Many online retailers are eager to move their online stores to a new solution that offers better pricing and increased capabilities.
In a recent Digital Commerce 360 survey, 46% of retailers and manufacturers listed "e-commerce platform" as their #1 spending priority. And for many B2B companies today, online features and services that make commerce easier and more personalized for customers are crucial.
Some 27% of online retailers plan to switch e-commerce platforms, according to the 2022 survey. Most expect to spend between $25,001 and $500,000 on re-platforming.
The reasons for wanting to change platforms vary. Some companies want to move to the cloud, while others want to move from the cloud to their servers. The most popular reason (35% of respondents) was the need to find "commerce software adapted for us and hosted externally in a single-tenant environment."
Benefits of automated migration to BigCommerce
Automated e-commerce re-platforming uses software to transfer an online store from one e-commerce platform to another. This involves moving data, such as product information, customer data, and order history, with minimal manual intervention from the existing platform to the new one.
In general, automated migration to another platform benefits online stores. For instance, automated migration:
- Streamlines the migration process, helping businesses make the transition with minimal disruption to their operation.
- Reduces the risk of losing data that can happen during manual data entry. The manual transfer of data is bound to lead to human error. Automated tools like Cart2Cart promise to transfer data securely and accurately.
- Saves time and effort for e-commerce businesses. Transferring an online store manually can be time-consuming, requiring significant time and effort from staff. Automated re-platforming tools can significantly reduce the time required to migrate data from the old platform to the new one.
- Can help companies to save costs since the process requires less manual intervention, so it's possible to save on labor costs.
When it comes to automated migration to BigCommerce, companies can benefit from easy migration. Automated migration tools make transferring data between e-commerce platforms easy, saving online businesses time and effort.
One of the reasons online store owners decide to move to BigCommerce is the platform's scalability. As a business expands, a platform that can handle more products, orders, and commerce activities becomes crucial. BigCommerce is a scalable platform that can grow as a business expands. Automated re-platforming can help businesses utilize BigCommerce's scalability without significant manual effort.
In addition, automated re-platforming can help businesses switch to BigCommerce quickly and efficiently, minimizing the potential for downtime or lost data.
BigCommerce is a secure platform with many security features to protect against data breaches and other threats. Automated re-platforming can help companies move their store securely to a secure platform.
Choosing the right automated migration app
There are loads of website migration apps available, and choosing among them can be difficult. Here are a few things to consider when choosing an automated migration app.
Make sure you know what you need. You must know why you are migrating your store and what you want to achieve. For instance, do you need to transfer data between different cloud storage services, or do you need to move the store to a new server or domain, can the migration app do this?
Next, you need to evaluate the features that automation apps offer. What can it move; can it move images or just text? Does it back up your store first, and how long will your business be disrupted by the transfer – some apps offer for your store to stay open while the transfer is ongoing.
Another crucial aspect is compatibility. Look for an automation app compatible with your existing systems, software, and platforms. This is important. You want to choose something other than an app that causes compatibility issues.
If you will use an automation app, make ease of use a priority. Your team should refrain from undergoing extensive training or a steep learning curve to perform automated re-platforming.
Do your research and choose a reliable automation app with good customer support. Your team wants to avoid being stuck in no man's land when something goes wrong. Make sure the automation tool you choose offers reliable customer support.
To get this information, consult online review websites like TrustPilot, G2, and Capterra for reviews and ratings, which will give you a good impression of the app's performance, reliability, and integrity of its creators.
Cart2Cart is an e-commerce migration tool that's worth considering. It allows easy and secure migration of products, customers, orders, and other data with the help of a simple, user-friendly interface.
Important considerations before starting the migration process to BigCommerce
Re-platforming is a significant undertaking. You need to consider the transfer's scope and the level of support and training you will need to ensure a smooth transition.
Rre-platforming can sometimes affect SEO. It's essential to ensure that your website's SEO is preserved during migration and that you plan to optimize your SEO on the new platform. Re-platforming can also affect the 301 redirects. However, the following factors will not affect the migration if you use Store Migration by Cart2Cart App for your migration project. Just choose the relevant additional options at the corresponding steps of the Migration Wizard to customize your migration to BigCommerce (like Create 301 Redirects on Your BigCommerce Store After Migration, Migrate Categories & Products SEO URLs, etc.).
Step-by-step guide for migrating data to BigCommerce (via the Cart2Cart app)
Here is the Cart2Cart Migration Wizard steps for automated migration to BigCommerce.
1. Set up your Source cart (current cart) and your Target cart (BigCommerce). Provide all the necessary details and credentials for both.
2.Provide Username, API Token, and API Path for your target store. You can find more information on this step here. You can also watch this video for more information and instructions.
3.Identify the data that must be moved from your existing store to BigCommerce. You can transfer:
- Products
- Product categories
- Manufacturers
- Customers
- Orders
- Coupons
- Reviews
- Blogs
- Blog posts, etc.
4.Choose the additional options to make your migration more complete, for example:
- Create 301 Redirects on Your BigCommerce Store After Migration - creating 301 redirects helps to preserve your store's SEO.
- Migrate Categories and Products SEO URLs - preserves the current links to your products.
Note: this is a limited list of data entities and additional options; certain variations apply to some source carts.
5.Test the migration by running a Demo migration. The free Demo migration is the ideal opportunity to see how the migration will affect your store. The Demo allows you to transfer 30 data entities and takes about 30 minutes.
Note: You can do unlimited demos until you are satisfied that everything appears right.
Cart2Cart highly recommends doing a Demo migration before proceeding to the actual migration.
Only when you are completely satisfied with the results of the Demo migration, you proceed to the Full Migration. Once you have clicked the "Start Full Migration" button, the Cart2Cart App will transfer all the data to your new BigCommerce store.
Post-migration recommendations
You will receive a notification once the Full Migration is completed. When you receive it, take the following steps:
- Check your store for possible errors.
- After migration, verify all your product details, including product descriptions, images, variants, and meta descriptions.
- Test your store's operation by placing an order, choosing a billing option, and making a payment.
- Download and install all the necessary apps and extensions.
- New data entities will appear on your old store during or after the migration. Cart2Cart’s Recent Data Migration Service can move all the newly added products, customers, and orders to your new BigCommerce store.
If you need help migrating your store to BigCommerce, one of the best migration apps is Cart2Cart. It is a simple and trustworthy data migration app that transfers all website data securely and accurately.
December 13, 2024 
