Shopify Migrations - An in depth guide to migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify Plus.
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As an ecommerce agency, we’ve helped many online store owners migrate their stores from BigCommerce to Shopify. We know firsthand how challenging a platform migration can be and how rewarding it is. Shopify is an incredibly powerful ecommerce platform, and making the switch can transform your business.
We will cover the entire migration process and why a migration to Shopify might benefit your business. As Shopify Agency, we minimize downtime and ensure a smooth transition for your store.
By the end of this blog, you’ll feel confident that you want to migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify.
The effort will be well worth it, and your future self will thank you. So, let’s dive in!
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Why Migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify?
Why Migrate From BigCommerce to Shopify?
Shopify's Established Ecosystem
Ease of Use and Simplicity
Quick and Painless Migration Process
The Benefits of Migrating From BigCommerce to Shopify
An Improved Shopping Experience
Access to Powerful Apps and Integrations
Affordable Pricing
What to Expect During Your BigCommerce to Shopify Migration
Data Transfer
Look and Feel Changes
Feature Differences
Learning Curve
How We Migrate BigCommerce Stores to Shopify
The Migration Process
Advanced Features and Custom Functionality
Testing and Launch
Lift Your Online Store from BigCommerce by Unleashing Shopify's Power!
A Seamless Transition
More Features
Future-Proof Your Business
Making The Best Decision For Your Brand
Your Business Needs
Data Migration
SEO Considerations
Keep Your SEO Rankings
Importing Data
Submitting Sitemaps
Updating Internal Links
Ongoing Optimization
Frequently Asked Questions About Migrating From BigCommerce to Shopify
Conclusion
Why Migrate From BigCommerce to Shopify?
You might ask yourself: “Why would I ever want to migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify?” And we are here to provide you with several compelling reasons:
Shopify is a well-established ecommerce platform, so you will get everything you need to run your online store and much more in one place. By migrating to Shopify, you won’t have to worry about learning how to integrate third-party websites to handle payments, shipping, or inventory tracking.
Shopify is also a proven platform that is easier to set up and use. The interface is clean and intuitive, so you can quickly build professional-looking storefronts without coding experience. This means you can focus on what matters to you - growing your business!
While BigCommerce does offer flexibility, from our experience, we know our merchants often value simplicity. Shopify provides a streamlined experience that reduces headaches and hassles: one platform, bill, and company to contact for support.
The migration process is quick and painless. We can move your entire webstore strategically – products, customers, orders, and all – over to Shopify. Our dedicated migration experts handle the technical details so we can get back to you to run the store as soon as possible.
For growing brands, the benefits of switching to Shopify are clear. A robust yet straightforward ecommerce platform, an easy-to-use interface, and a fast migration process. What more could we ask for? The choice seems obvious.
The Benefits of Migrating From BigCommerce to Shopify
As an ecommerce agency, we’ve helped many brands migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify. Here are some of the biggest benefits our clients have experienced:
An Improved Shopping Experience
Shopify is designed to provide a premium user experience. With beautiful-looking websites, fast load times, and an intuitive interface, customers enjoy browsing and buying from Shopify stores. Unlike BigCommerce, Shopify has more advanced features like multi-channel selling, localized storefronts, and omnichannel fulfillment. Shopify offers over 100 payment providers to support customers’ preferred payment methods, while BigCommerce offers 65 integrated online payment options.
Access to Powerful Apps and Integrations
BigCommerce offers a range of features. Mastering them may take some time due to their complexity. On the other hand, Shopify provides a foundation that can be easily expanded by utilizing one of the 8000 apps offered in the Shopify app store. Whether you need accounting, marketing, drop shipping, or fulfillment tools, there’s an app for almost everything you need as an ecommerce brand. Shopify also seamlessly integrates with major channels like Amazon, Facebook, and Pinterest. These integrations are more advanced and tightly integrated than what BigCommerce offers.
Affordable Pricing
As you scale, upgrading to Shopify Plus provides more advanced features. Compared to BigCommerce, Shopify is often more budget-friendly, especially for high-volume stores.
Migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify is a strategic move that provides long-term benefits for your business and customers. If you’re interested in making the switch, our certified Shopify experts can help you map out a customized migration plan and get your new store up and running quickly.
Shopify and BigCommerce both offer themes for websites. Shopify provides eight themes, while BigCommerce offers 12 themes. These themes can be easily customized to suit industries. Additionally, Shopify has over 70 themes, with prices ranging from $150 to $350. On the other hand, BigCommerce provides 150 themes priced between $150 and $300. While both platforms provide mobile responsive options, Shopify is known for its theme design and user-friendly experience, often considered a step ahead of its competitors.
What to Expect During Your BigCommerce to Shopify Migration
When migrating your store from BigCommerce to Shopify, here are a few things you can expect during the process:
Data Transfer
Your product data, order history, and customer information will be transferred from BigCommerce to your new Shopify store. We map all your products, collections, orders, and customers so you can pick up where you left off.
Look and Feel Changes
Shopify has a different interface, templating language, and theme options than BigCommerce. Your store will get a makeover to match your brand. Don't worry; we will configure your new store based on your current site design so your customers will still recognize your brand.
Feature Differences
While Shopify and BigCommerce share many of the same ecommerce features, some things will operate differently. Apps, payment gateways, shipping, and reporting are a few areas with variances. We will walk you through all the feature changes and options, so you understand how to optimize your new Shopify store.
Learning Curve
Migrating platforms always requires a bit of a learning curve. Even though the two systems are quite comparable, Shopify has its own variations. Our migration team provides resources and training to get you up to speed so you feel comfortable managing your store. You'll be a pro within a few weeks of launching your Shopify store!
The migration process may require patience, but with our guidance, you'll be selling on Shopify successfully in no time. Let us handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on your business. A new chapter of growth and opportunity awaits!
How We Migrate BigCommerce Stores to Shopify
As Shopify migration experts, we’ve helped many BigCommerce store owners transfer their business to Shopify.
The Migration Process
We start by analyzing your current BigCommerce store to understand your product catalog, customers, orders, blog posts, and customizations. Then, we map all this data to your new Shopify store.
Next, we transfer your products, blog posts, orders, customers, and critical information to your Shopify store. We ensure everything is optimized for Shopify and double-check that nothing was lost or corrupted in the move.
We also help set up advanced features in Shopify, like discount codes, shipping zones, payment gateways, and app integrations, so your new store is fully operational. If you had custom functionality in BigCommerce, we can rebuild that in Shopify using their API and apps.
Finally, we conduct detailed testing to ensure your new Shopify store works perfectly before launching. This includes checking that products, carts, checkout, payments, shipping, and order management are functioning as intended.
Once launched, we provide support to help your team get familiar with Shopify. We’re also available for any follow-up changes or tweaks to your new store.
The move from BigCommerce to Shopify can be complex, but our dedicated team of migration experts will make the transition as smooth as possible. We have years of experience transferring stores of all sizes to Shopify and building amazing shopping experiences. Let us handle the technical details so you can focus on your business!
Lift Your Online Store from BigCommerce by Unleashing Shopify's Power!
As an ecommerce agency with a lot of experience, we know how frustrating it can be to feel limited by your platform’s capabilities. If you’ve outgrown BigCommerce and are looking for more advanced features to scale your business, it may be time to migrate to Shopify.
A Seamless Transition
Migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify is a straightforward process. Shopify’s migration experts will help transfer your products, customers, orders, and content to your new store with minimal downtime. You’ll be up and running on Shopify in no time!
More Features
Once your store is on Shopify, you can access many features to help your business thrive. Offer gift cards and loyalty programs, build a mobile app, and use Shopify’s powerful API to integrate with virtually any third-party service. You can also tap into Shopify’s extensive app store with thousands of apps to enhance your store.
Future-Proof Your Business
Shopify is a leader in ecommerce innovation. As an all-in-one commerce platform, Shopify gives businesses the tools and technology they need to build a successful online store. New features are released regularly, so you can rest assured your business will stay ahead of trends.
