As businesses grow and need change, the platform they started on may no longer adequately support their goals. This often necessitates a migration to a new solution. That’s what exactly LitExtension does, and today’s eCommerce migration case study will show how we can help.
To demonstrate, LitExtension – #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert will give you insights following these key points:
- An overview of the company
- Why they migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify
- What they want to achieve with the migration
- How LitExtension solved their problems
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Company Background
In October 2023, the LitExtension team just finished a project working with a long-standing client in the food packaging industry. For over 10 years, they have built a loyal customer base selling various items through their WooCommerce-powered website.
However, due to specific reasons, they felt their existing eCommerce platform could no longer keep up with the demands of their growing business. After comprehensive research and evaluation, the company decided that Shopify migration would allow for more flexibility and customization options.
That’s when they came to LitExtension – #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert, for help. After 2 months of working together, our team of experts has successfully carried out a seamless WooCommerce migration to Shopify.
It’s time to take a look back at our journey from the very beginning!
Reasons for WooCommerce to Shopify Migration
In our first meeting, the company talked about several obstacles that they had to deal with when operating on WooCommerce. Based on our 10+ years of experience working with hundreds of thousands of different customers, these were quite common ones in most eCommerce platform migration cases:
- Scalability
During peak seasons, our client faced difficulties scaling their current website to handle the surge in orders. The need for additional server resources to accommodate traffic spikes became a bottleneck.
Migrating to Shopify, known for its scalability, was a proactive measure to ensure a smooth ordering process for visitors despite heavy traffic.
- Customization flexibility
As the range of products expanded, maintaining the intricate design and keeping it cohesive with the evolving product catalog became a complex task. This led to the need for a platform that could seamlessly accommodate their growing product diversity while maintaining a visually appealing website.
- Resource constraints
Our client found it challenging to allocate resources to manage the technical aspects of their WooCommerce site. Updates, security measures, and plugin integrations demanded more time and expertise than the team could afford. These could all be solved by migrating data to Shopify.
- Customer support needs
Another factor that influenced this eCommerce migration case study is the appeal of having dedicated customer support. Shopify ensured quicker resolutions to potential challenges, reducing downtime. As a result, allowed our client to provide a more reliable and responsive online experience for their customers.
Gain insight into our blog post on WooCommerce vs Shopify comparison for more details.
Challenges and Goals
To guarantee a successful migration, the LitExtension experts have outlined all detailed goals based on the customer’s requirements for the project. In this way, both the company and LitExtension could see eye to eye on how to solve the problems.
1. Data migration
Since our client has been on the market for over 10 years now, this eCommerce migration case study was tasked with a substantial dataset, including:
- Approximately 500 products
- Over 30,000 orders.
- Nearly 20,000 customers.
- Around 200 blog posts.
2. Risk minimization
The database structure differences made the task even more challenging. In other words, this eCommerce data migration required custom coding and mapping of data fields to ensure that the data was accurately transferred.
Thus, if not performed properly, our client would have to cope with the possibility of data loss or inaccuracy, resulting in unwanted expenses. And the LitExtension experts will never let it happen.
3. Downtime guarantee
Since our client has already gained a solid customer base, new orders could pop up at any moment. Therefore, they specifically demanded a no-downtime guarantee so that their customers would have no trouble accessing the website during the data migration process.
4. Customer password protection
The client wanted to maintain the customer password between eCommerce platforms. By doing this, their customers won’t have to create a new password again, affecting their experience.
Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t allow this type of data transfer. To address this issue, a viable solution is to invite customers to activate their accounts on the online store, enabling them to reset their passwords.
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Strategies Implemented by LitExtension
So, how can we achieve the mentioned objectives? What strategies will we apply? Follow our footsteps to see more!
1. Prepare the migration
Based on the challenges earlier and LitExtension’s technical consultation, the company decided to sign up for our All-in-One Migration Package. With this option, the project was taken care of by a Personal Assistant (PA) until everything was put into place.
