In the world of ecommerce, change is inevitable. Customer expectations, market demands, and technological advancements are constantly evolving, pushing businesses to adapt—or risk falling behind. For many companies, this means undertaking an ecommerce migration, a process that involves moving their online store to a more scalable and modern platform, usually without major changes to architecture. Done right, ecommerce migration is an opportunity for growth, offering better performance, security, and improved user experience.
Recent data highlights the growing importance of ecommerce platform modernization. The eCommerce Platforms Report states that 61% of B2B ecommerce sellers plan to migrate to a new platform within the next 12 months, citing outdated systems as a key barrier to growth. And merchants’ expectations of the cost of switching platforms vary widely, with the majority planning to spend between $25,001 and $500,000.
This guide for an ecommerce migration will walk you through everything you need to know, from planning and strategy to overcoming common challenges. Our ecommerce migration whitepaper also explores best practices, practical checklists, and how the right ecommerce migration services can help you navigate this critical transition. If you’re considering migrating to Shopify, Magento, or Virto Commerce, you’ll find insights here to make it a success.
Looking to modernize your ecommerce platform? Check out our eCommerce Re-platforming, and How to Choose an eCommerce Platform guides to get started!
eCommerce migration refers to the process of transferring an online store from one platform to another, often driven by the need for better performance, scalability, and modern features. This transition touches every aspect of an online business—from the product catalog and customer information to SEO rankings, custom integrations, and user experience.
Companies typically consider ecommerce site migration when their current platform no longer meets business needs, whether due to technological limitations, high operational costs, or poor site performance. A Deloitte article that surveyed B2B companies reports their number one priority for technology investment is a new or upgraded ecommerce platform.
Additionally, a Deloitte Private survey from 2024 found that increasing AI use across the organization (43%) and investments in technology (37%) are the top two business priorities for private companies over the next 12 months.
eCommerce migration is more than a technical upgrade—it’s a strategic move that directly impacts business growth. Here’s why it’s crucial:
Failing to migrate at the right time can lead to missed opportunities, frustrated customers, and costly workarounds to keep an outdated system running.
eCommerce migration is not a decision businesses take lightly. It’s often driven by necessity rather than convenience. As companies grow, limitations in current ecommerce platforms become apparent, prompting the need for a more robust solution. Below are the most common reasons why businesses decide to migrate their ecommerce platforms.
Deloitte's insights emphasize the importance of modernizing ecommerce platforms to enhance customer experience and maintain competitiveness in the digital marketplace. Growth is definitely essential in ecommerce, but rapid expansion can push a platform beyond its limits. Businesses that started with a basic solution often find it unable to support their growing traffic, extensive product catalogs, and increasing complexity.
For example, platforms that cannot efficiently handle hundreds of thousands or even millions of SKUs may experience performance issues, slowing down site responsiveness and impacting the customer experience. This scenario is common in industries where products come in numerous variations, such as size, color, and material.
Take Caplugs, for instance. Although the product range may appear limited at first glance, the company’s catalog includes nearly 2 million items, with each product often available in dozens of variations. In such cases, scalability becomes a critical factor, as only advanced ecommerce platforms can manage such complex and large-scale inventories without compromising performance.
A slow site is a conversion killer. Studies indicate that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load. Additionally, research has shown that pages that loaded in 2.4 seconds had a 1.9% conversion rate, which decreased to 0.6% when load times reached 5.7 seconds.
Poor performance not only frustrates customers but also leads to lost revenue. For instance, over 1 in 10 business owners (12%) reported losing revenue every month due to poor website performance, averaging an annual loss of $20,172, or 15% of their total revenue.
If your current platform struggles to handle high traffic or spikes in demand, such as during Black Friday sales, it's crucial to consider migrating to a platform with better performance capabilities. Implementing strategies like load balancing, caching, and scalable hosting solutions can help maintain optimal website performance during peak traffic periods.
