The WooCommerce plugin for WordPress is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to manage an eCommerce business. Due to this, we are seeing many people migrate to WooCommerce from other eCommerce platforms. In this guide, we will go over some of the best options for moving your online store over to WooCommerce.

When migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce, you can perform a manual export and import of the products or use a 3rd party plugin. With a manual migration you will need to export all your products from Shopify, then copy them into a spreadsheet that is compatible with WooCommerce. You can then import all of the products at one time. Migrating the orders and customers will be a similar process.

1. Exporting Products from Shopify

If you export up to one page of products (up to 50 products), then the CSV file is downloaded by your browser. If you export more than one page of products (51 or more products), then the CSV file is emailed to you. The file is sent to the store owner’s email.

• From your Shopify admin, go to Products > All products.
• Click Export.
• From the dialogue box, choose the products you want to export: The current page of products, all products, products you have selected and products that match your search and filters.

Select which type of CSV file you want to export

CSV file for Excel, Numbers, or another spreadsheet program: Use this format if you plan to use a spreadsheet program to edit your product CSV file.

Plain CSV file: Use this format if you plan to use a plain-text editor with your product CSV file.

Click Export products.

Access your product image files

If you move your products to a new website and plan to close your current store or delete some of its product listings, then you need to upload your product CSV file to your new store while your old store and its product listings remain viewable. When you export your products, the images associated with each product are not included in the CSV file. If you import the products to a new store, then the product images are generated only if they remain viewable on a publicly accessible website.

To ensure that your product images remain accessible to you, leave your original store and its products intact until you finish the import process. This allows your new store to assign the correct product image to each listing.

Filter and export your products list

You can use filters to organize your products list before exporting. If you need to change only some of your products, then you can add a filter. It could be easier to edit your products using a shortened CSV, rather than your entire product list.

• On the Products page in Shopify, add a filter using conditions that list only the necessary products.
• Export your products list, and make sure that you select the option to export only the products matching your filter.
• A CSV file containing only those products in your filtered list will export.
• After you make any changes to your exported product CSV, you can import the edited CSV file back to Shopify.

1. Import Products on WooCommerce

Now that you have the store data, how do you get that data imported into your WooCommerce store? WooCommerce does have a native CSV importer for products which can be of use, but it has certain limits. If you have to import a number of CSV files, you’ll need to map each of the fields in the CSV for each part of the product import (like the product title and product SKU, for instance). To import a CSV file, go to WooCommerce > Products and select Import. Choose the CSV file, confirm all of the field mapping, then run the importer.

Alternative – Use WP All Import

If you’d rather not manually map all of the fields for each import, there is an excellent paid plugin for WordPress which will allow you to import in customers, orders, and products. It’s WP All Import and has add-on plugins for users and WooCommerce. The WooCommerce add-on will allow you to import products, and orders and the user’s add-on will allow you to import in customers. You’ll need to purchase and install the WP All Import plugin to proceed with these directions.

To make the process easier WP All Import allows you to create templates. Since we are importing products in this article, we’ve created a template to map all of the product fields for a product import. To import products using this template, save this template as a TXT file.

Open the plug in and go to All Import > Settings. In the Import/Export Templates section, select the text template file and import it. After the template file has been imported correctly, you will see there is now a template file.

To import your product CSV export from Shopify in WP All Import go to All Import > New Import.  Select the CSV file and then select New Items and select the  WooCommerce Products type.

Confirm the number of rows to imported and then continue to Step 3.

Now you can continue and all products which were exported from the Shopify store will be imported into WooCommerce. The images used on the store on Shopify will be imported into the store’s media library during the import, and then mapped into the product. The products will contain the correct data, as well as the featured image.

Customers and orders can also be exported from Shopify as CSV files. Customers can be imported using WP All Import Pro, with the user’s add-on, and orders can be imported using the WP All Import Pro Woocommerce add-on. This only covers retrieving the data from Shopify, then importing into WooCommerce.

There are some out of the box solutions to migrate from Shopfy to WooCommerce as below:

Cart2Cart: Shopify to WooCommerce Migration

S2W – Import Shopify to WooCommerce

Shopify to WooCommerce

1. Export Shopify orders to a CSV file

You can export a comma-separated values (CSV) spreadsheet of your orders from the Orders page of your Shopify admin to see a broad overview of your complete order information.

