How to Migrate from WooCommerce to BigCommerce

The ecommerce industry is booming because of the increasing digitalization of businesses and almost every other aspect of our day-to-day life. Therefore it is of utmost importance for you to choose your hosting platform very carefully. Of course, you have to pick the platform to host your eCommerce website that perfectly meets all of your business requirements. For many reasons, people choose WooCommerce for their eCommerce business when it's just in the starting phase. But as soon as the company grows, owners realize that WooCommerce is just not up to the task for them now. So they start searching for a better alternative.

If you too are considering migrating from WooCommerce to BigCommerce then you have come to the right place. If you have hired ecommerce development services then you would have known that BigCommerce is made just for people who want a stable and scalable platform. There are many benefits of migrating to BigCommerce, some of which we will discuss here in this blog, and then start right off with the migration process.

Top reasons why you should Migrate from WooCommerce to BigCommerce

There are many benefits of migrating from WooCommerce to BigCommerce. Because the latter has a lot more to offer. And here we are going to discuss a few.

Open Source

The most important reason for migrating from WooCommerce is that it's open source. This enables you to access or make changes to the source code of any plugin or feature of the platform at any time for free. This means that if there are any bugs or problems in the new platform, then you can easily fix them yourself without having to pay for software support.

More Features

Another reason why it makes sense to migrate from WooCommerce is that there are more features available in BigCommerce than there are in WooCommerce itself! For example, BigCommerce has two-way data synchronization between WooCommerce and Bigcommerce allowing you to sync data between them (such as products). This means that if your store has customers who are also using Bigcommerce then they will see all their past purchases in their account automatically!

Compatibility with Other Platforms

BigCommerce offers compatibility with dozens of other products through its API, which allows you to connect with other ecommerce platforms. This makes it easy to integrate your website’s data into other systems, like Amazon and eBay. This integration can also be used to sell products on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Inventory Management

One of the main benefits of using an ecommerce platform like BigCommerce is inventory management — no need for multiple databases! The software will automatically sync with your WooCommerce store at regular intervals, so you don't have to worry about manually syncing products or updating prices or quantities online anymore.

How to Migrate from WooCommerce to BigCommerce?

Start with a plan

If you're migrating from WooCommerce to BigCommerce, you need to start with a plan. The first thing you should do is prepare a list with two categories where you can determine which features and functionalities you want to change and which ones you want to keep the same. You can accomplish this by comparing the feature sets of the two eCommerce platforms.

Once you've identified what is similar and what is different, it's time to identify where those differences exist. The easiest way to do this is by looking at the product pages of each platform.

If there are no obvious differences between the two platforms' product pages, then you probably don't have anything to worry about when it comes to migrating WooCommerce products over to BigCommerce. However, if there are many differences in terms of design elements or features, then it might be wise to consider taking action sooner rather than later - before your client gets fed up with waiting for changes or decides they'd prefer their custom solution instead!

Ensure you have a backup

You should always have backups of your store before migrating to another platform. Because if any error occurs during migration then you might lose all of your data and have to restart everything from scratch. You can use the built-in export feature of WooCommerce and BigCommerce to export your data in a CSV file. And then whichever platform you choose to migrate to, in this case, BigCommerce, just import that CSV file on it.

This is an automated process that will save you time and headaches. However, be sure to back up your database before performing this step so that if there are any unexpected issues with the migration, you still have a backup of your previous site.

A migration from WooCommerce to BigCommerce is not a one-time thing. A new version of WooCommerce will be released every year, and if you plan to keep using the plugin after the migration, you should always keep a copy of your site in case something goes wrong.

Prepare yourself for the catalog migration process

Prepare yourself for the catalog migration process. Before you begin, make sure you have all your data ready to transfer from WooCommerce to BigCommerce.

• You must check your product catalog-related needs. You will find some useful information there.
• Before you start migrating all your data, you have to create a working backup of your current WooCommerce site just as we discussed before.
• Make sure you have all your WooCommerce products in BigCommerce, and that they are synced with their corresponding BigCommerce products.
• If you have any custom tax rates or rules set up, make sure they are all saved to BigCommerce as well.
• Ensure that all inventory items are linked back to a product or SKU in BigCommerce. You can check inventory by clicking on Inventory Management in the top navigation bar of your store's admin area.
• You may also want to export any WooCommerce data (such as images and CSV files) that you’ll need later on during the migration process.

Getting down to work using Migration Tools

Several tools are available in the market for you to use while migrating from WooCommerce to BigCommerce. Today, we are going to do it using Cart2Cart. It is one of the most convenient shopping cart migration service providers. This will not only simplify your migration process but will also allow affordable and risk-free migration.

1. Now, to start your migration, visit the page shopping-cart-migration.com
2. If you already have an account then log in and if you don't have one you can simply signup using your google mail id or Facebook account.
3. After you have logged in successfully, you will see that your screen will display the starting phase of the step-by-step migration process. It is shown in the screenshot below. You have to pick WooCommerce in the dropdown option.

4. After that, you have to insert your WordPress admin URL, Admin Login, and Admin password to set up the source cart for migration.
5. Then you have to set up the target Cart where you have to choose Bigcommerce in the dropdown option.
6. After all the information is inserted successfully, click on the button that reads “install plugin”. 
7. You have to download the cart2Cart Store Migration Application to connect both of your stores.
8. Once you have established the connection, you have to click on the “Choose Entities” button which will allow you to select the types of datasets that you want to migrate from one store to another, in that case, i.e. from WooCommerce to BigCommerce.

9. Cart2Cart also provides you with more migration options like migrating SEO URLs, creating 301 redirects, and more.

10. After you have selected all the datasets you want to migrate, click on the hamburger button. This will match all your data like order statuses, and customer groups from both of your stores.
11. Now, before you conduct an actual migration, Cart2Cart allows you to run a demo migration that will allow you to see how your new store on BigCommerce will look like. So, there you go, conduct the demo and check if the results are satisfying enough or not.

12. Now, if the results are not satisfying, you can make necessary changes and if they are satisfying enough, you are ready to launch the full-scale migration and move everything from WooCommerce to BigCommerce. It will take approximately 15 minutes to complete the entire migration process.

If you simply follow the steps mentioned above, you will be able to migrate all your WooCommerce to BigCommerce using Cart2Cart. Of course, you can also use other tools like Litextension and more that are available in the market. But make sure to check out their reviews first for if they are easy enough to use and whether their migrating process is simple or complicated. The Cart2Cart migration tool we used here offers one of the most simple migration services.

Advice When Migrating to BigCommerce

Migrating from one platform to another takes a tremendous amount of both planning and commitment. There might be thousands of details you need to look after and also thousands of bits of data to manage at the same time. If you lack even a little ounce of skills or expertise then this task is not for you to do alone. You must consider delegating the tasks like moving the catalogs to the experts. This will not only save you time but will also reduce the margin of error.

At the end of this blog, I want to remind you to make sure that all of your promotional strategies like promotions, discounts, and more are well-placed. I hope this helps. Thanks for reading!