Shopify is one of the most popular names in the eCommerce sphere, providing everything you need to run an online store. It is easy to build an online store with Shopify. Shopify powers more than one million businesses in 175 countries.
So, why would anyone want to migrate their business from Shopify to WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a Wordpress plugin. So, if you already have a Wordpress site online, you can incorporate WooCommerce to turn your website into an online store.
WooCommerce doesn’t charge any monthly or yearly fee and no transactional fees, so you can make more profit. It’s open-source and free. You can access and modify its source code to create a truly unique store.
Planning to migrate your online presence to WooCommerce? eCommerce replatforming is effortless with Cart2Cart but before you press the “Start Free Demo” button, check this post.
Shopify and WooCommerce Overview
While there are a few drawbacks to keep in mind when migrating to WooCommerce, the fact that WooCommerce is a hugely popular ecommerce platform used by almost three times as many people as those using Shopify, is a clear indication of the platform’s success and suitability for ecommerce.
Watch our video tutorial to see how easy it is to automatically migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce with the help of the Cart2Cart migration tool:
How to Migrate Shopify Store to WooCommerce in 5 Easy Steps
Unless you hire a professional developer to help you with the Shopify data migration, it can be a seriously overwhelming undertaking.
Shopify to WooCommerce migration means you have to be knowledgeable about hosting, domains, databases, SSL certificates and migration principles. In addition, you’ll have to compare loads of database tables, retrieve lost data, and get involved in coding. Not every online shop owner is comfortable with technical aspects of running and migrating an online shop.
The biggest risk, of course, is data loss. Imagine losing customer details, product specifications and transaction details. Moving your store manually exacerbates these risks. In this case, you should be really vigilant about backing up all your data before migration.
You can circumvent this risk by using a reliable eCommerce platform migration tool (like Cart2Cart store migration app).
Another risk that is unavoidable is the loss of SEO ranking and traffic. When you migrate a website, the URLs for the new website will differ from the URLs of the old website. So, when your customers visit the old web address, they will be faced with a “Not Found” error unless they are redirected. You can do this by creating a “301 redirect” in your “Robots.txt” file, which automatically instructs a web browser to redirect visitors to your new address. You can use migration tools especially developed for this purpose to ease your task.
Using an automated tool, migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce can be done in five easy steps.
Step 1. Setting up the Source & Target stores
Prepare your stores for migration by reviewing your Shopify store and removing all redundant data.
Shopify is your source cart. Locate the access credentials for your source cart — that is the store’s URL and API password.
When you’ve done that, Target Cart. WooCommerce is your Target Cart. You will see this option in the dropdown menu of the cart migration tool you’re using. Choose WooCommerce and provide the WordPress admin URL, login and password where indicated.
Step 2. Choosing data to migrate
If you are using the Cart2Cart migration tool to move Shopify to WooCommerce, you can choose the following data to migrate:
Products, reviews, taxes, customers, pages, shopping cart price rules, orders, blog posts, and more.
Step 3. Specifying the additional migration options
The additional migration options include the choice to:
- Clear current data on the Target Store before commencing migration
- Create 301 redirects on the target store after migration
- Preserve order IDs on your Target Store
- Migrate images of product descriptions, category descriptions and blob post descriptions
- Migrate categories and product SEO URLs
- Change product quantity to 100 on the Target Store
Also, you might want to keep in mind that you can configure order statuses and customer groups information to match the ones on the WooCommerce store.
When you match the order statuses and customer groups of your Shopify store to WooCommerce data, the data will migrate according to these settings.
Step 4. Starting Demo migration
Shopify data migration with Cart2Cart seo migration tool allows performing a free Demo Migration of a limited number of entities (up to ten). This will take only 30 minutes and give you a chance to see how the migration works and what your store will look like on the new platform. While the program is working, don’t close your web browser.
Step 5. Launching Full migration
Once the Demo is completed, check your store. If the result is what you expected, go ahead with the full migration. At this stage you can close the browser windows because the migration will continue on the server. You can even turn off your computer. You can continue with your business operations while the migration is in progress.
Alternatively, you can give a try to the Cart2Cart Shopify to WooCommerce plugin to ease the replatforming even more.
Once the migration is completed, check the performance of your store by inspecting the front and backend and making some purchases and performing other usual tasks to see if they execute seamlessly.
Check out our infographic to get a better understanding of the migration process via Cart2Cart:
Now it’s time to have fun and customize your store with the plethora of extensions WooCommerce has on offer.
