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10 Mar, 2023 | Magento development

BigCommerce To Magento 2 Migration: How To Do It?

BigCommerce To Magento 2 Migration: How To Do It?
The eCommerce industry is highly competitive, so merely setting up a website is not enough to attract customers. You need to provide a top-notch shopping experience of your ecommerce business to them that is an upgrade from other services to stand out in the market. .  BigCommerce provides a reliable and effective eCommerce solution, with over 95,000 active BigCommerce websites using the platform to sell items and handle payments digitally. Through BigCommerce, it is possible to list your products on eBay and Amazon. Furthermore, the platform is integrated with Facebook.  As for Magento, third-party modules can help you to replicate the same features, albeit with more customization benefits.  So, despite the diverse BigCommerce benefits, why migrate to Magento 2? This guide goes further in-depth into the comparison, including the steps for data migration process and BigCommerce to Magento Migration process

What Is BigCommerce?

Bigcommerce BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that enables business owners to create and manage their online stores remotely with just an Internet connection and a web browser. Users do not need to invest in additional web hosting or software, as BigCommerce runs on its own servers. BigCommerce offers a range of customizable templates including ecommerce website builder to help you build the perfect look for your online store.  This platform is a great way to market physical and digital products and tools, making it easier to promote your business. Moreover, it is primarily geared toward those lacking website design knowledge. Still, it is also useful to tech-savvy customers and developers who need to customize their online store's HTML and CSS. The platform is well-known for its easy-to-use interface. So, it is a great choice for those who want to establish an online ecommerce business but lack the technical know- how to host a website. With the platform, you can effortlessly build a bigcommerce website without any prior experience.

BigCommerce Pros

There are certain pros of BigCommerce as per the performance and scalability:
    • Scalability: BigCommerce is an ideal platform for ecommerce businesses of any size, offering the flexibility to scale up as your store's needs increase easily. With BigCommerce, you can start small and be confident that your business will have the resources to expand as it grows.
    • Robust SEO Elements: BigCommerce is highly regarded for its outstanding SEO features, making it one of our favorite ecommerce platforms.
    • Incredible Features: BigCommerce has more built-in features than any other ecommerce website builder, eliminating the need to purchase additional apps, thus saving you money.
    • Zero Transaction Charges: BigCommerce does not levy any transaction fees with its plans, making it an economical option for businesses with tight profit margins and a high volume of transactions.
  • Variety Of Products: This system makes creating product options and variations quick and straightforward. There are no restrictions on the number of choices you can offer, allowing for a wide range of product configurations. This flexibility makes it much easier to provide customers with exactly what they're looking for.

BigCommerce Cons 

With plenty of pros, there are certain cons to keep in mind as well for making a well-informed decision:
  • Limited subscription elements: If you want to offer subscription services or accept regular payments, you must purchase a third-party application.
  • Less multilingual alternatives: It is impossible to accomplish this using bigcommerce's native functionality; the only way to do it is with the help of a third-party application.
  • Zero email marketing devices: BigCommerce does not offer any email marketing services, so you will have to purchase an outside application to get this function.

Analyzing Your Current BigCommerce Store

Before proceeding with the Bigcommerce data migration process, you should study your currently available store on BigCommerce properly.
  • Identifying elements to keep from your BigCommerce store

On Magento 2, you can add new attributes and elements to the store and change its design. The themes are customizable, and it is possible to insert different extensions.  So, check and decide what elements in the currently existing BigCommerce-centric store you want to keep in the Magento 2-centric store after migration. 
  • Choosing Your Magento Version: Community Edition Vs Enterprise Edition

Magento marketplace includes two major versions that you can select for optimal benefits and features. These are Enterprise and Community versions.  The former is a paid package with more built-in functions, tools, integration, and features. On the other hand, the latter is free and user-friendly but has comparatively limited functional benefits than the Enterprise version.  So, before proceeding with the BigCommerce to Magento2 migration, consider which one you will prefer for your e-commerce store. 

Why Should You Move from BigCommerce to Magento 2?

In terms of usability, BigCommerce promises high-quality functions and user-friendliness. In contrast, Magento is more widely used and handles more web stores across different websites.  Not to mention, it covers a wide range of categories as well as e-commerce sites and is compatible with various software types.  Overall, there are many ways Magento is a better choice and businesses should consider it for bigcommerce to magento migration to reap the benefits.
  • Enjoy more payment gateway options. 

