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Migrating an existing online store to a new platform like BigCommerce can be a daunting task, especially if you want to avoid any downtime during the transition. Customers expect your website to be available 24/7, so maintaining uptime throughout the migration is crucial.

The key to a smooth transition lies in careful planning, preparation, and working with an experienced BigCommerce developer agency. By following best practices around data migration, theme development, testing, and cutover, you can switch platforms successfully without disruption to your business.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the steps for migrating to BigCommerce in a zero-downtime manner. We’ll also explain why choosing the right implementation partner like Anchor Group can set your migration up for success.

Map Data and Align Databases

The first step is understanding what customer data, products, orders and other information needs to be migrated from your old platform to BigCommerce. This includes:

  • Customer accounts and profiles
  • Product catalogs with pricing, inventory, images etc. 
  • Historical transaction and order data
  • Content like blogs, pages, navigation menus etc.

Your implementation team will need access to your existing database and backend systems to index all this data. They can then map data fields from the old platform to appropriate tables and schemas in BigCommerce. 

For example, identifying the equivalent product attributes like SKU, cost, weight etc. This data mapping ensures information transfers over accurately without losing important details.

Some data cleansing is usually required to eliminate duplicate or inconsistent data before migration. It’s also an opportunity to improve data quality for better operations going forward.

Choose Migration Tools and Plugins

Specialized ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) software makes migrating data into BigCommerce much faster and easier. Some popular migration tools include:

  • Cart2Cart 
  • CPQSync by Cincom
  • Commerce Sync by Elastic Path

These tools automatically map data between platforms, export it from the old system, transform it to the new format, and import it into BigCommerce. This eliminates the need for complex custom data migration scripts.

Anchor Group has also developed proprietary migration software tools tailored for each client’s unique needs. This includes an inventory sync tool for near real-time stock level updates.

Along with migration software, utilizing various plugins like Gift Certificates and Store Credit from Webgility smooths transition of features like customer store credits. This means no loss of functionality or historical data.

Build a New Theme for Seamless UI

One of the advantages BigCommerce offers over other platforms is robust theme customization powered by the Stencil framework.

Anchor Group’s design and development team builds custom Stencil themes mirroring each client’s existing brand aesthetic. This includes: 

  • Company logo, fonts, colors and styles
  • Imagery, graphics and iconography
  • Custom layouts, widgets and components
  • Responsive design supporting all devices

Beyond look-and-feel, the theme functionality closely replicates existing workflows. For example, recreating specialized navigation menus, category pages, product options, cart and checkout.

This familiar user interface paired with comprehensive features like faceted search makes for a frictionless post-launch customer experience.

Conduct Rigorous Testing

Before launching a live migration, the new BigCommerce store needs to go through several rounds of testing. This reveals platform bugs, design flaws and data inconsistencies ahead of time. 

Our quality assurance checklist examines:

  • Site responsiveness across devices
  • Catalog browse, search and filters 
  • Product options like custom fields  
  • Pricing and promotions logic
  • Native and custom shipping settings
  • Taxes, payment gateways and fraud tools
  • Cart flows including discounts
  • Multi-page checkout with guest/registered options
  • User accounts and order history access
  • Admin dashboards, inventory and order management   

Both manual tests and test automation software comb through all site experiences. We fix any issues immediately through an agile, iterative process. This persistent testing and refinement cycle continues right up to launch.

Plan the Launch Sequence

With theme development, data migration and testing wrapped up, it’s time to choreograph the actual platform switchover. 

This launch sequence allows no interruptions to the existing site while prepping the new BigCommerce store behind the scenes:

1. Clone existing site including images into BigCommerce 

2. Update DNS settings to direct to new store domain

3. Initiate final data migration to new database

4. Enable new BigCommerce theme  

5. Switch DNS routing to BigCommerce storefront

6. Old platform site retires

7. Ongoing monitoring and optimization

Following this systematic order of operations, the customer simply sees the updated site design powered by a different – now BigCommerce-driven – architecture.

For additional protection, the old site can remain quietly running in the background for a few weeks just in case. This gives a temporary fallback should any unforeseen issues arise.

Why Choose Anchor Group?

When undertaking a complex platform migration promising zero downtime, working with the right implementation partner is paramount. 

As an Elite BigCommerce Partner and Preferred Development Agency, Anchor Group provides:

  • Unmatched Experience: With hundreds of successful BigCommerce migrations delivered, Anchor Group follows cutting-edge best practices for seamless transitions.
  • End-to-End Service: Our single project team handles design, development, data, QA, launch and beyond – smoother than coordinating multiple vendors. 
  • Proprietary Tools: We build custom software tailored to each client’s workflow needs not supported out-of-the-box.
  • Technical Excellence: Our US-based senior engineers receive extensive BigCommerce training enabling impeccable implementations. 
  • White Glove Support: Dedicated account management maintains high responsiveness and priority support spanning years not just initial launch.  
  • Flawless Uptime Guarantee: Our foolproof zero-downtime migration methodology keeps sites running 24/7 pre to post switchover.  
  • Rapid ROI: Anchor Group’s solutions provide exceptional commerce experiences generating higher revenue and conversion quickly.

Trust Anchor Group to expertly guide your enterprise through the intricacies of migrating to BigCommerce with no disruptions, so you canfocus fully on your core business. Our tailored roadmap and rigorous execution paves the way for realizing BigCommerce’s full potential.

Conclusion  

Migrating online stores to BigCommerce doesn’t need to spell doom and gloom for your business. Following structured best practices around thorough data planning, theme design, robust testing and strategic launch coordination can make downtime a thing of the past. 

Partnering with qualified BigCommerce developer agencies like Anchor Group instills confidence your switchover will transpire seamlessly behind-the-scenes. This paves the way for unlocking greater success unlocking BigCommerce’s immense capabilities.

If you need assistance transitioning ecommerce platforms, reach out to our experts. Anchor Group makes the process of going BigCommerce easy and worry-free no matter the size or complexity. Contact us today to schedule a consultation.