Platform migration is inevitable. Whether you’ve outgrown your existing provider, the costs have ratcheted up or your original ecommerce site has become a slow, cumbersome beast – at some point you need to address the elephant in the room. Where do you begin? What should you consider? How long will it take?
While we can’t provide all the answers in one blog post, we are a platform-agnostic agency with expertise across a multitude of platforms including Adobe Commerce (Magento), Shopify and Centra, meaning that we do not favour one platform over the other. For this reason, we’ve become trusted experts in migration for many premium ecommerce brands, having helped a multitude of our own clients replatfrom, such as Boodles, Finnies, iCandy and The Conran Shop - who recently won a Silver ecommerce award for 'Best Ecommerce Replatform'!
The Conran Shop, Shopify migration, 2024
1. Start at the Beginning
Before you start researching, assess your current tech stack and note what’s working well and what’s important – as well as what isn’t.
Gather your requirements – accounting for where you envisage the business in the future – and identify specific reasons for wanting to migrate (e.g. scalability, cost). Then map these requirements against your platforms of choice, ranking them to help provide a clearer picture.
When it comes to the migration itself – there are 3 main approaches:
Doing it all at once. Bold but sometimes necessary. Effectively lifting everything from one foundation to another.
Phased migration. Potentially more sensible, moving everything across in stages.
Monolithic to microservices. Unhooking everything from one platform and creating your own composable (headless) architecture.
2. Consider Costs
A platform like Shopify offers a subscription-based cost model – they host on their servers and are competitively priced and easier to forecast. On the other hand, Magento tends to have higher development costs, due to a higher level of customisation available, and can be hosted on your own servers. Remember to consider built-in technology vs 3rd Party apps. Shopify includes its own POS system, while Magento will require a third party, for example.
A vital step to ensure that the groundwork is laid properly. Allowing your development agency to understand your existing tech stack, review your requirements, and fully understand what’s needed will lead to better estimates and a more effective process. Unified are experienced hands with Shopify and Magento (and others!) and will be more than happy to help answer any questions.
3. Map the data
We all know how important data is, so this step is especially key. As soon as you’ve chosen a platform, export your data and get mapping to the new platform’s requirements. Shopify offers easy options including a CSV, or you can use third-party plugins to help manage the process. Magento offers a range of plugins to help migrate – and has its own command line interface if you’re still on Magento 1.x and need to upgrade to Magento 2.x.
4. Think about Scalability
How many regions and stores will be part of the migration? Will you be expanding into other markets in the future? Will your product range grow. Shopify has gained a reputation for quick, efficient scaling, while Magento is known for its heavy-lifting abilities – more suitable for brands with large product catalogues.
5. Delve into Design
What’s the level of customisation you’re after? Are you going to rebrand as part of the leap or transpose your existing designs to the new platform? While both Shopify and Magento are customisable to a level that should work for most brands, Shopify will be quicker to get going, while Magento offers more in-depth customisation options.
6. Check out the Ecosystem
Whichever platform you choose, you’ll want to check that the ecosystem has plugins for your existing (or replacement) SaaS providers: from ESPs to PSPS, confirm that a verified extension exists. It will make life a lot easier. As an example, Shopify’s app store has nearly 10,000 apps while Magento’s is just shy of 6,000. Do investigate or speak to your agency about how native the plugins are for your required services.
7. Don’t forget the SEO
This is an excellent opportunity to optimise site URLs (if not done already). Making sure effective redirects are in place, updating metadata and resubmitting sitemaps are integral to maintaining any hard work that’s already gone into site ranking. Remember, you will likely see an initial traffic drop post migration – this is normal while the new site settles. Both Shopify and Magento offer flexible redirects for importing or creating a new site URL structure.
8. Lock in your security
Your new platform will need to be secure to store sensitive data. Both Shopify Plus and Adobe Commerce offer PCI DSS compliance, among others, but it’s worth checking all your requirements are met. Shopify “provides robust security measures, including SSL encryption, protection against DDoS attacks, and adherence to PCI DSS compliance standards throughout the platform.”
Magento offer an enhanced security scan that “allows you to monitor each of your Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source sites, including PWA, for known security risks and malware, and to receive patch updates and security notifications”.
9. Be everywhere with Omnichannel
How does the new platform support your omnichannel requirements and aspirations? Does it link nicely with social channels, 3PL and any bricks and mortar stores you have? Migration is a great opportunity to ensure every part of the business is linked effectively, enabling the same customer experience, and offering you a unified view of the data. Both Shopify and Magento offer integrations with relevant providers (such as Klaviyo, and Yieldify).
10. Test Test Test Plan Plan Plan
It’s a fact of life that things will go wrong. Probably once you’ve pressed ‘go’. You can mitigate some of this by checking the making sure there is a go live plan in place. What’s going to happen to the old site? How long will the holding page be up? Does everyone know their roles? This is a key part of the process – and something your agency can drive.
Conclusion
A site migration is a daunting prospect. But, as with most things – if planned well, and accompanied by the right partner – it will lead to a range of benefits. Reduced costs, quicker adaptation and improved customer experience that will support the growth and future needs of your brand.
