Why migrate from Prestashop to Shopify?

Choosing a reliable and high-performing e-commerce platform is essential to the success of your online store. In this guide, we'll explore why you might consider migrating from Prestashop to Shopify, as well as the steps needed to make the transition.

Advantages of Shopify over Prestashop

Gain in productivity

One of the main advantages of Shopify is that it allows you to gain productivity through its intuitive and easy-to-use interface. Unlike Prestashop, Shopify offers key built-in features and third-party applications that help you manage your store more efficiently.

Have a custom site quickly

Shopify has a wide selection of themes that allow you to create a professional site quickly. These themes are designed to be easily customizable, allowing you to tailor them to your brand's image without needing extensive technical skills.

Automate processes as much as possible

With Shopify, you can automate many processes, such as inventory management, order processing, and shipment tracking. These automations allow you to focus on other important aspects of your business, like marketing and customer relations.

Goodbye bugs and technical problems

Shopify is a hosted platform, which means you don't have to worry about technical issues, updates or server maintenance. The platform takes care of all of that for you, saving you from the bugs and technical issues you might encounter with Prestashop, which is an open-source solution.

Say goodbye to hosting and traffic problems

The fact that Shopify is a hosted solution has other advantages: hosting, bandwidth and server capacity are managed for you. Shopify ensures that your store runs optimally, even during traffic spikes, avoiding the hosting and traffic issues you might encounter with Prestashop.

You will save money!

By choosing Shopify, you will save money in the long run. Shopify plans are affordable and include hosting, updates, and maintenance, so you don't have to worry about the extra costs of hosting and managing your site.

Disadvantages of Prestashop

Prestashop has its drawbacks, such as the complexity of its configuration and customization, the additional costs related to hosting and paid modules, as well as potential technical problems.

If you want to go further, you can consult this comparison.

Preparation for migration

Before you start migrating from Prestashop to Shopify, it's important to be well prepared. Here are the key steps to follow to ensure a smooth transition.

Analysis of the needs, costs and objectives of the migration

List your specific needs and goals for your new Shopify store. This may include specific features, user experience improvements, or performance goals.

Perhaps you want your marketing and e-commerce teams to be more empowered and satisfied in their experience with the platform.

You want to improve your loading time and therefore user experience by migrating to Shopify.

Or do you want to centralize your marketing tools and manage everything from Shopify?

Also consider the cost and time required to complete the migration. Take into account the costs of data migration, the purchase of new themes or applications, and possible design or functionality changes.

In summary, before embarking on a migration that you manage or outsource, it is necessary to list :

• Your bread points with Prestashop
• Your needs
• Your budget (don't neglect human time)
• Your goals to achieve

Backup and security of your PrestaShop store

Before you begin the migration, be sure to backup your current PrestaShop store. This includes backing up the database, server files, and product images. This step is essential to avoid any data loss in case of problems during the migration.

Choosing a plan and setting up your Shopify account

Choose the Shopify plan that best suits your needs and create an account. Make sure you properly configure your store's basic settings, such as currency, taxes, and payment methods.

This step is mandatory in order to be able to bridge the gap between the two tools correctly.

Migration from Prestashop to Shopify

Now that you have prepared your migration, it's time to transfer your PrestaShop store data to Shopify.

Before looking at the different migration methods, you will need to make sure that you have access to all the data such as product data, categories, customers, orders, CMS pages, etc.

So what should you choose between manual or automated migration?

Manual migration

Manual migration consists of transferring the content of an online store by copy and paste, which can be time consuming and risky. It requires moving not only images and product descriptions, but also background data (=metadata). For small companies, this is manageable. But for larger companies, hiring a professional web developer is recommended.

Here are some guidelines that will help you if you ever want to manage the migration manually.

Step 1: Export data from PrestaShop

1. Log in to your PrestaShop dashboard.
2. Export your products, customers and orders in CSV format. You can do this by using PrestaShop's built-in export features or by using a third-party extension.

Step 2: Prepare CSV files for import into Shopify

1. Download and open your exported CSV files.
2. Edit CSV files to match Shopify's import formats. You can check out the following guides on how to properly format your CSV files:
3. For products: https: //help.shopify.com/fr/manual/products/import-export/using-csv#product-csv-file-format
4. For customers: https: //help.shopify.com/fr/manual/customers/import-export-customers#customer-csv-file-format
5. For orders: Shopify does not support importing orders directly via CSV. You may need to use a third-party application to import orders, such as "EZ Importer"(https://apps.shopify.com/ez-importer).

Step 3: Import the data into Shopify

1. Log in to your Shopify dashboard.
2. Import your formatted CSV files for products and customers using Shopify's import features.

Automated Migration

Today, there are extensions that allow us to go faster and avoid certain risks related to data loss. We can for example quote LitExtension or Cart2Cart.

Install the extension and connect the two CMS

In your Shopify dashboard, go to "Applications" and search for "Cart2Cart" in the Shopify App Store.

Then select "Prestashop" and enter your URL.

You will then need to attach this information to your new Shopify store. That's why it's important to create it beforehand.

Select the data to be migrated

Select the data you want to migrate: products, orders, customers, CMS pages, etc.

You will also have the ability to choose advanced migration options like preserving order IDs in your new Shopify site or creating 301 redirects automatically.

But this is expensive so it may be better to do it yourself.

It may be better to be accompanied for these topics as they are very important to preserve reliable data or to preserve your SEO (we will come back to this later).

Please note that we are used to handling migration issues at Alegria.solutions. Do not hesitate to contact us.

SEO BONUS: Post-migration checkpoints

Functional and performance tests of the store

Once the migration is complete, test your Shopify store to make sure everything is working properly. This includes the navigation features, checkout process, and page load speed.

Putting the old URLs online and redirecting them to the new ones

When you're ready to go live with your Shopify store, make sure you set up 301 redirects to redirect your old PrestaShop store URLs to the new Shopify URLs. This will prevent 404 errors and preserve your site's SEO.

SEO performance monitoring and necessary adjustments

After the migration, it's essential to track the SEO performance of your Shopify store to ensure that the transition hasn't negatively impacted your SEO. Use analytics tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor key metrics like organic traffic, keyword positions, and click-through rate. If you see a drop in performance, take steps to optimize your SEO, such as improving content, adding meta tags and building internal links.

Conclusion

In conclusion, migrating from Prestashop to Shopify can be a complex process, but it offers many benefits for your online store. By following the steps outlined in this guide and paying attention to the details, you can make this transition smoothly and enjoy the benefits of Shopify to grow your business.

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