Switching from WooCommerce to Magento: process and risks

1. Why shop owners switch from WooCommerce to Magento

WooCommerce is an extension for WordPress and for many the entry into online retail. The shop grows with the business, and with it the requirements: more products, more variants, several warehouses, business customers, a connection to merchandise management. Then a system that grew out of blog software can reach its limits.

Typical reasons to move from WooCommerce to Magento are slow pages with large catalogs, many extensions that disturb each other, elaborate updates and the wish for B2B functions or several shops under one roof. What matters is that the reason is a real problem and not just a feeling.

Hosting also plays a role. A WooCommerce shop shares resources with WordPress, plugins and theme. A Magento shop runs on an appropriately sized server or in a specialized hosting environment, which requires planning but also brings more control.

2. When the switch from WooCommerce to Magento pays off and when not

The switch pays off above all if your shop is growing and the points mentioned noticeably slow it down. It does not pay off if you have a small catalog, are satisfied with WooCommerce and miss no functions. Then Magento is more effort than your business needs. Check honestly whether the problems lie in the system or in hosting, extensions and care, because those can often be improved without a switch.

One option for WooCommerce to Magento is to keep WordPress for content and blog and move only the shop to Magento. Then proven posts are kept, and both systems are connected by links.

3. Which data comes along from WooCommerce to Magento

With WooCommerce much lies in the WordPress database, and orders are stored, depending on the version, in post tables or in their own order tables. Which structure your shop uses depends on version and settings. That is why we begin with an analysis before we transfer data.

A clean-up before the WooCommerce to Magento transfer is worthwhile. Remove products you no longer sell, duplicate categories and customers without an order, as far as legally and commercially appropriate. A lean data stock makes the test migration faster and the new shop clearer.

4. SEO and addresses when switching from WooCommerce to Magento

WooCommerce creates addresses according to the pattern you set in WordPress, often with a prefix for products and categories. Magento uses its own address patterns. So that no link runs into nothing, every relevant address is assigned by a 301 redirect.

Also check what an SEO plugin did for you: titles, meta descriptions, structured data, sitemaps and canonical tags. These values must be present again in the new shop. What we do for this is described on the page on SEO optimization.

An example: if a product has so far been under an address with a prefix and is to appear under a shorter address in the new shop, the old address is permanently redirected to the new one. This also applies to categories, filter pages with rankings and frequently linked images.

5. Plugins and functions: what becomes of them in Magento

The charm of WooCommerce is the many extensions. In the WooCommerce to Magento switch you go through each one: is it still needed? Is there a basic function, a module or an individual development in Magento for it? Often it turns out that part of the plugins is only legacy and can be dropped.

Typical examples are payment methods, shipping methods, vouchers, newsletter connection, product feeds and invoices. We implement the frontend with Hyvä, see Hyvä theme. What a connection to merchandise management and shipping can look like is described in the guide to ERP integration.

6. The process: how you switch from WooCommerce to Magento

A switch from WooCommerce to Magento runs in five steps. First the inventory: which products, customers, orders and content exist, which functions do you really use and which addresses bring visitors? Then the test migration, in which part of the data is transferred and checked. After that the build of the shop with design, payment methods, shipping and legal texts.

In the fourth step you check the shop with us on a test system that search engines cannot see and place trial orders. In the fifth step the switch happens: the data is compared one last time, the redirects are activated and the domain is pointed to the new shop. In the first weeks afterwards we check errors and rankings. You keep the previous shop for a while until everything runs safely.

How you protect your ranking in the process is described in the guide to shop relaunch without SEO loss.

7. Effort and costs when switching from WooCommerce

When moving from WooCommerce to Magento the effort depends above all on the number of variants, the quality of the existing data and the number of extensions that have to be replaced. A clean catalog is transferred quickly, one that has grown over years needs more cleaning.

A flat figure would be unreliable. After the inventory we estimate in writing, the hourly rate is 30 euros net, see pricing. General hints on costs are in the guide Magento costs.

8. How we support you with the switch

We are a web agency in which fixed freelancers work together, all from home offices. We take over the data migration, build the shop with the fast Hyvä frontend and take care of redirects and start. Source code and access stay with you, and ongoing care can be regulated through a maintenance contract.

This guide gives general orientation and does not replace a check of your shop. For a first conversation a short message through our contact page is enough.

9. Summary

The switch from WooCommerce to Magento pays off if growth and requirements noticeably slow the system. Products, customers, orders and images can be taken over, with 301 redirects the ranking is largely kept.

Note: This article offers general orientation. Statements about WooCommerce can change with new versions, check them in the individual case.

10. FAQ on switching from WooCommerce to Magento