While using Big Commerce, e-commerce website owners get access to various integration payment gateway options, with counts reaching over 65.  Some include Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and even standard options like credit/debit, Net Banking, etc. Plus, Big Commerce users can save more money as well, given the unavailability of transactional fees for users here.  However, in the case of Magento, users get access to many third-party payment gateways to use as options.  Users get Braintree and PayPal as preset payment method choices in this version. Besides them, professionals can operate the Magento Connect tool to add more payment gateways to their store, as multiple apps are available for syncing. Users also get the option to incorporate different payment styles, like guest checkouts, into their store when operating on Magento. 
  • Advanced-Data Security

When it comes to online platforms for selling items, Magento is one of the best platforms available for ecommerce. Companies prioritize website security heavily, and Magento 2 comes up with more security solutions and updates frequently, compared to others like BigCommerce. Magento 2 migration process Indeed, Magento 2 comes up with update announcements for patchwork frequently. However, while quicker updates are available in Magento 2, users must operate these with more focus.
  • Compliance with PCI DSS 

For businesses in the ecommerce environment, PCI Compliance is extremely important. These standardization categories help businesses ensure secure and stable management of customer data, especially regarding sensitive transaction information, like credit card data and payment processing. Ecommerce businesses have to show their PCI compliance audit to authorities in an effort to showcase security protocols in place for customer data protection. BigCommerce is useful for this as the PCI compliance management process is simple.  On Magento, businesses have to handle their PCI compliance steps, like manually maintaining the PCI patchwork and compliance factors. Therefore, the users of Magento 2 get access to high-grade PCI DSS compliance support for their business and can activate it with better support. The e-store owner must set the firewall between the public networks and credit card data and upgrade all vendor-provided passwords. This ensures improved password security support. Read also: Hire Dedicated BigCommerce Developers
  • Superior Interface and Theme Customizations

For eCommerce businesses, having multiple customizations and themes in place is necessary to ensure the best-quality eStore design options.  It is hard to refute that BigCommerce provides a lot of templates for the interface design to users beforehand. Indeed, users can expect around 100+ paid themes and 12 free ones, the paid ones all ranging between the cost range of USD 140-240 each.  However, when it comes to the aspect of variety, many of the pre-made themes are relatively similar to each other.  Compared to that, users get around 14 theme choices in paid and free versions that they can utilize as the basic standardization. You can check how the theme looks for your store site and then provide the payment. Yes, in the context of the theme types available, BigCommerce assures more options. However, the ones available on Magento marketplace are customizable with in-built HTML/CSS editors. While making this comparison, it is possible to mention that there are also useful editors under the BigCommerce platform. However, the ones in Magento are more stabilized.  Since the Magento platform is open source, users can incorporate more extensions and plugins to customize the site's appearance. One can prepare their theme from the ground up and build a website using the Magento plugins if you have deep coding experience.  But overall, you should consider BigCommerce to Magento 2 migration due to the flexibility of the customization process. Users can add featured product sliders, animations, newsletter options, etc.
  • Better Apps and Extensions

In bigcommerce websites, preparing and adding a custom theme is the better option. On the other hand, theme extensions are more useful for online stores, with access to different tools that help you add new functions to the eCommerce website.  There are different preset features in BigCommerce for site hosting that you can use to build a website. Here, businesses also get access to 600 different app options suitable for various categories. On the other hand, Magento comes with 5,381+ extensions, all suitable to provide optimal compatibility and website security protection requirements for businesses. The extension options are available within the Magento marketplace.

How To Perform the BigCommerce to Magento 2 Migration Process?

There are different methods available for BigCommerce to Magento 2 data Migration process. Choose as per your preference, and take professional help with the process for the best results.

Method 1: Using Data File Transfer 

The following are the main stages of BigCommerce to Magento Migration using data files. 

Step 1: Export the website item of your BigCommerce

In the first stage of data migration process , developers export the items to the BigCommerce website, alongside other things like catalog, shipping price , customer IDs, customers, and XML/CSV-format-based properties.  Go to the BigCommerce extensions under the named category. 