Legacy platforms often come with hidden costs—licensing fees, frequent maintenance, and expensive updates. Over time, the total cost of ownership can far exceed the initial investment. Migrating to a modern, cloud-based ecommerce platform can significantly reduce these costs while improving overall efficiency.
For example, Gartner has highlighted that organizations without effective cloud cost optimization strategies may overspend on cloud services by up to 70%, often due to overprovisioning and inefficient use of resources.
Modern ecommerce operations rely on seamless integrations with third-party services such as payment gateways, CRM systems, and inventory management solutions. Older platforms may lack the flexibility to integrate with essential tools, limiting business growth opportunities.
eCommerce platforms must evolve with customer expectations. If your platform doesn’t support omnichannel selling, advanced personalization, or mobile-optimized experiences, you risk losing customers to competitors. Businesses that prioritize customer experience often see higher retention and conversion rates.
Investing in UX/UI design is crucial. According to Forrester Research, a well-designed UI can increase a website's conversion rate by up to 200%, and a better UX design can yield conversion rates up to 400%.
A clunky admin interface can slow down your team, creating inefficiencies and frustration. If routine tasks like managing product catalogs or processing orders take too long, migrating to a platform with a more intuitive backend can greatly improve productivity and morale. Modern platforms with no-code or low-code interfaces enable non-technical staff to perform updates and tasks without IT support.
Outdated platforms are often vulnerable to security breaches and lack compliance with the latest data protection regulations, such as GDPR. Migrating to a platform with built-in security measures ensures that sensitive customer data remains protected.
Industry
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Pain Points
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Reasons for Migration
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Examples
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Electrical Distribution
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Electrification needs (data centers, more electrical power); Workforce challenges (retirements, tech skills); Industry lags in tech adoption; Fear of disrupters; B2C expectations in B2B; Website used for cart-building but orders still placed with sales reps. |
Enable online purchasing, operational automation, address workforce gaps, expand market reach, and align digital channels with customer buying behaviors.
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Blazer Electric Supply Company: Implemented an ecommerce solution, resulting in a 175% increase in online revenue.
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Fashion and Apparel
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High SKU variations, need for personalized shopping, mobile shopping optimization.
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Personalized experiences, handling inventory complexity, improving mobile UX.
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Eton Shirts: The luxury menswear brand transitioned to a new ecommerce platform to implement a digital wholesale showroom and boost direct-to-consumer capabilities, addressing the need for a personalized shopping experience.
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Consumer Electronics
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Rapid product innovation cycles requiring frequent updates; Complex product specifications and compatibility concerns; High consumer demand for fast, reliable shipping; Data privacy and cybersecurity risks; Need for omnichannel experiences with integration between online and physical stores.
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Integrate PIM systems for product management; Ensure secure transactions to build trust; Enable AI-powered recommendations for better CX; Support omnichannel strategies for cohesive customer journeys, and optimize logistics for faster delivery. |
Panasonic: Migrated to a scalable ecommerce platform for Central and Eastern Europe to improve local control and personalized promotions.
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Home Goods and Furniture
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Large customizable products, complex logistics, limited product visualization.
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Implement AR for visualization, enhance shipping, flexible payment options.
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Burrow: A furniture company that revamped its ecommerce platform to provide a seamless customer experience, including customizable options and improved delivery logistics.
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Food and Beverage
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Perishable products, regulatory compliance, temperature-controlled logistics.
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Streamline supply chain, logistics management, broaden digital presence.
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De Klok Dranken: Netherlands beverage giant empowered B2B customers with Virto Commerce, achieving 80% customer adoption.
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Automotive
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Complex catalogs, limited online buying, fragmented customer journeys.
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Offer online customization and build-to-order options; Manage large inventories and ensure parts compatibility.
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OK4WD: An automotive parts retailer that migrated to a new ecommerce platform, resulting in nearly doubling their conversion rate and sales.
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Recognizing these pain points early is critical to avoid prolonged inefficiencies. If any of the challenges above sound familiar, it’s time to evaluate your current platform and consider migrating.
