Magento to Shopify Replatform and Data Migration

Here we are writing an article about how to migrate data from Magento to Shopify.  How did it come to this?  How did this topic get so popular that we felt the need to write an article?  While there are many factors, I would say the main reason we are seeing so many clients and new customers moving from Magento to Shopify is that Adobe has not put much time or effort into their platform (aside from the regular security updates).  Magento (Adobe Commerce) is still necessary for certain types of businesses with very special needs that only a completely open source platform can provide, but those stores are few and far in between.  Shopify on the other hand has made updates and functionality enhancements so fast and furious, they have left everyone in the dust (that includes you, BigCommerce).  So I declare that Shopify is the undisputed champ in 2024 and the world is taking notice!

Step 1: Requirements Gathering

Once you have made the decision to replatform, the next steps are to create a requirements document of everything that is needed in the new site. This is a time consuming task, but extremely necessary. Documentation is needed to properly estimate, quote and plan an ecommerce website.  Not having detailed requirements is a recipe for failure.  Your business will benefit from:

• Scope of Work based on detailed evidence gathering
• Reduced cost in the Ecommerce site lifecycle
• Increased user satisfaction
• Choosing the correct Ecommerce platform from the start
• Reduced stress during the development phase
• Accurate project budget and timeline

Requirements gathering and documentation consists of sitting down with website stakeholders; from marketing, fulfillment, customer service, design and any other members that manage the website. Discuss all the things that are needed in the new site and prioritize them so you can categorize tasks into phases if needed.

Topics to discuss:

Integrations

• ERP – Depending on your ERP system and how much is customized to your needs will depend on the effort it takes to integrate with Shopify.
  • Products – Ideally products will start their life in the ERP or PIM and flow through to the other systems.  This will minimize the duplicate work that needs to be done when creating new products.  Most ERPs have minimal fields like Name, Price, Description, so the other fields like product attributes, images etc will need to be entered into the PIM and flow to Shopify or entered directly into Shopify.  This process takes some balance between time spent to develop an efficient system and the complexity of your business needs.  Price should be changed in the ERP and automatically flow to Shopify.  Take into account any product customizations (ie monogram, gift messages etc) and product setup.  Parent products and variants are often not setup the same in the ERP and Ecommerce Platform and this would need to be reconciled.
  • Inventory – Stock levels needs to be synchronized between the ERP and Shopify.  This should be done as inventory is being added or reduced in the ERP.  Ideally there would be a complete reconciliation on a regular basis.
  • Order and Fulfillment – Orders need to flow from Shopify to the ERP and display correctly. Be aware of any special product needs or customization, shipping notes, PO numbers etc.  Once an order is fulfilled, tracking data and fulfillment info needs to be sent back to Shopify.  Order shipped emails can come from Shopify directly or ESP like Klaviyo.
• PIM
• CRM
• Tax Software
  • Shopify has a tax engine built in which is very convenient. For some users that have advanced needs there is a built in Avalara integration.  If that still doesn’t suit your business needs whether due to complex B2B tax rules or other, there are 3rd party companies like Vertex and OneSource that would need to be consulted regarding their Shopify integration.
• Marketplace
  • Selling on marketplaces like Amazon are very easy with Shopify. There are built in functionalities and many third party apps like Feedonomics that will manage this process.  Because products setup differ between systems there will need to be some adjustments needs to map items with potentially different categories and product tags
• Email Service Provider
  • Shopify integrates with many ESPs like Listrak, Mailchimp and Klaviyo.

Compliance

• ADA
• GDPR
• CCPA

Data Migration

• Products
• Orders
• Customers
• Blog Articles
• Reviews
• QA
• Tracking Pixels

SEO

• 301 Redirects
• Structured Data

Data Migration

• Product
  • Product data
    • Name
    • Price
    • Category/Collection
    • Attributes
    • Customizations
  • Categories – Categories in most ecommerce platforms are dealt with differently vs. Shopify.  Magento and Big Commerce have hierarchy systems.  Shopify has a flat system called collections based on product tags and manual selection.
  • Product Reviews
  • Question and Answer
• Customer
• Order
• Product Reviews
• Question and Answer
• Other considerations

Other considerations

• International selling
• Fast payment methods
• Customer account login migration
• Fraud Prevention
• Single Sign On (SSO)
• B2B Functionality
• Content Pages
• Forms
• Store Finder
• Returns / Exchange Module
• Advanced Shipping