Planning for a Magento to Shopify Migration: What You Need to Know

Open-source platforms like Magento are powerhouses that can be used to create fully-customized online stores. 

When it comes to eCommerce platforms, few offer the same level of raw functionality. 

But there’s a catch. Since the user is responsible for hosting the platform, security, speed, and functionality all come down to the user.

Some eCommerce merchants just can’t justify staying on a platform like Magento. For some, the convenience and cost savings associated with SaaS platforms like Shopify outweigh the potential benefits of customization and integration that Magento offers. 

So let’s take a closer look at why some merchants might benefit from a Magento to Shopify Plus migration, as well as how to prepare for it.

Advantages of Shopify Plus

There are a number of reasons that SaaS models like Shopify Plus are attractive to eCommerce merchants. 

Many of these are attributable to the fact that Shopify Plus provides all necessary hosting and infrastructure, performs load testing, and provides security patches and upgrades as necessary. That takes a load off the shoulders of the platforms’ customers. 

Shopify Plus also offers its users access to internal architects, Shopify Plus developers, and retainer-based consulting. 

In addition, the Shopify Platform: 

• Integrates with Google Ads.
• Has a native, built-in blogging engine, which supports SEO, content marketing, and other digital marketing efforts. 
• Offers 8 free themes and dozens of other premium themes. 
• Has a native coupon code feature (all subscription models).
• Allows easy HTML and CSS editing, which is necessary for developers to make customizations. 
• Has a live-chat integration feature. 
• Is easily integrable with a huge range of Shopify apps. 
• The platform has an abandoned cart recovery feature. 
• Shopify supports the use of multiple currency settings.
• Integrates easily with most major shipping carriers like UPS and FedEx. 
• Easily integrates with a large range of payment providers.
• Supports a large Shopify ecosystem of designers, developers, and digital marketing specialists.
• Has its own analytics reporting functionality. 

In addition to the general benefits of the Shopify platform, mentioned above, there are some exclusive benefits to the use of Shopify Plus, such as:

• Shopify Flow, an automation feature that enables users to automate workflows using premade templates. Workflow automation can also be customized. 
• Script Editor, which enables easy customizations to multiple aspects of your Shopify Plus store.
• Some apps are Shopify Plus exclusive. 
• It allows you to create unlimited staff accounts.
• And finally, a subscription to Shopify Plus gives you access to a dedicated account manager. 

Drawbacks of Open-Source (Magento)

For many eCommerce merchants, the reason a migration from Magento to Shopify Plus becomes necessary has more to do with the investment required to run a Magento store than from the specific benefits of Shopify Plus. 

While it is true that Magento’s open-source nature makes the most robust customizations possible, doing so requires no small deal of Magento development expertise. In fact, you need to be very code-savvy to do so. 

Moreover, since users have to host their own platforms, server loads, security, speed, and integrations can all become headaches quite quickly. 

There is a large community of Magento developers out there, but at the same time, some issues associated with managing a Magento store include: 

• Magento is associated with high development costs due to the complex nature of the platform.
• Becoming familiar with the platform entails a steep learning curve and a large investment in time. 
• Magento hosting is resource intensive.
• According to some users, Magento is far too over-engineered for average users – who, by the way, generally happen to be eCommerce entrepreneurs and not computer scientists. 

All of this might sound simple but really it adds up to one glaring truth: running a Magento store gets expensive, quickly. 

Why Magento to Shopify Plus Migration Can Benefit Your Business?

In terms of the cost and time investments it takes to launch and run a Magento website, we can break it down according to averages associated with how much it costs to launch, how long it takes to launch, and what the total monthly costs are. 

Of course, these figures will vary according to the scope of a store’s operations and functionality, but here are some basic figures. 

• On average, it costs about $75,000 to $170,000 to build a Shopify website, compared to $400,000 to $600,000 for a Magento store. That makes the Magento route up to 3 times more on average. 
• It takes on average 2 to 4 months to build a fully-functional Shopify Plus website, compared to 5 to 8 months for Magento. 
• And, on average, a Shopify Plus website costs $2,500 to $5,000 in monthly maintenance, compared to $10,000 to $15,000 for Magento. 

So, Magento is just more expensive (in both dollars and resources) to manage than Shopify Plus. That much is hardly up for debate. 

Here’s how to go about planning a Magento to Shopify Plus eCommerce migration. 

Planning for a Magento to Shopify Plus Migration

There is actually a way to manage your own Magento to Shopify Plus Migration. 

To do so, you will need to set up a Shopify account. You can actually start with a free trial that will let you get familiar with the platform before you choose the paid plan that works for you – though you will need to choose one before the trial is over. 

After you set up your Shopify account, the next thing you will want to make sure you do is to create a backup of your Magento store. This is perhaps the most important step of all because if something goes wrong (if anything goes wrong, really) and you haven’t made a backup, you could lose literally all of your product, customer account, and payment information, along with all of your CMS pages. 

You can back up your Magento store through the platform’s Admin sidebar – under System, Tools, and Backups. 

Once you’ve made a backup of your Magento website, you can use an app called the “Import Store” app for Shopify that enables you to migrate your data over to the new Shopify store once you’ve exported it from Magento. 

You can use Magento’s Admin sidebar to export your data, too, just like you used it to back it up. 

Under System, go to Data Transfer, then Export. Select the entity type, then export it as an XML or CSV. format.

Log into your Shopify admin page, and under your apps, select Import Store; Upload the files through Magento and then select Continue Import. 

At this point, the technical aspect of the migration should be complete. Now you need to review your data and ensure that everything survived the migration. 

Then you need to customize and configure your new Shopify store and select a subscription plan before your trial expires. 

Now for the reality check. The process I just described for a Magento to Shopify migration might sound overly simplistic. It is, and on paper, the process is really very easy, but in practice, like so many other website administration “things,” there is actually quite a lot of room for error

And that room for error increases with websites that have thousands of products, variants, and customer accounts.

So, before you take up the banner, I highly suggest you reach out to one of our Shopify Plus developers to talk to us about our migration process. We’ve handled hundreds of eCommerce migrations in the past without a blip thanks to our watertight migration process that ensures no data loss and implements 301 redirects to address changes to URLs during the process. 

You’ll thank yourself later for letting professionals handle it.