WIX to BigCommerce Migration - Step-by-Step Guide & Expert Services

Seamlessly Migrate Your E-commerce Store from WIX to BigCommerce

Planning to move your online store from WIX to BigCommerce? This comprehensive guide will walk you through every step of the replatforming process, ensuring a smooth transition for your valuable e-commerce data. WIX is a popular choice for new businesses, but as your store scales, BigCommerce offers advanced features, greater customization, and robust scalability essential for growth. This migration, while a significant undertaking, can unlock a new level of performance and flexibility for your online business.

We understand that migrating an entire store, including products, customer data, and orders, can seem daunting. This guide is designed to clarify the process, detailing how to effectively transfer your store's ecosystem to BigCommerce. Since WIX does not offer a direct API connection for third-party migration tools, the transition will primarily involve exporting your data from WIX into CSV files and then importing it into the migration service, which will then push it to BigCommerce via its powerful API. Let's ensure your data integrity and maintain your SEO rankings throughout this crucial business transition.

Prerequisites for a Smooth Migration

Before initiating your data transfer, some crucial preparatory steps are necessary for both your WIX source store and your new BigCommerce target store. Proper preparation minimizes potential downtime and ensures data accuracy.

Preparing Your WIX Source Store

• Data Export Strategy: As WIX does not provide a direct API for third-party migration, you'll need to export your store data into CSV files. Focus on exporting essential entities like products, product categories, customer records, and order history. The more comprehensive your CSV exports, the more data can be transferred.
• Data Cleanup: This is an excellent opportunity to review and clean your existing WIX data. Remove duplicate entries, outdated product listings, or inactive customer accounts. Clean data ensures a more efficient and accurate transfer to BigCommerce.
• Backup Your Store: Always create a complete backup of your WIX store data before any major changes or exports. This provides a safety net in case any issues arise during the migration process.
• No Plugin Required: For the WIX (CsvToCart) source, no specific plugin installation is required. The migration tool will interact directly with your uploaded CSV files.

For more details on preparing your source store, read our guide on How to prepare Source store for migration?

Preparing Your BigCommerce Target Store

• Set Up Your BigCommerce Store: Begin by creating a new BigCommerce account or trial. Familiarize yourself with the BigCommerce dashboard and its core functionalities.
• HTTPS Requirement: BigCommerce requires HTTPS for all API connections to ensure secure data transfer. Ensure your BigCommerce store URL uses 'https://'.
• Generate API Credentials: BigCommerce relies on API access for data transfer. You will need to create a custom API account with the necessary scopes within your BigCommerce admin panel. This is a critical step for establishing a secure connection for the migration tool. You'll need the Client ID, Access Token, and API Path.
• Theme and Basic Configuration: While you can finalize your theme and advanced settings after migration, it's beneficial to have a basic theme selected and essential settings like currency and time zone configured. This helps in understanding how your migrated data will appear.

For detailed instructions on BigCommerce API access, refer to The Short & Essential Guide to Access Credentials for Cart2Cart. Additionally, consult How to prepare Target store for migration? for a complete checklist.

Performing the Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your preparations complete, you're ready to initiate the data transfer. This section outlines the step-by-step process using a specialized migration service, like Cart2Cart, to move your data from WIX (via CSV) to BigCommerce (via API).

Step 1: Initiate Your Migration

Begin by accessing the migration wizard. This is where you'll select your source and target platforms and start configuring your data transfer.

Step 2: Connect Your Source Store (WIX via CSV)

Since WIX lacks a direct API for migration tools, you'll select 'CSV File to Cart' as your source platform. You will then upload the CSV files you exported from your WIX store. This method allows you to transfer a wide range of entities including products, product categories, manufacturers, reviews, customers, orders, coupons, CMS pages, and blog posts.

For more information on CSV-based migrations, visit our CSV.File Data Migration service page.

Step 3: Connect Your Target Store (BigCommerce)

Now, select 'BigCommerce' as your target platform from the dropdown menu. Enter your BigCommerce store's URL. You will then provide the API credentials (Client ID, Access Token, and API Path) you generated in your BigCommerce admin panel during the prerequisites phase. These credentials enable the migration service to securely access and transfer data to your new BigCommerce store.

Step 4: Select Data Entities for Transfer

In this step, you will specify which types of data you want to migrate. You can choose to transfer all available entities or select them individually. Common entities supported for transfer to BigCommerce include products, product categories, manufacturers, product attributes (like size and color for variants), customers, orders, coupons, blog posts, and CMS pages. This allows you to precisely control the scope of your data transfer, ensuring only relevant SKUs and customer data are moved.

