Now that you’re trying to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify, I’ve got a buffet of both bad and good news. Which one would you want first?
I say we begin with the bad. And here it goes- apparently, there’s no direct copy-and-paste method of migrating your online store from BigCommerce to Shopify. And neither can you move it by changing the server or database details.
The good thing, however, is, I didn’t say it was impossible. You can indeed import BigCommerce to Shopify.
Here’s the kicker though. The ease and the amount of time your online store takes to be transferred depends on the migration method you choose.
Luckily for you, however, this BigCommerce to Shopify migration guide identifies and explains the simplest and cheapest route. It walks you through the entire process of fully migrating your ecommerce store from BigCommerce to Shopify using an automated shopping cart migration tool called Cart2Cart.
Ok, but why do we particularly prefer Cart2Cart above everything else?
Well, that’s another thing we’ll be revealing shortly, right after we discuss all the possible methods you can use to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify.
In the meantime though, let’s find out exactly why it might not be easy to directly import BigCommerce to Shopify.
The Problem With BigCommerce To Shopify Migration
You see, while BigCommerce and Shopify are both user-friendly ecommerce platforms, their underlying SaaS frameworks are built differently. They run online stores using varying architectures. Plus, their web tools and the corresponding functionalities are not similar at all.
What does this mean for ecommerce merchants who are seeking to migrate?
Well, for starters, you won’t be able to directly map your BigCommerce online store data onto the Shopify platform. They haven’t made a template for that yet.
Consequently, you can expect technical challenges as you import BigCommerce to Shopify. And that, in the long run, translates to time and money.
But how much are we talking about here?
Again, all that depends on how you choose to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify. But, to help you make an informed choice, here’s a review of all the migration options.
Your BigCommerce To Shopify Migration Options
Ecommerce data management is exceedingly sophisticated. There are now numerous approaches you could use to exchange data between different platforms.
And when it comes to BigCommerce and Shopify, the migration options are quite diverse. But, to make everything much simpler for you, we’ve categorized them into these three primary methods:
- Manual BigCommerce To Shopify Migration
- Assisted BigCommerce To Shopify Migration
- Automated BigCommerce To Shopify Migration
Manual BigCommerce To Shopify Migration
This is probably the first option you thought of when you came up with the idea of migrating BigCommerce to Shopify.
And, as the name suggests, manual migration entails laboriously moving your ecommerce store data between the platforms. Online merchants essentially migrate by lifting entities from their BigCommerce database and subsequently applying it to their corresponding Shopify system.
Now, if you choose to try it out, you might want to capitalize on BigCommerce’s export tool. You’ll notice that it allows you to download various online store entities in the form of an organized data file.
You could, for instance, choose to export your products to a CSV file. BigCommerce will automatically compile your inventory info into a downloadable CSV file. Then once the download process is complete, you just need to re-upload the file to your Shopify store.
Nonetheless, the migration process doesn’t end there. The sad bit is, you’ll be forced to conduct numerous rounds of such procedures if you intend to fully import BigCommerce to Shopify.
And that’s not all. To make matters worse, you still have to customize every single entity to align everything with Shopify’s system. That means intricately editing and re-organizing the data based on Shopify’s store structure.
Sounds like a heck of a lot of work. That’s why, in the end, it could take you days to fully migrate BigCommerce to Shopify. Possibly even a week or so if you take into account the subsequent store evaluation procedure.
And speaking of which, store assessment is critically important here because the chances of making errors or omissions are considerably high.
But, all in all, the manual BigCommerce to Shopify procedure can only be undertaken by technically skilled site owners. You need to know how both BigCommerce and Shopify are structured, how to export and import data, as well as how to tweak the entities accordingly.
So, of course, this is not for everyone. Only a handful of ecommerce merchants are capable of performing manual BigCommerce to Shopify migrations.
Assisted BigCommerce To Shopify Migration
If the manual method seems a bit too cumbersome, you might want to try out the assisted BigCommerce to Shopify migration option.
The trick here is, you get to hire a team of professionals to handle everything on your behalf. And after reviewing your technical requirements, they’ll import data from BigCommerce, and then export everything to your corresponding Shopify store.
So, although it saves you much of the trouble and frees your time, the procedure itself is not any easier than the traditional manual approach. Even with their experience and expertise, the professionals are bound to have a difficult time as they painstakingly import BigCommerce to Shopify.
Most notably though, ecommerce migration services don’t come cheap at all. A typical web development agency will hit with an invoice worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. This makes assisted BigCommerce to Shopify migration the costliest option of the three.