Export orders

You can export orders along with their transaction histories or you can export only the transaction histories of your orders. The transaction histories that are included in your CSV file include the captured payments data only. Authorization data is not included in your exported transaction histories.

Steps

• Sort and filter your orders.
• From the Orders page, click Export.
• In the Export orders window, select the option for the orders that you want to export. For example, if you want to export your orders by date, then click Export orders by date and set the start and end dates for the orders that you want to export.
• Choose the format that you want to export your orders to.
• If you want to download all the information about your orders, then click Export orders.

If you want to download your transaction information only, then click Export transaction histories. You’ll have one of the following scenarios when you’re trying to export orders:

• When you export up to one full page of orders (up to 50 orders), the CSV file is downloaded by your browser.
• When you export more than one page of orders (51 or more orders), the CSV file is emailed to you and the Shopify store owner.
• If the export fails, then you’ll receive an email with this information.

1. Import orders in WooCommerce

Follow the instructions at

WooCommerce Customer / Coupon / Order CSV Import Suite

1. Importing and exporting customer lists

Export existing customers to a CSV file

• From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.
• Click Export

Click one of the following export options:

• Current page to export the customers showing in your store admin
• All customers to export all your store’s customers
• Selected customer to export customers you have selected
• Current Search to export a filtered list of customers.

Select which file format you want to export

• Select CSV for Excel, Numbers, and other spreadsheet programs if you plan to use a spreadsheet program with your customer CSV.
• Select Plain CSV file if you plan to use a plain-text editor with your customer CSV.

Click Export customers.

1. Import Existing Customer to WooCommerce using the customer CSV

Follow the instructions at https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-memberships-import-and-export

This post first appeared on our E-Commerce Business site at https://commercecodes.com/how-to-migrate-shopify-to-woocommerce

As a beginner, finding an ecommerce platform that is low cost and reliable is difficult, especially when you are being bombarded with deceptive advertising all the time. Many aspirational tycoons are eager to realize their dreams, but fail to comprehend which e-commerce platform will work best for them. We have many e-commerce platforms like Shopify, PrestaShop, etc, and the number is growing rapidly.

So how to choose which platform to use? The query relies on many factors such as niche of your business, resources you have and the technical leverage you can offer into your venture. And today we’re here to give you a clearer perspective of the two e-commerce giants; Magento, the Adobe Venture and WordPress’s e-commerce extension WooCommerce, which will help you in making an informed decision between the two behemoths.

When comparing with each other, many questions will strike your mind. In this blog we’ll cover:

1. Which platform is easy to use?
2. How much these platforms provide you with technical, automated support from backend?
3. Which platform can aid in the maintenance of product category you want to build?
4. Which one the options will help more in marketing your brand online?
5. Which one has better Analytics tool for measuring performance metrics?
6. Last but not least, which platform will open more opportunities to connect with relevant experts and efficient customer support?

By the end of this article, you’ll have all the answers at your threshold facilitating you in making an ever-right choice for your new online enterprise. And a much more information coherently provided, will work for your greater knowledge and confidence on the platform you choose.

WooCommerce vs Magento: The Comparison

1. Brand Building Made Easy
2. Effortless Web Management
3. Website Integrations
4. Optimized Online Sales Process
5. Secured Payment Gateways
6. Data Analysis
7. Optimization for Online Searches
8. Support and Communities

1. Brand Building Made Easy

Magento and WooCommerce provide the users alike with unlimited convenience in customization and management of the website. This helps to draw your potential audience to make a purchase by giving them a seamless and attractive on-store experience on multiple devices.

• Magento being a PHP based Open-source Platform, allows complete freedom for web developers to customize web pages through the source code.
• To add various features and responsiveness, the user can browse from 1000’s of plugin options from Magento Marketplace and integrate into the website.
• It provides user to choose the hosting solution out of the best and secure options. Meanwhile a current user can opt for cloud hosting in collaboration with AWS for scalability and simultaneously decreasing the page load time.
• Magento is focused primarily for those users who have the resources or skills of web development and are willing to take complete control of their website.
• It supports multi business models from a single on-site point of contact.

