An existing store holds an invisible asset: URLs indexed in Google, customer accounts, order history, images, product pages, shipping rules, promo codes and established ways of working. So migrating is not about building a nice new site and then shutting down the old one. A successful migration manages the move from one system to the other while protecting what already creates value.

Start with an inventory, not with design

Before choosing the new interface, you need to list the data that is truly useful: active products, variants, categories, customers, orders, stock, prices, taxes, carriers, editorial content and URLs. This step also lets you decide what is not worth migrating. A redesign is a chance to clean up a catalog that has become inconsistent, rather than carrying over ten years of errors.

Migrating cleanly means knowing what you keep before deciding what you change.

Treat SEO as business data

Old URLs that receive traffic or links need to be identified. When a URL changes, a permanent redirect must point to the most relevant page of the new store. Main tags, key content, structured data and internal linking all need to be checked. A migration that ignores this work can turn a visual improvement into a commercial setback.

Payment and checkout come before the details

Before going live, you need to test real scenarios: a purchase on mobile, a discount, an accepted payment, a declined payment, free shipping, shipping fees, order confirmation, emails, refunds and stock management. The goal is not just to check that every page displays. You need to check that the business can receive and process an order from start to finish.

Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop and Magento don't export in the same way

Each platform has its own formats, extensions and data habits. Some information can be exported directly, while other data needs to be transformed. Data coming from third-party modules deserves particular attention: a field in the old store does not necessarily have a direct equivalent in the new one. That is why a migration should be scoped before anyone promises a full transfer.

  • Catalog: products, variants, prices, images, categories and stock.
  • Customers: authorized data, consents and useful history.
  • Orders: kept or archived depending on operational needs.
  • SEO: URLs, redirects, metadata and strategic content.
  • Payment: new settings, tests and provider compliance.
  • Shipping: zones, rules, carriers and thresholds.
  • Tracking: analytics, ad conversions and key events.

The switchover must be verifiable

A serious migration plans a monitoring window before and after the change: test orders, stock comparison, checks on the most visited pages, error tracking and conversion validation. The first days are not for improvising new features. They are for confirming that the commercial foundation is stable.

A new store is only a success when your customers can keep buying without noticing the migration.

UNYX can approach an e-commerce redesign in this order: inventory, scope, new experience, transfer of the planned data, testing, switchover and follow-up. The goal is to change the tool without losing sight of the one metric that really matters during the transition: your ability to keep selling.