Without a solid plan, you risk costly errors, data loss, and extended downtime. However, with the right strategy and team in place, you can turn this transition into an opportunity for growth.
The first step in planning your migration is to assess your current ecommerce platform and business needs.
Gartner has reported that 83% of data migration projects either fail outright or exceed their allotted budgets and implementation schedules. This high failure rate underscores the critical importance of thorough data preparation and review in migration projects. Inadequate data quality and lack of proper planning are significant contributors to these failures.
Choosing the right ecommerce platform is one of the most critical decisions in the migration process. Consider factors like customization, integration options, and long-term costs.
Popular Platforms: Shopify, Magento, and Virto Commerce offer a range of solutions for different business needs. Virto Commerce, for instance, is designed for B2B ecommerce, offering flexibility, headless commerce capabilities, and seamless third-party integrations.
By prioritizing adaptability alongside technical capabilities and costs, you make sure that the selected ecommerce platform will continue to meet your needs as your business grows.
There are two primary strategies for ecommerce migration:
Read more about these approaches in our Re-platforming guide!
Data Transfer Methods:
Break the migration into manageable stages, assign responsibilities, and define milestones. Avoid launching during peak sales periods to minimize customer impact. Plan for extra time to address unexpected issues and conduct final tests before going live.
Sample Migration Timeline
Stage 1: Data preparation and cleansing.
Stage 2: Platform configuration and integration.
Stage 3: Data migration and testing.
Stage 4: Full deployment and performance monitoring.
A well-prepared checklist ensures you cover all aspects of the migration process:
Migrating an ecommerce platform is a significant undertaking. While the benefits of a successful migration are substantial, the process itself is fraught with potential challenges that can disrupt your operations if not handled carefully.
Maintaining the accuracy and security of your data is one of the most critical aspects of ecommerce migration. Customer profiles, product catalogs, and order histories must be transferred without errors to avoid business disruptions. Even a minor data inconsistency can lead to customer dissatisfaction and lost sales.
Data security is equally vital, especially when handling sensitive information like customer payment details. The risk of data breaches can increase during these transitions if not properly managed. According to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million, a 10% increase from the previous year and the highest total ever recorded.
Key Security Risks:
Best Practices:
Even a few hours of downtime can cost ecommerce businesses thousands in lost revenue. In addition to revenue loss, poorly executed migrations can cause SEO rankings to plummet, especially if URL structures change without proper redirects.
Industry experts have observed that poor SEO planning during website migrations can lead to significant drops in organic traffic. For instance, an ecommerce migration case study highlighted a UK retailer experiencing nearly a 30% decline in organic traffic and over a 50% decrease in revenue for 3 consecutive months following a poorly executed migration.
Conversely, well-planned SEO migrations can prevent such losses and even lead to traffic gains. Another example describes a British ecommerce site that, after an initial brief downturn post-migration, achieved a 20% increase in organic traffic within a month and a 40% rise by the third month.
How to Avoid SEODisasters:
Modern ecommerce platforms rely on integration with third-party systems like payment gateways, CRM, ERP, and marketing automation tools. However, many legacy systems may not integrate smoothly with the new platform, resulting in functionality gaps.
For example, an ecommerce business relying on custom APIs for inventory management may find that these APIs need to be rewritten or updated to work with the new platform. Failure to plan for these integrations can delay the migration and increase costs.
Any disruption of UX during migration—such as broken links, slow load times, or a poorly designed interface—can frustrate users and lead to lost sales.
Migration doesn’t end when your new platform goes live. Continuous monitoring is essential to catch and fix issues that arise in the weeks following the migration. These issues can range from data discrepancies to unexpected bugs that affect the shopping experience.
Monitoring Strategy:
1. Plan Thoroughly
Begin with an analysis of your current ecommerce environment. Identify existing limitations, desired features, and set objectives for the migration. Develop a detailed roadmap outlining each phase, associated tasks, and timelines.