Automated BigCommerce To Shopify Migration
With automation being one of the biggest ecommerce trends today, automated BigCommerce to Shopify migration happens to be exceptionally popular. Most online businesses prefer transferring their migration data using automated systems.
And why is that?
Well, in essence, this approach mitigates the weaknesses of manual and assisted methods. Most of the data transfer tasks are performed automatically by intelligent migration tools. They are the ones that import your store entities from BigCommerce to Shopify.
Now, as it turns out, automated tools have proven to be much better than humans when it comes to data handling. They are way more accurate and take much less time to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify.
Most importantly though, migration tools will charge you much less than professional agencies. Consequently, you could say that this is the most cost-effective method of migrating BigCommerce to Shopify.
But, don’t get me wrong. Not all migration tools are efficient and cost-friendly. Only a handful of solutions are capable of performing fully automated BigCommerce to Shopify data transfers.
Well, it just so happens we’ve tried out most of them. And based on their performance levels, I’d strongly recommend Cart2Cart for both small-scale and large scale BigCommerce to Shopify migrations.
Wondering why?
Introducing The Cart2Cart Migration Tool
Cart2Cart is not just for BigCommerce to Shopify imports. You can think of it as an all-inclusive migration tool that specializes in all sorts of shopping cart data transfers.
In addition to Shopify and BigCommerce, it supports more than 85 other ecommerce platforms. I’m talking about the likes of Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Big Cartel, Wix, Squarespace, osCommerce, ZenCart, etc. All the dominant players in the ecommerce industry have been featured here.
And you know what? Cart2Cart allows you to migrate your ecommerce store across all the 85+ platforms. Pick any two shopping carts and you should be able to automate ecommerce data migration between them.
You can read more about all that from our comprehensive review of Cart2Cart. And while you’re at it, you’ll notice that there are several concrete reasons why I recommend Cart2Cart for BigCommerce to Shopify migration.
Why Use Cart2Cart To Import BigCommerce To Shopify?
Ease of Use
As we’ve established, the process of migrating BigCommerce to Shopify is anything but easy. The whole thing can be extremely challenging, especially if you attempt to perform it manually without the requisite technical expertise.
With Cart2Cart, however, the perceivably complicated procedure becomes a child’s play. The tool allows you to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify without any technical skills or experience. You just need to enter your store details, pick the entities you’d like to transfer, and voila! Cart2Cart will proceed to handle everything on your behalf.
The tool, as a matter of fact, comes with a very basic and minimalistic interface. So, you can be certain you won’t have a hard time finding your way around. Cart2Cart doesn’t even have a learning curve. Everything is satisfyingly simple and straightforward.
Another thing you’ll notice about Cart2Cart is that it even provides a migration setup wizard, which launches automatically as soon as you click on the Start Migration button. This is what will guide you through the three-step migration setup procedure.
In the end, you should be able to set up your BigCommerce to Shopify migration within a couple of minutes- possibly less than five. And once you’re done, you can expect Cart2Cart to transfer the store entities without any interruptions.
Reliability
Going by Cart2Cart’s extensive portfolio of supported shopping carts alone, you can tell that this is not one of those average ecommerce solutions.
In fact, as it turns out, Cart2Cart’s experience spans more than 10 years. The tool was launched in 2009 and has since facilitated over 250,000 successful store migrations across tens of shopping cart platforms.
Throughout this time, Cart2Cart managed to perfect the art of transferring and mapping all sorts of ecommerce store entities. Hence, you can now count on it to migrate not only your customer and product data, but also the accompanying orders, item categories, reviews, coupons, plus blog articles.
And while the precise time figures depend on the number of entities in your store, Cart2Cart typically takes only a couple of hours to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify. It relies on a powerful AI engine that manages to seamlessly import data from BigCommerce stores, and subsequently map the entities onto the corresponding target stores.
Therefore, when all is said and done, you should have yourself a full Shopify store, complete with all the entities. And, you even get to preserve SEO URLs, order IDs, plus product descriptions.
The only thing you’ll be left to do is customizing your new website’s theme and overall outlook. Otherwise, everything else should be ready to roll.
Inexpensive
Based on the standard rates that professionals charge, migrating BigCommerce to Shopify can be a costly affair, especially for small businesses. A basic procedure could easily stretch well into hundreds or thousands of dollars, which- when you come to think of it- is almost equivalent to the cost of building a new Shopify store from scratch.
Compare that with Cart2Cart’s rates, which go as low as $29 for a single migration instance. What you end up paying here, in the long run, depends on the number of entities you choose to migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify, as well as the supplementary premium add-ons that you select during setup.
