Magento and WordPress both provide the e-Commerce platform for your website. There are many similarities between them such as they both provide a very good structure for SEO, they both have strong online community where you can get help to your problem. Large range of themes to choose from, and on the top, they both follow an open source php, mysql based systems which can be customized as per your requirements. 

Magento is purely an E-Commerce system (it was first built on top a PHP framework called “Zend Framework”). It has all required features and functionalities to run a full-fledged complex e-commerce store.

You can setup multiple local stores on Magento, you can charge customers in multiple currencies, you can customize it further as per your requirements.

However the codebase and backend system of Magento is not very intuitive and it needs special skills to to maintain and customize Magento.

WooCommerce is hosted inside the WordPress system, which is a content management system and open-source blogging platform. It allows you to add functionality to your websites by adding plugins.

If you want an e-Commerce website using WordPress, then you may install any e-Commerce plugin such as WooCommerce, WP eCommerce, Easy Digital Download, etc. Out of them, WooCommerce is the most popular and flexible.

One good thing about WooCommerce is that it is easy to maintain and customize and there are tons of free plugins to take care of various needs. If you are looking for a lightweight simple e-commerce site then WooCommerce could be a good solution.

If you are running on Magento site and feel it is too heavy to maintain and customize while you just want to run a simple e-commerce store then you can migrate to WooCommerce.

Following are the steps to migrate to WooCommerce.

Pre Migration Steps

You decided to move your site from Magento to WordPress, but before the migration process, you need to follow these steps to run this process smoothly:

1. Install WordPress: We are supposing that you already purchased the hosting if not then first step is to purchase the hosting. WordPress hosting is widely available with a great range of options from inexpensive to specialized managed hosting. To know more about managed hosting, check out this post.
2. Install WooCommerce: Now the next step is to install the WooCommerce plugin on your site. There are many other plugins available for e-Commerce such as WP eCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, etc, but we will talk about WooCommerce.
3. Install Plugin to Migrate Site: There are many plugins available for migration of the site from Magento to WordPress(WooCommerce) such as Cart2Cart, FG Magento to WooCommerce, etc

Manual Migration

This is the simple method of migrating the site from Magento to WordPress is to use the .csv file for the migration purpose. To apply this method, you need to make a .csv file of the products, customers, orders available on your Magento store and then import the .csv file to WordPress(WooCommerce).

The steps for semi-automated migration are as follows:

Step 1: Purchase the WooCommerce Import Suite

After installing the WooCommerce on your WordPress website, you need to purchase the import suite of the WooCommerce in order to import the .csv files. To purchase it you can follow the steps below :

• Go to WooCommerce > Extension
• Then choose Import/Export
• Choose the suite which you want
• You will be redirected to WooCommerce official site, here you can proceed with the payment

Step 2: Create .CSV file from Magento

Now you have to create the .csv file of the data which you want to migrate, for eg. products, orders, customers, etc. In order to make a .csv file of the data which you want to migrate follow these simple steps :

1. Login to Magento administrator area

1. Go to System > Import/Export > Export
2. In the Export, section choose the entity you want to export and Export File Format as “CSV”
3. Include or exclude the data to be exported in the Entity Attributes section
4. Finally, click the continue button

Step 3: Import the CSV file to WordPress

Importing product to WooCommerce is very easy and very less time taking. All you need to do is, follow the simple steps below :

1. Go to WooCommerce > CSV Import Suite
2. Click the Import Products button
3. Select Choose File and then upload the .csv which you need to import
4. Finally, click upload file and import
5. Check the map fields before completing the import

Semi-Automated Migration

Use one of these plugins

FG Magento to WooCommerce

Cart2Cart: Magento to WooCommerce Migration

In order to migrate e-Commerce site from one platform to another platform, you need to migrate products, images, categories, customers, orders, etc.

Step 1: Install and Configure the Plugin

Step 2: Test the Database Connection

Step 3: Import the Data

Fill all the details required. The settings are set to default, you may change them as per your needs. You can check the details about the options by clicking the help button on the plugin page and then choosing ‘options’.

Once you fill all the required settings, you may click on the button “Start/Resume the import” and start the process of migration.

It may take time depending upon the size of your Magento site i.e. the number of products, number of images, etc.