Pros & Cons of Switching Shopify to WooCommerce
Pros of migrating to WooCommerce:
- WooCommerce is an open-source tool and completely free to download and use.
- Because it’s open-source, you can modify and customize anything. You can add unlimited customers, products and as many orders as you can handle.
- The world is your oyster as far as design, layout and management of your ecommerce store is concerned.
- Combines the world-leading content platform with ecommerce.
- You have access to a large global community, including a host of developers for support on all eventualities.
- Some WordPress extensions and themes are free for your WooCommerce site.
Cons of moving to WooCommerce:
- Because it’s an open-source tool, you are responsible for technical aspects.
- WooCommerce doesn’t have a dedicated customer support team.
- Store owners need expertise or access to expertise on WordPress and WooCommerce, and basic understanding of domain hosting, SSL encryption certificates, and API keys. Not as simple as Shopify to run.
- Store maintenance and data protection is the responsibility of the store owner.
- You have access to countless WordPress and other plugins, but depending on how many you use, they can slow down the performance and speed of the website.
How to Prepare to Shopify to WooCommerce Migration?
Before you attempt to export Shopify to Woocommerce, there are a few steps you need to take.
1. Back up your Shopify data
Of course, this is a very important step. The last thing you want is to lose any of your Shopify data. In case something unforeseen happens during the migration process, you’ll have access to all your backed-up data.
One way to backup your Shopify data is to use CSV files. The function of CSV files is to enable Shopify to WooCommerce import and export of crucial information, such as customer, product and order and financial data plus gift card and discount codes to and from an existing database.
Alternatively, you could duplicate your store, but keep in mind that with this method you can’t transfer everything. You can’t transfer discount codes, issued gift cards, custom reports and visitor traffic data.
Lastly, you can create a store backup using an app available in the Shopify store.
2. Install and set up your WooCommerce store
The next step is to install WordPress and choose a hosting plan. As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. Look for a hosting company that offers one-click WordPress installation.
Be careful when you choose your hosting plan for WordPress as the right hosting will benefit your SEO and boost sales. There are many WordPress hosting companies. Make sure you know exactly what you need from your WordPress hosting so you don’t end up wasting money.
Once your WordPress website is up and running, you can install WooCommerce for e-commerce functionality. Once that is done, you can go ahead and choose a theme for your store. When you’ve done that, you can activate the WooCommerce plugin.
How to Migrate Products from Shopify to WooCommerce: Recap
Shopify is an excellent ecommerce platform, but not being open source, there’s a limit to adding what you want on the store if it’s not offered on the Shopify store. So, people who want to be free to experiment with their online store opt for the WooCommerce open source solution that allows them the freedom to do that.
Overall, you have three choices when deciding how to convert Shopify to WooCommerce. You can do it manually, use an automation tool, or you can hire a software developer.
If you decide to use the Cart2Cart migration solution, you will find you need no technical expertise as the process is simple and straightforward.
Shopify to WooCommerce Migration: FAQs
FAQ 1: How to transfer product data from Shopify to WooCommerce?
If you need to migrate products from your Shopify store to WooCommerce, just check the corresponding box in the Migration Wizard while setting the migration. However, keep in mind that due to the WooCommerce peculiarities, by default, Cart2Cart will migrate product options to WooCommerce as product variants.
We recommend previously installing a paid Product Add-Ons on your WooCommerce store so that your product options could be moved directly into the plugin without being converted to variants.
FAQ 2: Does Cart2Cart support customer passwords migration from Shopify to WooCommerce?
Yes, Cart2Cart has the necessary functionality to automatically transfer Shopify passwords to WooCommerce. However, make sure the store has the default settings and no custom code modifications have been made. More info.
FAQ 3: Is SEO migration available during Shopify to WooCommerce migration?
Sure. Cart2Cart makes it possible to migrate your SEO rankings from Shopify to WooCommerce. You only need to choose the Migrate categories and products SEO URLs additional option while converting from Shopify. More info.
FAQ 4: Is it possible to transfer 301 SEO URLs from my Shopify store to the new WooCommerce?
Sure. Migration of 301 SEO URLs of categories and products option is available for Shopify to WooCommerce migration as an additional option. However, in order to make it possible, you need to install the Redirection plugin before the transfer.
FAQ 5: Can I try the Cart2Cart migration solution to see how it works?
Sure. Cart2Cart store migration app offers a Free Demo migration to move a limited volume of data from your current Shopify store to the new WooCommerce.