Step 2: Import Data Files to the Magento 2

Next, you have to opt for the "Improved Import & Export" extension for importing the BigCommerce-based extension data. 
  • Firstly, contact the Magento 2 admin and choose the System option. 
  • Under this section, click on the Improved Import/Export option. 
  • Then, choose the Import Jobs option to prepare the new import job. 
Magento 2 migration

Step 3: Jump into the Setting Process

Following these steps, you should focus on the General Settings steps. For that, you have to change the import behavior, import setting, basic settings, etc. 
  1. Under Import Settings, choose the entity you will move to Magento 2 from BigCommerce. Update parameters like Advanced Pricing, Products, Categories, etc. 
  2. Tap on Import Behavior and choose a prepare behavior. Also, you should select a suitable validation approach and insert separators for the migration. 
  3. In the Import Source section, select the import file type and source. Make more setup changes and check them. 
  4. Finally, compare the properties noticeable in Magento 2 with those in BigCommerce. Operate a matching grid within a mapping preset or extension. 

Method 2: Through API

With the advanced Import & Export module on the Magento 2 version, professionals can directly connect with BigCommerce and transfer files through it. For this, they must utilize the available APIs best suitable for SOAP/REST link-based file transfers. 

Step 1: Create Your New Import Job

You must click on the System option and choose the Improved Import/Export module. Then, under the Magento 2 admin, choose Import Jobs and prepare a new one. 

Step 2: Setting Process

It would be best if you continued the setting up process in the General Settings, Import Behavior, Import Settings, and Import Source next. While you are making configuration changes in the same categories, the steps you will handle are slightly different in all these categories. 
  1. Under General Settings, you should add your job title and make extra condition setups. 
  2. In Import Settings, you should activate the API transfers by changing the Use API option to YES. Then, select the entity for BigCommerce to Magento 2 migration. 
  3. Under Import Behavior, you have to choose your preferred import behavior and validating strategy here. Also, type the separators. 
  4. Then, for the Import Source, select the import file format, source option between SOAP or REST, and other parameters. 

Step 3: Set Up Other Processes to Validate the Data File

Validate the data file to finalize it. Then, you have to select and activate Manual Grid, or the available presets for BigCommerce attribute mapping into Magento 2 attributes. This will confirm the whole data migration process to complete.  

Conclusion

Overall, Magento 2 is a high-caliber ecommerce platform with easy ecommerce website builder to which you can turn your ecommerce website for the best service improvement for your digital store. It comes with more theme customization benefits, payment gateway options, extensions, and more benefits.  So, follow ahead with the BigCommerce to Magento 2 migration steps in your preferred sequence using API or data files.  These steps can become complex to handle. For the best results, you should take the help of high-grade migration service like WeDoWebApps.com. Our talented Magento professionals have experience with different complex migration steps and can handle that as you request. You can also request a free demo to understand if it's right service you. Start free demo migration today.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to do BigCommerce to Magento 2 Migration?

In the e-commerce sphere, BigCommerce and Magento 2 are top platforms for high-grade e-store hosting and management. So, it is natural to wonder which one to use for the long term.  In my opinion, both versions are equally useful. BigCommerce, in particular, has many benefits for users, like more plugins, extensions, etc. However, this platform costs more money, while Magento 2 offers paid and free extensions for website building. 

Why transfer from BigCommerce to Magento 2?

BigCommerce is user-friendly and simple to operate, but the less restrictive Magento 2 is more popular, which leads to BigCommerce to Magento 2 migration. This transfer is suitable because Magento 2 migration provides benefits like:

  • More payment options
  • Better theme customization
  • Diverse extensions to use 
  • Improved data security 
  • PCI-DSS compliance 

How to proceed with BigCommerce to Magento 2(now Adobe commerce cloud)  migration?

Import tools are available for default use to migrate the online stores and websites from BigCommerce to Magento 2’s ecosystem. You can also conduct migration before you proceed with real migration.  However, many of these are challenging to manage as the import/export tools have more restrictions and support fewer objects.  You need to add another module for this with Magento 2 (now Adobe commerce) compatibility. While using the Improved Import & Export extension, users can handle quick data import and migration for BigCommerce, in two ways:

  • Through data transfers 
  • Via API connections 
Both versions notice specific configurations in common. But the steps you must use are slightly different, so learn that carefully to avoid errors. 

Mike
Written by Mike

Mike is a Graphic Designer at WEDOWEBAPPS LLC. Having demonstrated experience in UI/UX graphic designs, his work is well appreciated by clients. He enjoys exploring different design trends and designing research for different projects.