• WooCommerce is an Open-source Platform where the access to web source code is given, imparting partial control of the user on the website while customizations can be done from the backend.
• Since it’s an Open SaaS solution it depends heavily on plugins to provide features on the WooCommerce website.
• This platform is created considering the niche which want fast and easy creation of website as well as a partial control on the backend.
• It has 54,000 plugins on WordPress to integrate your website for various dynamic features.
• The WooCommerce hosting provides you with free SSL certificate and is fully PCI Compliant.
• The platform in conjugation with a multi-vendor plugin can offer user the leverage of multi-vendor business model
• Page load time is faster when the website contains more content rather than products for sale, like an e-commerce website.

2. Effortless Web Management

WooCommerce and Magento offers a wide area of online store management and since both the platforms are an open SaaS solutions, a user can access the backend to give unique customization features on your website besides utilizing the preset thematic versions. But which will be worth the money?

• WooCommerce allows the user to access the source code, to give unique customization features on your website.Carousels, CTA’s and Pop Ups can be added with the help of Plugins from WordPress.
• This Open-source platform carries the prestige of providing the best CMS backend to the user, highly suitable for website which have more diverse and proportion content.
• WooCommerce seldom witness any cross browser issue until the website is not updated.
• Yes, generally speaking both WordPress and WooCommerce have responsive websites on different devices.

• Magento through backend control and compatibility with AWS Cloud Hosting, gives unlimited scalability to businesses.
• Online store management can be accessed through mobile with ease.
• Magento has strong CMS feature and various content formats can be optimized on the website.
• The websites do not witness any cross-browser issues as they can be optimized from their source.

3. Website Integrations for Effective Marketing

Marketing comes indispensable for companies if they desire to grow among the saturated market of e-commerce. Almost every company now indulges in online marketing these days as it is effective in reaching a wider audience and getting returns.

• Magento it involves the usage of APIs for integration other platforms and plugins.
• A developer is required to deploy a Simple Object Access Protocol in the web service during Magento installation for integration to a third party website.
• Social media portals can be integrated through plugins which will give user the chance to leverage his Magento account dashboard to automate social media posts through it.

• WooCommerce provides the opportunity of multi-channel marketing and even automate the daily recurring activities in backend.
• The e-commerce solution has numerous plugins in the market which act as a mediator between two apps for integrating features into your WooCommerce account server.
• These add-ons, extensions and even plugins can be derived from WordPress’s affiliate marketplace, known as WooMultistore.

4. Optimized Online Sales Process

Both WooCommerce and Magento provide exceptionally friendly web experience for inventory management and handle complex back orders. While both platforms are at par when it comes to bringing efficiency into play, each platform brings a new innovation in the field of inventory management.

• Magento provides a new strategy of automated intelligent sourcing which can drive 35% increase in company’s revenue. It extends the functionality through additional API’s which can re-module the supply chain model through amendments in the API directory, making out-of-the-box business logics easy to implement on web plethora.
• This facilitates the management of multi-location inventory as well as enhancing stock visibility through barcodes. You can also turn your store into a mini distribution centre for other Magento based e-commerce portals.
• It supports multi business models from a single on-site point of contact.
• It’s order management system dashboard will provide you with metrics as Order ID, Store, Items, Language, Date, Customer, Status, Status reason and Pick list
• Sales management allows the webstore owner to assess and refine the on-store assistance on every level of the purchase funnel, from shopping cart to printing invoices and sales collection.

• WooCommerce’s Step-by-Step Ordering System allows the sellers to diversify their product categories through layers and add-ons. This comes out really beneficial in promoting cross-selling, pushing grouped and segregated products through enhancing the end user’s in-store shopping experience.
• The user can view orders and sales status for a given time period.
• Also he can change the order status, manage prices and inventories as well as product meta descriptions on the website.
• The order, sales and store management analysis facility can be derived from plugins in the marketplace.

5. Secured Payment Gateways

Both WooCommerce and Magento have partnered with some of the most popular and secure payment gateways, giving their clients the satisfaction to grow on secured sales and revenue.

• WooCommerce Payments and Magento Payments do not support 3D Payment Gateway but have numerous options in the marketplace to integrate the plugins and add 3D functionality to your checkout page.
• WooCommerce, just like Magento offers a massive list of options from third party companies like PayPal, Stripe, Square, etc. to protect your online stores from cyber attacks.
• They not only provide online stores with the securest of the payments processes, but also furbish their clients with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates of reputed organisations, for defenses against cyber attacks.