The move from BigCommerce to Shopify will set your store up for long-term success. Let Shopify’s migration experts handle the technical details so you can get back to doing what you do best—running your business! A new world of possibility awaits with Shopify.
Making The Best Decision For Your Brand.
When deciding whether to migrate your ecommerce store from BigCommerce to Shopify, there are a few things to consider. As business owners, we've been in your shoes and understand what a big decision this can be.
Your business needs
Think about where your business is now and where you want it to go. Do you need more customization or control over your store? Are there features Shopify offers that would benefit you? For many brands, Shopify’s app ecosystem, customization options, and scalability make it an ideal platform for growth.
Data migration
Migrating your customer data, orders, products, and content from one platform to another requires time and technical resources. Shopify and BigCommerce offer migration services to help transfer your store data. However, you’ll still need to double-check that everything is transferred properly and follow up with any customers regarding their data. Allow some time for a full migration to minimize business disruption.
Making a platform switch is a big step, but for many growing brands, the benefits of Shopify’s features, scalability, and control outweigh the initial challenges of migrating data and learning a new system. With the right planning and support, you can smoothly transition to Shopify. Our certified Shopify experts can guide you through the entire migration process to get your new Shopify store up and running.
Keep Your SEO Rankings
When migrating your ecommerce store from BigCommerce to Shopify, preserving your search engine optimization (SEO) rankings is crucial. As an ecommerce agency, we’ve worked hard to build up our rankings in search engines like Google, and we don’t want to lose that progress while moving to a new platform. Here are a few steps on how we keep your SEO strong:
First, we import your product catalog, categories, images, and content from BigCommerce to Shopify, ensuring that all URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, image filenames, and alt text remain the same.
Second, we submit XML sitemaps to search engines when your Shopify store is live. This helps search engines discover all your products and pages. We also check your store on Google Search Console for errors.
Third, we update the internal links on your store to point to the correct Shopify URLs. Use the Shopify URL redirect app to forward any old BigCommerce URLs to your new store automatically. This ensures no “404 page not found” errors.
Finally, we optimize your store content by adding related terms, keywords, and phrases. Update your page titles, meta descriptions, alt text, and content over time. You can keep producing helpful content like blog posts, videos, and resources to build authority in your niche.
These steps allow us to transition your store from BigCommerce to Shopify while maintaining the hard-earned search rankings. While platform migrations can be tricky, with some technical diligence, we can create an optimized Shopify store and stronger SEO.
Frequently Asked Questions About Migrating From BigCommerce to Shopify
We know you probably have questions about migrating your BigCommerce store to Shopify. Here are a few of the most common FAQs we get from merchants making the switch:
Will my products and customers transfer over?
Absolutely! We make it easy to move all your products, customers, orders, and more to your new Shopify store. Our migration experts will help ensure all your critical store data is transferred securely and accurately.
How long does a migration take?
The time it takes depends on the size and complexity of your BigCommerce store. We work closely with you from kickoff to launch to keep the process moving efficiently while minimizing disruptions to your business.
Will my store have downtime during the migration?
Our goal is to minimize downtime as much as possible. We handle the technical parts of the migration behind the scenes while keeping your current BigCommerce store up and running. Once we've moved everything over and tested your new Shopify store, we will schedule a short downtime to redirect traffic from your old store to the new one. The entire cutover usually only takes a few hours or less.
What happens to my existing BigCommerce subscription?
Once your Shopify store is live, you can cancel your BigCommerce subscription. Any unused portion of your current billing period will be refunded to you. Your billing will then continue through Shopify going forward.
Conclusion
So there you have it, a high-level overview of what's involved in migrating your store from BigCommerce to Shopify. While any migration requires time and resources, following the right process and planning ahead can help ensure a smooth transition to Shopify. Our team has performed many BigCommerce to Shopify migrations, so we have the experience and expertise to guide you through the process efficiently while minimizing downtime. If you're ready to unlock the benefits of the Shopify platform and join over 1 million businesses powering their stores with Shopify, let's chat about your migration and how we can make it as simple as possible.