How to Migrate from Magento to WooCommerce?

Magento is one of the leading e-commerce platforms, whereas the ease of use makes the WooCommerce a preferred option for merchants. The small and size enterprises, which are striving hard to cut down operational business cost, need a platform that is safe, reliable, and economical to maintain. In terms of quality and reliability, there is no comparison between the two, because the choice depends on different business-specific factors.

WooCommerce is a simple plugin that needs to be installed on a WordPress website and set up an entire store. It is one of the rapidly growing e-commerce platforms because of the simple and easy to understand user interface. Its increased popularity has made the developers facilitate merchants with innovative plugins. You can review the freely available tools or WooCommerce extensions before deciding a move to have all the functionalities you are enjoying in Magento. Enjoy the ease and comfort of a more vibrant yet simple platform.

Things to do before you migrate

If you are facing hurdles in adding products to the catalog and want to speed the process, continue reading till the end as the migration process includes the following easy steps.

Step 1: Backup all your data

Moving your store to a whole new platform needs migrating a great deal of data. To be on the safe side, backup all the data and then proceed to the further steps, so that if you go wrong, you can retrieve the data anytime.

You can achieve the backup either manually or using an extension, whereas the most recommended method to preserve files is to connect your hosting account with FTP and backup the folder to different locations. You can copy the folder to the local machine, cloud store or a remote server.

Step 2: Install WordPress

To migrate, you need a WordPress website. To have this, install WordPress on your store and locate it either in a sub-directory or on a development server. Merchants have a separate WordPress site than the current one can also do so by simply moving the database to the new platform.

Step 3: Migrate Database

Migrating products is a risky job, as one need to keep all the factors intact on the new platform. It includes moving a store item along with its name, description, Meta details, images, options and other data that contribute towards a higher conversion rate. Your store often has a complete record of customers, their IDs and passwords, email addresses and contact numbers. And, it all needs to be moved side by side. For this, you have to acquire expertise or hire developers. There are different plugins and online tools that allow you to quickly migrate the database, which needs you to pay for the entire process. You can better evaluate your skills and go for it accordingly.

Step 4: Copy orders, links, and supplier details

Most of the free online tools allow migration of products and categories. What if you move products and do not know the pending orders and the suppliers to whom you contact for a smooth supply. Have a premium version for such a major change or consider hiring experts who do the whole migration in a go.

Step 5: Migrate payment solutions

WooCommerce host different gateways as easy payment solutions. If you have set multiple gateways in your Magento store, do not worry at all. You can copy them too, and let the customers avail the ease of paying through their preferred services.

Step 6: Verify your site

When you are done with moving the entire database, verify the website. Here, you can evaluate migration is among the major eCommerce website modifications. It may distort the entire design of web pages that may affect the display of products, categories, and CMS pages.

Step 7: Sifting

At this stage, when the migration is almost complete, you need to tweak your website according to your business specific norms. It is up to you to retain the previous appearance or install a more appealing theme. The WordPress themes give you an immense choice of color patterns, fonts, option to customize for your end consumers.

A quick checklist after migration

Conclusion:

Technology is advancing at a higher speed that’s why merchants have to mold their e-commerce website according to the latest trends. Avoiding WooCommerce for any reasons can cost you higher in meeting your customers’ expectations. To make your store ready for the day to day challenges and grab all those freely available extensions, follow the above steps and explore the limitless possibilities with your online presence.

This article is written by Paul Simmons. He is a CMS Extensions Developer with 7 years of experience in PHP development at FMEaddons – an eCommerce development company with Top tier extensions and themes for popular shopping cart platforms like Magento, Opencart, Woocommerce, & Joomla.

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