You could, for instance, choose to have Cart2Cart create 301 redirects in your Shopify target store after migration. This option alone will add $59 to your total service bill.
That’s no reason for alarm though. The cumulative cost of the service, even when you select all the possible add-ons, can never be anywhere close to what professionals would charge you.
What’s more, you’ll notice that Cart2Cart doesn’t necessarily require you to settle the bill during registration. You get to install the solution from the Shopify App Market for free, sign up for free, and then set up the entire migration at no cost at all.
But, it doesn’t end there. While you’re setting up everything through the wizard, you’ll be pleased that Cart2Cart tops off its generosity with free demo migration.
Yes, that’s right. Cart2Cart allows you to import some of the BigCommerce entities for free. Such demo migration procedures should be complete within 30 minutes or so, after which you can proceed to evaluate your target store sample.
The goal here is to give you an insight into what to expect when you ultimately choose to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify.
And if you happen to discover flaws in the demo target store, Cart2Cart allows you to readjust your setup preferences, as well as perform as many additional demo migrations as you like.
Zero Downtime
Downtime happens to be a pretty common concern when it comes to web store migrations. Online ecommerce merchants often worry that their migration processes could potentially translate into huge losses, owing to possible downtime instances.
Quite a fair and understandable concern, I must admit. The intricate procedure of migrating data between shopping cart platforms could easily affect the performance of your website. Unless, of course, you’re using Cart2Cart to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify.
The thing about Cart2Cart is, it comes well-optimized to perform the automated transfer process in the background, away from your website’s core resources. Your website is left completely intact while Cart2Cart relies on its underlying systems to facilitate the whole migration.
In short, therefore, you should be able to import BigCommerce to Shopify without any downtime or website performance issues. All the websites we’ve tested so far have managed to remain stable throughout the migration procedure.
That means you could even proceed to conduct transactions without any limitations or technical difficulties. Cart2Cart’s only concern will be migrating your BigCommerce entities to Shopify. It won’t interfere with your business.
And with that, let’s now find out how exactly you can leverage Cart2Cart to import BigCommerce to Shopify…
How To Migrate BigCommerce To Shopify With Cart2Cart [Step-By-Step Tutorial]
Premigration Step: Set Up Your Shopify Store
Since you already have a BigCommerce store, the only thing missing to complete the migration equation is a corresponding target store on Shopify. So, you might want to create one before you even start working on the migration procedure itself.
Now, to set up a Shopify ecommerce store, your first stop should be Shopify’s main site. And considering that by now you’ve probably done your research about how it works, it shouldn’t take you long to register an account with your preferred Shopify plan.
Once you’re in, you’ll notice that Shopify comes with a seamless and straightforward system. Figuring your way around the admin panel should be a breeze, and you can proceed to create an online store right away.
A word of advice though. Don’t waste time sweating the design details. You’ll worry about that much later, after migrating all the entities.
In the meantime, the default Shopify theme should be good enough. Keep the website completely plain, without any extra modules or customizations. This avoids possible complications during data mapping.
Migration Step 1: Install and Launch Cart2Cart
Now, don’t get me wrong. Not all Shopify modules are bad at this stage. While you’re strongly advised to steer clear of the fancy add-ons, there’s one Shopify module you wouldn’t want to miss out on.
I’m talking about the official Cart2Cart store migration app, which you’ll find within the Shopify App Market. Install the module for free, and then click on it to launch Cart2Cart.
It’s worth noting, however, that this is not the only route. You could as well get started directly from Cart2Cart’s main website, shopping-cart-migration.com.
Whichever method you choose, registering an account is as easy as 1-2-3, and completely free of charge. You could fill in your personal details, or simply log in with your Facebook account or Google account credentials. That’s all it takes.
Cart2Cart will automatically direct you to its main dashboard, from where you can begin setting up your BigCommerce to Shopify migration.
So, go ahead and pick BigCommerce as the cart that you’ll be migrating From, followed by Shopify as the cart you’ll be migrating To. Then next, hit the Start Free Demo Now button to launch the migration wizard.
Migration Step 2: Enter Your BigCommerce Source Cart Details
The first section of the migration wizard deals with the source cart. This is where you get to enter your source cart and source store info before proceeding to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify.
Now, if you pick BigCommerce from the dropdown list of cart options, the Source Cart Setup will automatically prompt you to enter the accompanying Source Store URL, Client ID, Access Token, and API Path.
The first part is pretty straightforward, just enter your store’s domain into the Source Store URL field, and then type your BigCommerce admin username into the Client ID field.
As for the Access Token and API Path, you’ll have no option but to generate the details from your BigCommerce system.