Step 4: Check the New Site

Before migration:

• Back up information from your store;
• Inform the customers and suppliers about your plans;
• Choose the best time for migration — analyze when the visitor’s traffic is the lowest.

And after the transfer you need to:

• Don’t forget to set up 301 redirect, create a custom 404 page and generate a sitemap.
• Then ask the customer to recover their passwords;
• Make sure all the data migrated and test your brand new store.

Magento and WooCommerce are both professional e-commerce solutions and both have their pros and cons.  There was a time when Magento was the best e-commerce solution on the market, but WooCommerce came on the scene in 2011 and has since proved to be a better option for many businesses.

In general, Magento is still best for large enterprises or groups of online stores. If you currently have an outdated Magento site, this is the perfect time to see which e-commerce solution is best for you. It may be more cost-effective to migrate your data from Magento into a new WooCommerce site as it’s remarkably easy to use.

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

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

Shopify is an out of the box SaaS tool that allows you to quickly and easily create an online store. It provides you with several templates that can be customized to meet your requirements. One of the key factors behind using Shopify is that users without much knowledge of technical or design skills can create a store without hiring a designing agency or a web developer.

Shopify is highly customizable so for advanced customization, you can hire Shopify developer and get an appealing custom made E-store. Moreover, Shopify has auxiliary apps available for you to assist in the complete eCommerce process from inventory management to customer management. It allows entrepreneurs to concentrate on their business and not on the technical side of the website and shopping management.

Migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify is a fairly complex process and has a lot of work included in it. Here we will acquaint you with the step by step process of conducting successful online store transportation from WooCommerce SaaS platform to Shopify.

When you migrate your store from WooCommerce to Shopify, you can import your existing product and customer data to Shopify. Before you import your data to Shopify, you need to export your data from WooCommerce.

Export your store data from WooCommerce

Before you import your existing store data, you need to export your data from your WooCommerce store. When your export is completed, you will have an XML file saved on your computer that you can use to import your data to Shopify.

Steps:

1. From your WooCommerce admin, click Tools > Export.
2. Select All content.
3. Click Download Export File.

Import your store data to Shopify

After you export your store data from WooCommerce, you need to import your data to Shopify.

Note

To complete your import, you need to have Shopify’s importer tool installed.

Steps:

1. From the Import store app in Shopify, go to Select your platform > Import from WooCommerce.
2. Click Add file.
3. Select your WooCommerce XML file that you downloaded.
4. Click Import.
5. Review your import.

Delete a store data import

If you’re unsatisfied with a data import, then you can delete it. For example, if your data import contains many failed items, then it might be helpful to remove that import and try again. You can delete only your latest import, and need to wait for the data to delete completely before you start another import.

Steps

On the Import complete page, click Delete import.

1. On the Delete import dialog, click Delete import.

After all your imported files are deleted, click Start new import to start another import.

Review and update your imported data

If your data import was successful, then you should see your product and customer data in your Shopify admin. If some of your products or customers did not import, then you can add them manually. You can add a product or add a customer manually after your data import.

Note

You might encounter errors with your CSV import. Learn more about solutions to common product CSV import problems.

Import was successful with changes

When your import is finished, the import summary page shows you the details of your import. If some of your products or customers were imported with changes, then you see specific error messages in the Products to review section of the import summary. You can edit your products and customers manually by clicking View items next to these messages.

Products imported successfully but are not published

If your product visibility was set to hidden in WooCommerce, then your product is not available for purchase on your store. You can make your products available by making them available to a sales channel.

Imported products no longer have their dimensions

If your customers need the dimensions of your product, then add the dimensions directly to the product description.

Some products or customers failed to import

If some of your products or customers did not import, then you can add a product or add a customer manually.

Any customers with the same email address or phone number is skipped during an import. Only the most recent customer entry with the duplicated data is imported.

Bundled products failed to import

If any of your products are bundled on WooCommerce, then you need to add these products to Shopify manually. You need to use an app to bundle products. You can install a product bundle app from the Shopify App Store.

Digital products imported successfully but are not published

If your product is a digital download, then your product is not published on your store. You need to use an app to sell digital products. You can install the Digital Downloads app to make your products available on your store.

Product variants failed to import

If your product has variants, and one of the variants is missing an option, then the product is not imported. You need to add this product to Shopify manually. For example, if you are selling T-shirts with the options of size and color and one of your variants includes an option for size but not color, then your product is not imported.

