Moving from one ecommerce platform to the next

[commadus]

I am still deciding on what platform to use but then I suppose I could just try one and see how it is. So what have your experience been in moving from platforms?

 

[Glen Wheeler]

What platform are you currently on and what are the problems you are having with it?

 

[14Steve14]

If your hosts offer softalicious just one click install some and try them in your own time. As with transferring to any new system it takes time to get used to the new interface. There are plenty of good coders out there that can transfer a database from one system to another if you dont fancy doin git yourself.

 

[Nick Walsh Studios]

Go with Shopify simple and easy to start, no plugins to break your site. Up and running in 24 hours and no messing about with woocommerce and Wordpress which you will need some techie skills for.

 

[John Charles]

It depends on the platform you chose. Moving from platform to platform can be a pain in the ass most of the time.

 

[Chris Elwood]

We have migrated stores in the past from Magento 1.x > 2.x & from WooCommerce to Magento/Shopify. There are plenty of tools available as others have said you just need to be confident with your database admin. It would also depend on how many products/categories/orders you need to move. If it is less than 50 I would say there is a case for doing it manually. Shopify is very simple and you can have a store up and running very quickly. As a Shopify Partner, we are able to set up a development environment which removes the time restriction whilst you build. You can then make sure everything is perfect before going to the production environment. Always happy to chat if anyone has any questions around this process.

 

[Solly]

I find Shopify expensive and restrictive. I agree moving is a pain so not something I will do till be have a bit of a site redesign. After some recommendations I am looking at Bluepark and EKM. Both are used based.

 

[ukbf0001]

I have used all the main ecommerce platforms. Here's my 2p worth
It does ultimately depend on what your requirements are - so check before you jump


Shopify - no thanks at all , expensive and there are better less expensive alternatives (some free)
Magento - the beast - so slow and cumbersome. dont jump on to this platform it will bog you down in techy issues from day 1
Prestashop - I do like this one - upside it does the easy things well. Product combinations etc. Downside - you host it yourself, so you do security, patches etc.
Woocommerce - need to be on wordpress and rather limiting.
EKM - liked the look but didnt suit the requirements of the project.
xcart - the fastest of them all. Covers all the bases and options. Mature code. Downside - you host yourself and do upgrades or pay someone (but that's the same with other platforms generally)
ecwid - my usual goto option. Easy to import existing products (in csv format), hosted in the amazon EC2 cloud (so updates/patches are done for you - phew) , you copy/paste 5 lines of text and wherever you do - your shop will appear. one shop - multiple websites. Killer for me though is it fits directly into facebook. Facebook ad to drive people who have an interest in your products direct to your product. It's also free at a base level and cheaper than shopify at other prices points.
I have also dabbled with open cart which seemed ok (but open source - which can be troubling)

Ive transferred plenty of shops into ecwid it's a fairly simple process. Once did 1500 products which worked smoothly - the caveat being they didnt have much complexity re upselling / cross selling, wholesale / retail price points. So there was a bit of a tidy up afterwards, But did that whilst the old shop still running. Then just switched over, including creation of all the user accounts etc.

 

[dx3webs]

Have you seen the reviews on shopify?
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.shopify.co.uk
We are coming across people dipped their toes in the shopify water with side projects only to have products pulled or told to change their pricing etc.