations as fast as possible. Typically completing the migration process will involve your site being down for several hours to a day, and we usually plan to complete migrations early in the week when traffic tends to be low. We always test your new site several to make sure that the migration process is as quick and easy as possible. Once your new site is live we will still be on call and ready for you to let us know if you notice any issues that we need to clean up.
Is migration really necessary for my business?
Obviously you know your business better than we do and there is no such thing as risk free data migration, but you might be at the point where migration is the best option for you. The biggest motivation for business to migrate platforms is scaling. Sometimes you are going to outgrow your current platform and it will be time to move on to something new. There might be some growing pains, but working with a team of eCommerce professionals will ensure that everything will go smoothly and you will have support to make sure that your eCommerce store keeps running smoothly.