URL Redirects

It is important to properly set the URL Redirects so all the URLs from old website map to new website otherwise if a user is coming from an old referrall lin or through Google then they will see a broken link.

Setup your URL redirects at

Create a URL redirect

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Navigation.
2. Click URL Redirects:

• Click Add URL redirect.
• In Redirect from, enter the old URL you want to redirect visitors from. Only broken URLs should be redirected. If the old URL still loads a webpage, the URL redirect won’t work.

In Redirect to, enter the new URL that you want to redirect visitors to. If you want to redirect to your store’s home page, then enter /.

Click Add.

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

Shopify powers over 600,000 businesses, while WooCommerce claims to be the web’s “most popular ecommerce platform. But in the midst of this rivalry, on which platform will you put your bets on?

Known for exceptional easy usage, both the e-commerce behemoths have captured their niche in the market with their own set of pros and cons. Perhaps, it’s this reason why you should know, which set of consequences will fascinate your brand more and add value to your company.

Shopify vs WooCommerce: The Comparison

1- Easy Brand Building

2- Seamless Integration

3- Easy Web Management Options

4- Online Selling Process

5- Payment Gateways

6- Data and Analysis

7- Optimization on Search Engine

8- Support and Communities

1. Easy brand building

No one can relate to their business’ needs more than the starter himself. So choosing the correct platform to secure a painless journey to success is the starting step, which depends on factors as the product niche, resources at disposal and technical affinity of the user.

• Shopify a Closed-source Platform gives users a limited possibilities of themes and customization on the platform, without allowing the user to gather complete control of the website.
• This platform is mainly built for the technical novices who simultaneously would like to venture into the e-commerce territory.
• The custom features included in the website through Shopify App Store by installing applications and integrating with webstore. It offers more than 2000 applications on its store to integrate your website for desired features and responsiveness.
• Shopify gives all user PCI Level 1 Compliance to protect their account from cyber attacks
• Shopify has limitations in including multiple business models online through a single webstore.
• The page loading time is greater than WooCommerce and scalability of on store products can be an issue.

• 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. Seamless Integration

Third-party web integrations are immensely popular and necessary for a smooth functioning of a website’s activities onto social media platforms and other web platforms. Since WooCommerce and Shopify both have a different set of functionings, these points below will guide you how each platform will add value to your online store.

• To combine his Shopify products into another platform the user needs to bring the Shopify Buy Button live on the current store, which can be easily done incorporating codes generated into places at website where the person would like to show the product.
• Social media platform integration can be achieved through application which provide API code.

• 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.

3. Easy Web Management Options

• Shopify’s easy-to-use features allows technically challenged users to create Pop-Ups, CTA’s and customize on-store themes.
• One of the most out-of-the-box features of Shopify is managing the products, categories and variations and implementing the barcoding system which gives the flexibility of locating a particular product in the stock.
• Shopify has a moderate strength in CMS (Content Management System) and needs to be integrated with CMS applications to support content formats agility on websites.
• Being a Closed-source platform and limitations of renditions from integrated apps, Shopify website do usually witness cross browser issues as different browsers work on different technologies.
• Shopify websites are responsive on mobile devices.

• 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.

4. Online Selling Process

• Shopify offers its users the POS system sends you alerts on stocks and sales from all locations, but also include the report metrics like the best sellers and aggregate performance of your business.
• For e-commerce aspirers there is a niche service known as Oberlo and Ordana, which follows the process of dropshipping. It claims a certain charge for the service, for the inventory to be handled and shipped by the host itself.
• The order management and sales dashboard touch every point of Customers, Sale channels, Product information, Inventory levels and location, Suppliers for purchasing and receiving, Customer service; namely, returns and refunds, Order printing, picking, packing, processing, and shipping.

• 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. Payment Gateways

Both Shopify and WooCommerce have partnered with some of the most popular and secure payment gateways, giving their clients the satisfaction to grow on sales through secured payment platforms like PayPal. But as the threats of cyber-attacks are constantly on the rise, a more secure 3-D platform is preferable.

• While the option of Shopify Payments will always be an option for online sellers, it does not support a 3D secure gateway, though you can integrate with a third party option
• Through Shopify Payments you can track your money real time, streamline the chargeback process as well as spared from any transaction fees that any other gateway would charge on per sales.
• WooCommerce, alike Shopify, WooCommerce 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.