So, open a new browser window and log into your BigCommerce admin panel. Go straight to Advanced Settings, choose API Accounts, and then click on the Create API Account button.
At this point, you can set up a Cart2Cart API account on BigCommerce, and then proceed to copy-and-paste the corresponding Access Token and API Path details.
Migration Step 3: Set Up Your Shopify Target Cart
Fortunately, it turns out setting up the target cart isn’t as complicated as detailing the source cart.
The one thing you need to do here is select Shopify as the target cart, and then install the Cart2Cart Store Migration App to your Shopify store.
The app will create a connection bridge on the platform, through which Cart2Cart will ultimately migrate BigCommerce to Shopify.
Once you’re done, you can click on the Choose Entities button to advance to the next stage.
Migration Step 4: Pick The Store Entities You’d Want To Migrate
This is where Cart2Cart gives you the option of specifying the particular sets of online store data you’d like to transfer as you import BigCommerce to Shopify.
The principal default options you’ll find here are; Select All, Products, Reviews, Categories, Manufacturers, Customers, Orders, Blogs, and Coupons.
But, make no mistake about them. These are essentially core data groups that collectively describe their accompanying store entities.
Blog Posts, for instance, are accompanied by Title, Full Description, Short Description, Tags, SEO URL, Author, Post Redirects, and Images.
Reviews are migrated along with their Created Date, Rate, User Name, Comment, Product, and Title, while Coupons are typically attached to the Name, Coupon Code, Type Discount, and Discount Amount.
Orders come with ID, Order Date, Order Status, Order Products (Name, SKU), Product Price, Quantity, SubTotal Price, Discount Price, Tax Price, Shipping Price, Total Price, Order Comments, Email, Billing Address (First Name, Last Name, Company, Address 1, Address 2, Country, State, City, Zip Code, Telephone), and Shipping Address (First Name, Last Name, Company, Address 1, Address 2, Country, State, City, Zip Code, Telephone).
Then Customer details are accompanied by First Name, Last Name, Email, Billing Address (First Name, Last Name, Company, Address 1, Address 2, Country, State, City, Zip Code, Telephone), and Shipping Address ( First Name, Last Name, Company, Address 1, Address 2, Country, State, City, Zip Code, Telephone).
Product Categories, on the other hand, are transferred along with their Name, Description, Status, Image, URL, Meta Title, and Meta Description.
Then last but not least is info on your Products, which includes Name, SKU, Full Description, Images in Description, Status, Manufacturer, Price, Special Price, URL, Meta Title, Meta Description, Weight, Variants (SKU, Attributes, Price), Base Image, Additional Images, Quantity, and UPC.
Migration Step 5: Select Your Additional Migration Options
Cart2Cart further allows you to customize your BigCommerce to Shopify migration using supplementary tweaks in the form of additional options.
You could, for instance, choose to Migrate Short & Full descriptions, or Clear current data on Target Store before Migration at no extra cost. Both of these options are completely free of charge.
Sadly, however, Cart2Cart doesn’t offer any other free customizations. Choosing to Change product quantity to 100 on your Target Store will cost you $29, along with Migrating Source Store customer groups into customer tags.
$49 is the next price rate, and it should afford you additional options such as Migrating images from product descriptions, categories descriptions, and blog posts descriptions.
Beyond that, the most you can pay here is $59 for the privilege of Migrating categories and products SEO URLs. Creating 301 redirects on your target store after migration will also cost you $59, and so will the option of Migrating Source Store categories into Shopify Automated Collections.
Migration Step 6: Perform a Free Demo Migration Followed By a Full Migration
After choosing the entities and customizing your BigCommerce to Shopify migration, you can proceed to perform a free demo migration.
Cart2Cart will only import a limited number of entities from your store. But, all in all, they should be enough for a thorough analysis of your demo target store.
Take the time to keenly assess every single element. And if you flag up any anomaly, consider rectifying it by readjusting your migration options.
Otherwise, if you’re satisfied with everything, you can go ahead and pay for the migration service, before finally performing a full BigCommerce to Shopify migration.
Over To You
Ultimately, you can expect the system to take a couple of hours to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify. In the meantime, you can even close your Cart2Cart browser window and carry on with your normal business operations. The system will raise an email alert when it completes the data transfer process.
And once it does, it’s now over to you. Take the time to evaluate your new Shopify store in detail. Pay special attention to your entities, as well as the store’s overall structure on both the frontend and backend.
Is everything organized appropriately? Are the entities mapped out accordingly? Has Cart2Cart managed to migrate all the data elements that you selected?
It’s only after counter checking and confirming everything that you can proceed to customize the store’s design.
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