Step 5: Configure Additional Migration Options

This is where you can select various optional features to tailor your migration. These options can significantly impact the outcome, especially concerning SEO and data integrity. Popular choices include:

• Preserve IDs: Keep your original product, category, customer, and order IDs. This can be beneficial for historical data matching and internal processes. Learn more about How Preserve IDs options can be used?
• Create 301 SEO URLs: Generate automatic 301 redirects for your old WIX URLs to their new BigCommerce counterparts. This is crucial for preserving your SEO rankings and link equity.
• Clear Target Store Data: If your BigCommerce store has existing demo data, this option allows you to clear it before migration to prevent conflicts. Understand more about Clear current data on Target store before migration option.
• Migrate Images in Description: Transfer images embedded within product descriptions or CMS pages.
• Password Migration: Securely migrate customer passwords to your new BigCommerce store.
• Create Variants from Attributes: If your WIX products use attributes to define variations (e.g., size, color), this option ensures they are correctly set up as product variants in BigCommerce.

Step 6: Map Data (Customer Groups, Order Statuses)

In this critical step, you'll map customer groups and order statuses from your WIX source to their corresponding equivalents in BigCommerce. For example, you might map 'Guest' customers from WIX to 'Guest' in BigCommerce, or 'Pending Payment' order status to BigCommerce's equivalent. This ensures data consistency and integrity, allowing your store to function correctly post-migration.

Step 7: Run a Free Demo Migration (Recommended)

Before committing to a full migration, we highly recommend running a free demo migration. This allows you to transfer a limited number of entities (e.g., 10 products, 10 customers, 10 orders) to your BigCommerce store. The demo serves as a crucial testing phase, enabling you to:

• Verify the connection settings.
• Check the accuracy of data transfer.
• Review how products, customers, and orders appear in BigCommerce.
• Identify any potential issues or adjustments needed before the full transfer.

Step 8: Perform Full Migration

Once you're satisfied with the demo results, proceed with the full migration. Review the total cost, confirm your selected entities and options, and choose a Migration Insurance Plan if desired. Migration insurance offers additional remigrations, providing peace of mind. During this stage, the migration service will transfer all your selected data to BigCommerce, striving for minimal downtime.

Explore the benefits of our Migration Insurance Service or read How Migration Insurance works?

Post-Migration Steps

After the data transfer is complete, there are several essential tasks to finalize your BigCommerce store and ensure a successful launch.

• Verify Data Integrity: Thoroughly check your BigCommerce store. Ensure all products, product images, categories, customer accounts, order histories, and other data have migrated correctly. Pay close attention to product variants, pricing, and descriptions.
• Configure BigCommerce Store Settings: Set up your payment gateways, shipping zones, tax settings, and any other specific configurations required for your BigCommerce store to operate fully.
• Customize Your Theme: Personalize your BigCommerce store's design and user experience. Explore the BigCommerce Theme Store and customize your chosen theme to reflect your brand identity.
• Install Essential Apps/Integrations: Browse the BigCommerce App Store for any necessary plugins or integrations for marketing, analytics, accounting, or customer service.
• Implement 301 Redirects: If you didn't utilize the 301 redirect option during migration, it is critical to set them up manually. This preserves your SEO rankings and ensures visitors from old links land on the correct new pages.
• Update DNS Records: Once you are confident your BigCommerce store is ready, update your domain's DNS records to point to your new BigCommerce store. This is the moment your new store goes live to the public.
• Test Store Functionality: Conduct comprehensive testing of your new BigCommerce store. Place test orders, create customer accounts, test search functionality, and ensure all features work as expected.
• SEO Audit: Perform an SEO audit to check for any broken links, crawl errors, or indexing issues. Submit your new sitemap to search engines.
• Deprecate WIX Store: Once your BigCommerce store is fully live and stable, you can safely shut down or deprecate your old WIX store.
• Consider Recent Data Migration: If new orders or customer data appeared on your WIX store during or shortly after the migration, consider a Recent Data Migration Service to transfer only the latest updates.

Migrating from WIX to BigCommerce is a strategic move that can significantly enhance your e-commerce capabilities. By following these steps carefully, you can achieve a seamless transition and position your business for future growth on a powerful new platform.