6. Data and Analysis

Data is the oxygen for any company to grow its business on. Shopify, as well as WooCommerce, 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 average order value to detailed reports on marketing activities. But which solution will provide you with the most information with a minimal budget in hand?

• Shopify within the range of plans provide greater options of metrics and all in one dashboard.
• The user can integrate Google Analytics into your Shopify account for further in-depth information of your website performance. This can be easily done by copying the code from Google Analytics account under ‘Get Tracking ID’ domain, and applying on your Shopify webpage.
• In their basic plan they’ve covered metrics like orders, sales and revenue to market reports and what’s ticking the consumers to purchase their product.

• 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 on Search Engine

Both e-commerce 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.

• 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.
• Both sources provide convenience to end user as well as to its main user in segregating the products into sub categories and catalogs.
• WooCommerce and Shopify alike, provide their subscribers the feature to utilize product cataloging and allowing users to search on the website through catalog search.
• Shopify offers a blog page, which is highly beneficial when it comes to keyword optimization and brand building.

8. Support and communities

Shopify as well as WooCommerce second biggest asset is their accessibility of clients’ to the internal support and communities. Not only there are virtual help desks to solve your issue in a minute but also you can contact some of the platform experts for their help when in need.

• Shopify extends a forum for the user to interact with millions of experts, partners and their colleagues simultaneously.

One can seek help from the community of Shopify Partners, which are regarded as authorized experts of a handful of which FirstWire Apps dominates the arena with real, yet magical results to their clients. These Shopify Partners not only suffice your needs for web development, but also are deemed as the authoritative figures for online promotions of Shopify websites.

• WooCommerce 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 Shopify the user can approach the WooExperts and partners who can guarantee satisfaction for the solution of your problem.

These are some of the insights which might help you in realizing your e-commerce goals for the year. Since these platforms frequently update features for an invariably smooth user experience curated for their subscribers, working on any of these services might not only save your time but also redeem your efficiency which your company might be leaning on for future sales and growth. But this shouldn’t confuse you with what platform you should go for to set up your online business since the major decision depends on what resources you currently have at your disposal.

As for Shopify, it’s the most desirable SaaS (Software as a Service) source when a user:

• Does not have a substantial budget at the start
• Lacks the count or skills of web development, which is rendered mandatory if you’re choosing Open-source Platform like WooCommerce for your on-store customization.
• Wants to introduce her blog page which he/she might integrate into her online store in the near future.
• Is new to e-commerce tool where creation of websites is extremely easy.

Hence picking the right option in the lot is extremely necessary and will depend significantly on the current resources you have. Many mid-sized companies have moved onto Open SaaS platforms as they are ready to afford the technical complacencies, which will grant them full control of their website on the other hand. So before making a purchase through any of the platforms make sure you have the right resources, the right budget and the right niche.

Note : This blog first appeared at our E-Commerce Services Business website at https://commercecodes.com/shopify-vs-woocommerce

Your WooCommerce website will convert more browsers to buyers when optimized for performance and functionality. Your clients are asking for an intuitive and pleasurable experience, and you should as well. There are many methods to optimize the website, and this guide includes three basic categories: speed, operation, and add-ons. It suggests strategies and provides resources for trimming down a bloated website and alleviating migraine-inducing management.

1. Improving Website Load Times & Reliability

The faster you get your products in front of the shoppers, the more likely they will continue shopping. One Akamai report, which looked at optimal load times for conversions, found that:

• Two-second delays on eCommerce sites reduce browsing times by more than half.
• For peak conversions, websites need load times in between 1.8 and 2.7 seconds across all device kinds.
• For the lowest bounce rate, pages should be loaded between 700 ms to 1.2 seconds.

Online website speed tests such as Pingdom and GTmetrix offer performance evaluations of load times, page size and overall performance. These tools also suggest methods to enhance efficiency, such as removing query strings from static resources and combining external JavaScript.

Optimize Media

Online stores need a lot of demo videos and product pictures to create sales. The more precise and detailed the visual information you give to shoppers, the more likely they are to buy your products. Research on the impact of images on eCommerce stores shows a double rise in conversions by getting two product images instead of one.

2. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Optimizing file size is not the only step in quickly serving static files to clients. Using content delivery networks to serve consumers with high-quality content wherever they live is no longer an optional part of your WooCommerce conversion process. CDNs can significantly reduce page load times for customers who visit your site from the other hand of the globe. Most of the top-tier hosting alternatives now give a built-in CDN option by default, so you can blend this with your regular monthly hosting charges.

3. Leverage Browser Caching

Another effective strategy to keep large media files from slowing down your site to get your developers to leverage browser caching. When your clients first visit your site, you can inform their browsers which files (pictures, HTML, CSS, JavaScript) should be saved locally. Tell your IT team to make sure they’ve done the following:

• Change request headers of your resources
• Add .htaccess code to cached files
• Set optimized caching times

4. Enable GZIP Compression

Any documents that your server sends to your browser may be compressed or “zipped” before they are sent. Compressed files transfer faster, reducing bandwidth usage and increasing page load times. Have your IT team configure your server to return zipped content whenever necessary and run a GZIP compression test to ensure that things are running smoothly.

5. Get the Right Hosting Plan

If you are presently on a shared plan and want to speed up your site, consider switching either to a managed hosting account optimized for WooCommerce or if you have internal developer resources to optimize your store, VPS or dedicated server. Good website performance begins with finding the correct hosting service for your requirements and setting up the correct hosting package. Many larger eCommerce shops opt for shared hosting plans because of their low cost, but a lower price tag generally means slower speeds.

6. Improve Store Operations

Aside from speeding up your site, you can also optimize the performance of your store and increase conversions by streamlining its features and improving its analytical power — allowing your team to spend more time on areas of the site that need improvement.

7. Disable/Remove Features You Don’t Need

WordPress plugins bring a lot of functionality to your website, but you probably won’t need every function running at once. Cut through the clutter and simplify your admin portal by disabling or removing features that you do not need:

• Admins areas and widgets you don’t use
• AJAX cart fragments
• Internal and external embeds
• Emojis and pingbacks
• Query strings

Here are some WordPress plugins that help ensure the speed of your WooCommerce store:

• Code Snippets- WP plugin that makes it simple to add snippets to disable tasks, areas, or widgets that are not being used.
• Little Bizzy- a suite of plugins that let you disable AJAX cart fragments and internal and external embeds to speed up page rendering and loading times.
• WP Disable- Speed up WooCommerce by disabling emojis, pingbacks, and removing query string.
• WooCommerce Speed Drain Repair- This plugin includes WP not to load WooCommerce scripts unless the user is on the WooCommerce page.

8. Upgrade Your Store Analytics

Boosting conversions depends on data to provide valuable customer perspectives, and Google Analytics can take you a long way. But today’s eCommerce shops require even more granular metrics to manage customer relationships.

To combat the flood of information, consider upgrading your analytics to a platform that brings together data from your eCommerce platform, analytical tools, and advertising sources. Platforms like Domo provide real-time information to every decision-maker across all of your analytical sources.

Using data consolidation, you can also pull more data points. With analytics platforms like Glew.io, you can micro-target your customers to personalize sales and find more revenue opportunities. For example, with Glew.io, you can segment customers who only buy a coupon from customers who pay the full price. This means that no wasted special offer emails are sent to customers who do not use them, lowering your email costs and increasing conversions.

9. Add New Features and Merchandising Strategies

After you’ve got your WooCommerce site loaded quickly and streamlined your store’s operation, it’s time to add some new features and strategies that will enhance your customer experience and push your conversion rates northward.

Set Up Split Testing

Split testing, or A / B testing, is an efficient way to test two versions of website design, checkout flow, or similar component to discover which version converts better. A / B testing is how eCommerce owners continuously enhance the customer experience, and there is no shortage of testing concepts to boost your conversion rate.

WooCommerce owners can use specialized platforms such as Google Optimize, Optimizely, or VWO to easily perform split testing on just about anything they can think of. Common eCommerce split tests, take a look-

• Product page designs
• Calls-to-Action
• Forms
• Advertising
• Follow-up emails
• Product images or videos
• Coupon offers
• Recognizable security seals
• “Thank You” pages
• Checkout pages

This article first appeared on our E-Commerce Services Business website at https://commercecodes.com/optimizing-the-woocommerce-and-making-it-more-effective