2. Develop a Data Backup Strategy
Prior to migration, implement a robust data backup plan. Secure all essential data, including product details, customer information, and transaction histories. Regular backups act as a safeguard against potential data loss during the migration process.
3. Pre-Migration Testing and Contingency Planning
Conduct testing in a staging environment before the full-scale migration. This includes validating data integrity, assessing website functionality, and ensuring compatibility with integrations. Additionally, establish contingency plans to address potential issues that may arise during the migration.
4. Maintain Customer Experience During Migration
To preserve a flawless customer experience, schedule migrations during periods of low traffic. Communicate any anticipated downtime or changes to your customers in advance. Post-migration, monitor the site closely to promptly address any user-reported issues, providing uninterrupted service.
5. Utilize AI-Powered Tools
Leverage AI-driven tools and collaborate with specialized agencies to facilitate the migration process. AI can assist in data mapping, predictive analytics, and automating repetitive tasks. Partnering with experienced agencies provides access to expertise and resources that can further facilitate your transition.
6. Be Ready for a Sales Increase
A survey conducted in the first half of 2024 revealed that one third of respondents reported sales increases of 30% or more after migrating ecommerce platforms. Make sure your team is prepared to handle additional demand by scaling your operations, optimizing inventory management, and reinforcing customer support.
Partnering with a reliable ecommerce migration agency can significantly improve your chances of success. From data migration to platform integration, these experts help manage the complexities of migration. Key services offered by top ecommerce migration agencies include:
Choosing the right tools can simplify the migration process and reduce risks. Here are some popular solutions:
Automated migration tools: Can simplify the transfer of standard datasets such as product catalogs, customer information, and order histories. However, these tools are typically most effective for off-the-shelf solutions that have not been extensively customized. Fo example, LitExtension, known for its user-friendly interface and support for over 120 ecommerce platforms, provides a data transfer experience for simpler ecommerce migrations.
ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) Tools: For complex ecommerce migrations, ETL tools offer greater flexibility by enabling customized data mapping, transformation, and validation. These tools are particularly useful when migrating from highly customized systems where data structures differ significantly between the source and target platforms. For instance, Talend Data Integration offers advanced data mapping, cleansing, and transformation features, ensuring high-quality data migration for large and complex ecommerce projects.
Virto Commerce, founded in 2011, is a global leader in B2B ecommerce and marketplace solutions. We specialize in highly customizable headless commerce platforms that empower businesses to innovate and transform digitally.
At the core of our offerings is the Commerce Innovation Platform, powered by our proprietary Virto Atomic Architecture™ and Virto Cloud, which deliver flexibility for businesses to scale and adapt to market demands & customization to create high-performance digital experiences.
We understand that migration is just the first step. With Virto Guarantee, our dedicated support program, we will make sure your business continues to thrive. We provide:
We are trusted by global enterprises such as HEINEKEN, Hyundai, Bosch, De Klok Dranken, and Standaard Boekhandel. We don’t just provide adaptable ecommerce technology; we partner with our customers on their digital transformation journeys.
Ready to discuss your ecommerce solution? Book a Demo!
De Klok Dranken, a major beverage and food wholesaler for hospitality businesses in the Netherlands, needed a migration solution to replace their heavy SAP system. Their goal was to improve customer experience, boost digital adoption, and stay ahead of growing competition.
De Klok chose the Virto Commerce platform and partnered with Innovadis, a leading technology integrator. Virto’s headless and modular architecture enabled easy integration with existing tools, providing data import/export capabilities and laying the foundation for continuous innovation.
The Results:
Looking for the same level of success with your ecommerce store? Virto Commerce offers future-ready, adaptable technology and expert guidance to help businesses like yours thrive. Partner with us to achieve ecommerce excellence!
eCommerce migration is an investment in your business’s future. A well-planned migration can lead to better performance, customer experience, and scalability.
For large-scale ecommerce migration, trust Virto Commerce. Our tailored solutions ensure a smooth and secure transition.
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