6. Data Analysis

Data is the oxygen for any company to grow its business on. Both WooCommerce as well as Magento, provide an uninterrupted match for all their clients’ data needs. Subscribers can track from where the customers’ have landed on their page, which product is selling the most.

• The basic metrics of sales, marketing, products and customers are provided by Magento as well.
• It offers advance version of Magento reporting, free of cost known as business intelligence.
• The basic requirements for running the business intelligence reports are; the website should run on a public server, the domain must have valid SSL certificate, while configuring Magento, the Base URL must point to secured URL and last but not least, make sure Magento crontab is created and running successfully.
• The platform can merge Google Analytics into your Magento hosted website.

• The basic WooCommerce plan will provide you statistics and data on orders, sales by date, by month, product and category along with the graphical representation of the information given through a user legible dashboard.
• You can now find the brand performance aggregate metrics like stock, customer downloads, potential customers vs acquired leads as well as total sales and taxes.
• WooCommerce besides the basic plan, offers users the choice of Advanced reporting plugin which provides a highly detailed metric analysis of various brand performance domains.

7. Optimization of Online Search

Both ecommerce platforms provide a safe and reputed domain for their clients’ to build their website upon. This helps in increasing the visibility of the website on Google, whenever a searcher inputs their query regarding a particular segment in which the subscriber deals in.

• Both sources provide convenience to end user as well as to its main user in segregating the products into sub categories and catalogs.
• Magento and WooCommerce alike, provide their subscribers the feature to utilize product cataloging and allowing users to search on the website through catalog search.
• WooCommerce is the extended arm of WordPress, where 30% of 10 million websites are present on the Internet, it’s domain usability and popularity adds to an advantageous factor when it comes to SEO.

8. Support and communities

Shopify as well as Magento both boast of their uninterrupted helpdesks to their clients. Not only there are virtual help desks to solve your issue in a minute but also you can contact experts for their help when in need.

• Magento and WooCommecre for general queries about products and services, has curated massive collection of documents online.
• They’ve also established the online support system with many trustworthy third-party companies.
• Alike WooCommerce, the user can approach the MagentoExperts and partners who can guarantee satisfaction for the solution of your problem.
• This feature is unique to Magento and unlike any other platform available today, it promotes computer enthusiasts to contribute to Magento’s interface by innovative solutions, and solve website bugs for better user experience.
• Magento simultaneously incurs interactive practices like forums and stack exchange besides the usual collection of authentic data, case studies and information on Magento and it’s product.
• It welcomes the community of web developers in contributing to the user experience for Magento store subscribers, through Core Codes and Developer Portals.

Platforms such as these permit innumerable advantages to the user in maintaining and balancing the goals of the company. Not only companies aim to increase their sales but havoc in the inventory administration could otherwise prove disastrous. Hence these are some insights which might help you in coordinating a smooth process of your e-commerce company. And this starts with what e-commerce platform you’re selecting for the growth and scale of your business.

As for Magento against WooCommerce, it’s the most desirable Open SaaS (Software as a Service) platform when a user:

• Has a substantial budget in the start of the business and wants to focus on e-commerce establishment more than the content-focused websites.
• Offers advanced security features, as well as dedicated patches to close any vulnerabilities that arise.
• The core WooCommerce plugin is extremely limited, hence it depends on a lot of additional plugins to scale the development of your website.
• Wants an advanced and innovative level of inventory management systems to save time and revenue of the company
• Wants the reputation of the top billion turnover companies’ platform in it’s ordeal.
• WooCommerce has weak database architecture for high order volume and scalability

Usually, such platforms are frequently updated with features for an invariably smooth user experience curated for their subscribers, but picking the right option in the lot is necessary which will depend significantly on the niche you’re willing to create in the industry. Many mid-sized companies have moved onto Open SaaS platforms such as Magento which indicates they are ready to afford the technical complacencies, which will grant them full control of their website. So before making a purchase through any of the platforms make sure you have the right resources, the right budget and the right niche.

This post first appeared on our E-Commerce Services Business site at https://commercecodes.com/magento-vs-woocommerce