Shopify Migration: What Budget Should You Plan For?

For several years now, Shopify has been revolutionizing the world of e-commerce. The CMS allows e-merchants to design and manage online stores very easily. The platform gains new clients every year. Some of them are creating their online store for the first time. Others already have a store managed on another platform, but wish to migrate their website to take advantage of the benefits offered by the SaaS solution to sell their products. This operation can be free if the store manager handles it alone (thanks to their knowledge, a dedicated application, etc.). In cases where they call upon Shopify experts or a web marketing agency, they will nonetheless have to pay for the service rendered. What is the cost to expect for migrating a store to Shopify? We provide you with some answers. We can also help you co-construct your budget. Learn more about our Shopify offering.

Migrating your e-commerce store to another CMS: the benefits of the practice

Shopify is a CMS specializing in e-commerce creation. The platform boasts advanced features that allow store managers to develop their business simply.

Every year, many e-merchants choose to migrate their online store to Shopify. Concretely, they change their e-commerce CMS by transferring their site's content (products, blog, pages, etc.) from one platform to another.

This transformation can meet multiple needs. In some cases, certain online store owners find themselves limited by their CMS once they reach a certain number of customers. Others are looking for more modernity in the appearance of their online store. Finally, they may also be keen to expand internationally by taking advantage of the possibility of creating websites in different languages and currencies thanks to Shopify.

Generally, opting for website migration can allow you to:

• face fewer technical constraints and have easier management;
• improve the store's natural referencing (SEO);
• give it a more modern look, thanks to an innovative theme.

What are the costs to consider when migrating an online store to Shopify?

The cost of migrating a store to Shopify varies depending on many factors. Everything depends on the method used and the skills of the Shopify experts hired, if any.

Estimated cost for migrating your store to Shopify independently

With certain technical knowledge, time, and good organization, the e-merchant can migrate their website to Shopify independently.

If they are sufficiently skilled, they can work alone by copying and pasting the pages and data they wish to migrate or by creating a CSV file. Alternatively, they can download a dedicated application that can facilitate the process. Whatever method is adopted, if the e-merchant migrates their store to Shopify without calling on experts, the operation is free and no payment will be required.

Estimated cost for migrating your store to Shopify with experts

Migrating a site is never a trivial operation. Indeed, it requires a minimum of knowledge in coding, web development, and IT. Furthermore, time must also be allocated, because if the migration itself only takes a few minutes to a few hours, one must be available beforehand to sort the data to be migrated and organize it. It is also necessary to take the time to make all useful customizations.

For this reason, many e-commerce site owners are accompanied by Shopify experts who will handle the migration. In this case, they must nonetheless pay for the service rendered. The cost of migrating a store to Shopify by experts depends on many parameters. Very often, professionals charge according to the project requirements, their areas of expertise, or their location. Moreover, the more experienced the expert, the higher their price.

Most professionals offer hourly rates or package deals. If the project is simple and the online store is small, the Shopify expert can charge between €50 and €150 per hour. The greater the volume of work, the higher the prices also become. Thus, for a more complex project or an online store that offers many products and has multiple customers, the Shopify expert can charge between €300 and €1,000 per hour.

Solutions for a successful migration to Shopify: proceed step-by-step and take certain precautions

To successfully migrate to Shopify, you need to define steps to follow and take a certain number of precautions. First, to avoid negatively impacting the online store's ranking in search engine results. Second, to avoid losing customers or data.

Steps to follow

To successfully migrate to Shopify, the key is to proceed step-by-step. First, you need to start by sorting the information contained on the current store and removing duplicated pages, those that display 404 errors, or those that are no longer up to date. This will then allow you to migrate only useful data to the new platform. This step is also essential for the site's good SEO afterwards.

Then, you can export the store's content (product catalog, category pages, blog articles, etc.) to migrate the old store (WordPress, WooCommerce, Wix, Prestashop, etc.) to Shopify. Once the site's content has been transferred, the owner can perform various checks to ensure that all data has migrated correctly. All that remains then is to customize the new online store with an attractive theme, personalized checkouts, and call-to-action buttons.

Precautions to take

Migrating a website is a rather complex operation. To make it a success, certain precautions must be taken.

Backup data

To avoid mishaps, the best thing to do is to back up all site data even before proceeding with the migration. Indeed, during the process, the site administrator is not immune to an error that could be fatal. In the event of a mistake during the operation, they would then have the possibility to recover and retrieve lost data.

Plan for a maintenance page

It is possible that the site will be unavailable during its migration. It is therefore important to configure a maintenance page to inform users that the site is getting a makeover and will soon be available again. Ideally, it is best to act in the middle of the night to avoid losing potential customers.

Redirect URLs to avoid losing traffic

Once the migration is complete, it is crucial to set up URL redirects to avoid losing traffic, and then to deindex the pages present on the old platform. It is important to carry out this redirection immediately after the migration and to perform regular checks using Google Search Console to correct any errors detected. In cases where the store has hundreds of products, it is possible to automate redirects.

As you will have understood, while migrating a site to Shopify offers many advantages, the operation is not without risk. Certainly, proceeding alone does not impact the company's budget. However, it is not recommended if the store owner does not have the necessary knowledge. In which case, it is better to call on experts, even if it means spending between €100 and €1,000 for the migration to be properly carried out.

We recommend reading these other pages:

• How to migrate a store to Shopify?
• In what cases should a store be migrated to Shopify?
• Why call on a Shopify agency to migrate your e-commerce?