Mastering Migration
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Mastering migration: Replatform with Shopify Plus to launch, sell, and scale faster Contents The most uncomfortable word in ecommerce? 3 Before migration 10 During migration 20 After migration 27 Migrating your mind 41 THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE MASTERING MIGRATION: 2 / 41 The most uncomfortable word in ecommerce? “We’ve already invested so much in our current platform.” “The timing isn’t quite right.” “Won’t that take us a year or more?” “We’ve got more pressing projects right now.” THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE If you’re reading this, your business is at a crossroads. And it isn’t failure that’s led you here — it’s success. Growth has a dark side. Especially in high-volume ecommerce: • Mounting tech debt • Lack of platform control • Unreliable online performance • Rising costs for maintenance and hosting Still, few words are as daunting as migration. Even if you haven’t experienced the horror stories firsthand, you’ve heard about delays, missed deadlines, and broken promises. MASTERING MIGRATION: 3 / 41 We understand. And it’s why we created this guide … To share migration insights from some of the nearly 4,000 brands that have successfully switched to Shopify Plus. We’re pulling back the curtain to reveal exactly what you can expect before, during, and after. It’s a comprehensive overview that includes migrating orders, customers, products, and the myriad support awaiting you. The transparency, depth, and detail offered within will equip you with the confidence necessary to take control of your commerce future to begin saving time and money and to start selling more – faster. Welcome to the other side of the fence. Welcome to Shopify Plus. THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE MASTERING MIGRATION: 4 / 41 Migration is a dirty word around here. We’ve tried every platform because we’re nimble and we switch when something isn’t working. It’s costly to switch and migrating is a major upheaval. THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE We’re married to Shopify Plus and love the technology. Save yourself the time and money and just start with Shopify and you won’t need to worry about switching as you grow. PAUL HODGE CEO at Laird Superfood former BigCommerce merchant MASTERING MIGRATION: 5 / 41 The difference starts on day one Like your brand, every replatform to Shopify Plus is unique. But regardless of where you’re migrating from — a SaaS platform, an open source system, or a custom-built solution — the one constant is that … Every business migrating to Shopify Plus is immediately assigned a personal Launch Engineer. Your Launch Engineer (LE) serves as a direct point of contact on platform-specific matters. LEs can direct you to the right migration partner through the Shopify Plus Partners Program. They also help align your team and/or partners to successfully execute data migration, development requests, CRM, ERP and 3PL integrations, domain and URL structure, quality assurance, and platform training. Your LE will help set expectations, consult with you and your team on best practices, and establish a timeline for your launch. Thanks to their expertise … Migrating to Shopify Plus typically takes four months instead of the industry standard 8-12 months. THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE Be prepared — or make sure your partner is prepared — to answer technical questions like: • Who will be migrating your data? • What can’t you do on your current platform? • What costs you the most time to currently execute? • What could be automated to save you time and resources? • How many products, customers, and orders need to be migrated? Be sure to connect the right people with your Launch Engineer. The employees or partners who know your data best will need to help your LE understand how your data is mapped and structured, what (if any) metadata exists, or if you’ll require order transaction history. MASTERING MIGRATION: 6 / 41 The move from Magento to Shopify Plus took four weeks. I knew some basic HTML and loved my in-house developer, but with the help of Shopify Plus’ Launch Engineer, I could do most everything myself. THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE Whenever I had a question or request, they were there. The barrier to entry was almost non- existent, which felt freeing. CASSIE SMITH Ecommerce Manager at Jones Soda MASTERING MIGRATION: 7 / 41 Expert Tip For even faster launches, establish easy access to all your existing systems or databases so backups can be made. This ensures multiple people on your launch team can access and make changes rapidly rather than relying on a single person who may be away or busy with something else. Launch Engineer spotlight In just 42 days, Shopify Plus Launch Engineer Nina Sijakov helped L'Occitane — the major natural beauty and skincare products brand — build a turnkey multi-channel storefront to capitalize on an urgent holiday sales opportunity. “It was an inflexible deadline,” says Sijakov, “but I love a challenge and told them I was all in. Despite a really quick turn around, we had the whole shop set up in a few weeks. It was great.” THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE Certainly, 42 days isn’t a common time frame — especially if you’ll require third-party integrations, frontend customizations, or if you’ll use the Shopify API to build something from scratch. But Sijakov and her fellow LEs can help you launch in half the time it takes on other platforms. NINA SIJAKOV Launch Engineer Shopify Plus MASTERING MIGRATION: 8 / 41 Question: How do LEs help businesses make the right decisions? “Quite often the person who made the decision to launch on, or replatform with, Shopify Plus isn’t the same person responsible for getting the brand’s store up and running on Shopify Plus. So we’re there to educate, make product recommendations, and help the merchant make smart business decisions that help them make more money.” Question: How do businesses with skilled partners benefit from LEs? “Even the best design and development agencies don’t know every inch of Shopify Plus. But the launch engineers do. So we work directly with agencies to quickly turn a merchant’s wish list into reality.” THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE WORD IN ECOMMERCE? IN WORD UNCOMFORTABLE MOST THE Question: How about giving us an example? “Sure. We recently had a merchant who needed to schedule regular theme changes. This is a manual process that can take time and energy away from growing sales, so we recommended the merchant automate the process with Launchpad, an ecommerce automation tool that allows merchants to schedule, coordinate, and execute major commerce events in advance. “We routinely help merchants discover solutions that position them to focus on what matters rather than the technology that makes their stores work.” MASTERING MIGRATION: 9 / 41 Before migration How quickly you launch on Shopify Plus is directly correlated with the quantity of data you deem necessary to migrate. Determining what data to bring with you is a crucial first step. After that, there are multiple ways to import your data to Shopify Plus: 1. TRANSPORTER 2. CSV FILES 3. API 4. THIRD-PARTY TOOLS For one-on-one guidance... Talk to a migration expert BEFORE MIGRATION BEFORE MIGRATION BEFORE MASTERING MIGRATION: 10 / 41 1. Transporter Transporter, our proprietary data migration solution, accelerates and simplifies the process of switching platforms so you can launch faster – without all the heavy lifting. With powerful importing, helpful error messages, and the ability to delete data, Transporter lets you intentionally create the foundation for your online store, allowing you to confidently plan for the future. In just a few clicks, and with expert guidance, it’s a painless experience that frees your Launch Engineer and Agency Partners to focus on higher-value tasks that increase your ROI. Typically, it takes 8-10 weeks to complete a full migration. But with Transporter, we’ve slashed that time so you can launch sooner and make money faster. Specifically, Transporter allows you to import customers and products, as well as order records and metafields, into your Shopify store. The app accepts CSV files for each of these record types, processes them, and then imports them as objects into Shopify. The app supports shipping and transaction lines, ensuring you have the data you need to calculate key metrics across platforms. Transporter is the fastest way to import data — faster than both CSV and API. The app accepts metafields to support complex data sets and allow for larger CSV file sizes. Currently, the CSV file limit for products and customers in the admin is 15 MB and 5 MB, respectfully. Transporter allows up to 100 MB. Whereas the traditional CSV import emails errors encountered during uploading, Transporter allows you to export errors and download them in a CSV file to view each line in context, so you can fix them in the right way with the errors properly exposed. Transporter is the only way to get order data into Shopify via CSV other than API, which isn't much a solution for non-technical merchants. Lastly, it lets you delete data in bulk, providing a truly iterative migration solution. BEFORE MIGRATION BEFORE MASTERING MIGRATION: 11 / 41 I’m absolutely sold on the Shopify Plus platform and love using it. We were part way through a painful Magento 2 implementation that I had to pull the plug on.