Different from the Basic Migration Package, the PA is responsible for providing updates at least once every 12 hours (instead of 24) throughout the project. Plus, all the Additional Options are now free of charge.
This video will best explain how the All-in-One Migration Package works:
Coming back to this specific case, our LitExtension experts needed some extra time to prepare for these reasons:
- None of the product custom fields on WooCommerce matched with Shopify’s metafield.
- The URLs for YouTube videos were not included in the exported database folder.
- Shopify featured collections instead of sub-categories like WooCommerce, requiring specific data mapping.
2. Run Demo Migration
After configuring the database, LitExtension conducted the free Demo Migration for our client. We migrated a demo of 100 products and 100 orders with full categories, taxes, manufacturers, and blogs. This ensured a comprehensive demonstration of the process.
3. Activate Full Migration
Fortunately, the client fell head over heels with the Demo migration result. Next, our PA activated the Full Migration from WooCommerce to Shopify. All of the customers, orders and products data had been migrated successfully.
As we have mentioned earlier, Shopify did not feature sub-categories like WooCommerce. For this matter, we utilized our Additional Options called Migrate Source Store Categories into Shopify Automated Collections. It would automatically assign tags to the client’s products.
Before delivering the final result, LitExtension meticulously inspected the transferred data, ensuring there were no discrepancies. During this stage, our client could still review the eCommerce replatforming outcome and communicate any requirements to the PA if necessary.
In this eCommerce migration case study, the client asked questions about the migrated images since they couldn’t find the folder. Actually, for Shopify stores, a “LitExtension Image Description” theme was generated to contain all the images related to product descriptions and meta fields. So, they could find the images in this theme.
4. Support post-migration services
One of the perks when using the LitExtension data migration service is that websites function normally throughout the process. Understanding that there will be new data (orders, customers, etc.) appear, LitExtension offers post-migration services to help update your database.
Applying this eCommerce migration case study, we supported the client with the Recent Data Migration service. All of these services were free of charge within the first 6 months after the full migration for All-in-One customers.
This is just one example of how the LitExtension team supported the clients. Find more interesting case studies for further insight here.
eCommerce Migration Case Study: FAQs
What is eCommerce migration?
eCommerce migration refers to the process of moving an online store from one platform to another, typically to upgrade technology, enhance features, or address specific business needs. It involves transferring crucial data such as product information, customer details, and order history from the existing platform to the new one, ensuring a seamless transition for both businesses and customers.
What are the key considerations when creating an eCommerce migration plan?
When crafting a plan, crucial considerations include
- Data integrity and security.
- Smooth user experience during and after database migration.
- SEO rankings maintenance.
- Potential downtime.
- Staff training to adapt to the new platform.
Additionally, careful planning for the migration's impact on integrations with third-party tools and services is essential for a successful transition.
How do I migrate my eCommerce website?
With LitExtension, you only have to perform 6 simple steps to migrate your eCommerce website:
- Backup your database
- Create a new store
- Configure Source & Target cart
- Select migration entities
- Run Full Migration
- Utilize post-migration services
For more complicated shopping carts, you can always sign up for our All-in-One migration service, where an experienced Personal Assistant (PA) will handle everything from start to finish. The pricing range is also affordable, from $139 only.
Is it hard to migrate a website?
The complexity of replatforming eCommerce depends on factors such as the size of the site, the amount of data to be transferred, and the specific platforms involved.
If you don’t have a decent level of technical knowledge to perform the task on your own, we highly recommend using eCommerce migration services.
Learn how to migrate your store with LitExtension here.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this eCommerce migration case study provided valuable insights into LitExtension's proven methodology for executing complex projects. By taking a strategic, meticulous, and testing-focused approach, we were able to move the client seamlessly from WooCommerce to Shopify.
By partnering with LitExtension, the client was able to achieve their goals of modernizing operations and expanding sales avenues. They have now positioned themselves for continued growth in the food packaging industry thanks to Shopify's robust features.
Explore a wealth of insightful eCommerce content and find step-by-step migration tutorials on our LitExtension blog or community group. Check it out now!
