osCommerce to BigCommerce Migration

Plan Your osCommerce to BigCommerce Migration

Start with the catalog, customers, historical orders, manufacturers, coupons, reviews, and blog fields you need in BigCommerce. Retain representative source examples for comparison, including discounted products, products with several images, orders with different totals, and customer billing addresses.

Automated Migration is the primary workflow here. Record your osCommerce version and installed contributions or extensions. A module’s presence does not establish that all of its data or behavior transfers. Identify requirements beyond the listed fields before planning launch.

Prepare Backups and Both Stores

Back up the osCommerce database, files, and important assets. Record selected entity counts and keep source examples that your team can compare during the Demo and after Full Migration. Prepare BigCommerce and identify existing records that must remain.

Include product descriptions with formatting, SKUs from Products Model, sale prices, quantities, images, reviews, and historical orders. For custom options, retain examples of the selections, price adjustments, and cart behavior you need to reproduce.

Prepare the target theme, apps, payments, shipping, taxes, notifications, and checkout separately. Data migration does not convert osCommerce templates, contribution code, payment credentials, or fulfillment integrations into BigCommerce equivalents.

Step 1. Connect osCommerce and BigCommerce

Sign in to the LitExtension app and create a migration. Choose osCommerce as Source Cart and BigCommerce as Target Cart, then enter the required store details.

Follow the displayed source connector and target connection instructions for your actual setup. Keep the required access available through transfer and validation. If a connection check fails, review the details and setup, then share the error with support.

Do not substitute a generic export procedure for the app’s connection requirements. Legacy osCommerce versions and customized installations need the correct setup for the store you are moving.

Step 2. Select Data and Configure Options

Products and Categories

Products include names, SKUs, short/full descriptions, status, manufacturer, regular/special prices, quantities, stock-management settings, meta titles/descriptions, weight, thumbnail images, and additional images. Products Model maps to SKU; product Description maps to the full description.

Options and Option Value are not listed as BigCommerce Variants or Attributes for this route. Do not expect custom selectors, price modifiers, downloadable-product behavior, or contribution-specific structures to be rebuilt by transferring the listed catalog fields. Prepare those requirements separately and test the target implementation.

Product tax class, dimensions other than weight, tags, and meta keywords are outside the listed scope. Categories include names, sort order, and images, without descriptions, metadata, or Category Parent. Inspect target organization and prepare navigation separately.

Customers and Historical Orders

Customers include first names, last names, emails, and billing addresses. Passwords, customer shipping addresses, phone numbers, company, status, and subscription fields are not listed. Newsletter subscriptions and campaign content are not included. Prepare customer account access and password setup or recovery communications separately.

Orders include dates, statuses, items, subtotal, tax, shipping price, total price, comments, customer names/emails, and billing/shipping addresses. Order Items and addresses remain parent groups without target-only detailed field expansion. Discount totals and Payment are not included.

Preserve Order IDs retains the source reference in BigCommerce’s External ID field. BigCommerce generates a separate internal order ID. Compare source references, dates, totals, comments, and customer relationships in the Demo before accepting the full result.

Manufacturers, Coupons, Reviews, and Blog Fields

Manufacturers include names and images. Manufacturer descriptions and metadata are not listed. Coupons include codes and discount amounts/percentages, without titles, dates, status, usage limits, customer groups, or other eligibility rules. Configure remaining discount requirements and test representative carts separately.

Reviews include creation dates, status, ratings, reviewer names, and comments. Source User ID is not converted into reviewer email. Review titles and separate product-code/name fields are outside the listed scope; check target review display after transfer.

Blogs include titles and creation dates only. Blog-body content, URLs, descriptions, categories, and thumbnails are not included. Keep copies of required article content and prepare it separately. CMS Pages, Taxes, and Multiple Languages entities are also outside this route.

Additional Options

Select 301 Redirects for old osCommerce URLs and their BigCommerce destinations. Preserve Order IDs retains source references as External IDs. Strip HTML Tags removes markup from product and category names. Check each selected behavior during the Demo.

Description Images covers embedded images in product descriptions. It does not add category-description or blog-body migration. Check these images separately from product thumbnails and gallery images.

Clear Target Data removes existing records for selected migration entities. Save a BigCommerce backup and identify records that must remain before selecting it. Prepare target categories and menus separately.

Step 3. Review the Demo and Run Full Migration

Run a Free Demo and compare sample BigCommerce records with osCommerce. Inspect names, SKUs, descriptions, prices, quantities, stock settings, images, metadata, category organization, customer billing details, orders, manufacturers, coupon values, reviews, and blog titles/dates.

Matching counts alone do not establish correctness. Open the target records and compare representative values and relationships. Save source and target examples when reporting unexpected text, images, numbers, or references.

Resolve discrepancies before Full Migration. Once started, the transfer runs on LitExtension’s servers, so you can close the browser and return to check progress. Your osCommerce store can continue accepting orders while the transfer runs.

After completion, compare agreed counts and representative records again. Validate External IDs, dates, addresses, totals, images, discounts, and customer/order relationships. Your team reviews the completed Automated transfer, with support available for migration issues.

Prepare URLs, Recent Data, and Launch

Test important old URLs and redirects, update internal links, and review product metadata. Original product/category URL keys are not listed. Redirects are separate operations and do not guarantee identical URL structures or unchanged rankings.

Track new and changed osCommerce records during migration. Recent Migration transfers new records, Smart Update handles changes to existing data, and Re-migration reruns the transfer. These services are free for 60 days; review final updates before launch. They do not provide continuous synchronization.

Test account access, product selection, discounts, payments, shipping, taxes, notifications, and checkout on desktop and mobile. Prepare content and custom functionality outside the transfer before directing customers to BigCommerce.

Estimate Cost and Timing

Cost and timing depend on selected data volume, options, images, connections, and agreed custom work. Allow time for preparation, Demo feedback, Full Migration, validation, and remaining storefront tasks. Use Estimate Migration Cost for an initial estimate.

If you want experts to manage setup, mapping, Demo review, Full Migration, and validation, Schedule a Call to discuss All-in-One Migration.