How To Migrate Your Online Store From OpenCart To WooCommerce?

Starting your online business with a free and open-source eCommerce platform like OpenCart is a big initiative to move forward.  However, the scalability needs of your online store are affected at some point with this platform.

You need to migrate your store to meet your website scalability needs and improve your overall store performance. Failure to do so results in store performance issues, which eventually affect sales.

WooCommerce has become the ideal choice for websites with scalability and security needs. Migration from OpenCart to WooCommerce is the ideal deal to provide opportunities for your online store to grow.

Let’s explore this blog to get a detailed overview of WooCommerce and OpenCart and how to migrate successfully from one to the other. 

WooCommerce And OpenCart: An Overview

WordPress is a platform that is open-source and its code is available for the public to structure their websites. WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress that helps empower your online stores with additional features. With WooCommerce, you do not have to worry about the hassle of integration with WordPress themes and plugins.

On the other hand, OpenCart is a stand-alone eCommerce platform that lets you properly structure your website without feeling the need for WordPress. The OpenCart marketplace offers multiple benefits and features for your online store but some certain limitations and reasons make you migrate to WooCommerce.

Here is a general overview of the features of these two:

Features	WooCommerce	OpenCart
Ease Of Use	Easy to use, with no technical skills required	It requires technical skills and has a steeper learning curve.
Cost	It is free with paid plugins and extensions.	It is free with paid plugins and extensions.
Customization	Offers great customization	Less customization opportunities
Scalability	Scalable solution	Better for small-sized stores

How To Know You Need Store Migration? 

The need for migration from OpenCart could be sensed easily, if you are still confused then here is your way to know that you need to migrate your store:

Need More Features

Having additional features and functionalities to your online store can help grow your sales by improving your web user experiences. However, with OpenCart, this feature expansion is impossible because of its limited customization opportunities. The built-in features provided are insufficient and its dependability on external extensions is higher–making it an expensive deal.

Want Better Store Optimization

Both WooCommerce and OpenCart offer SEO benefits for your online stores, but WooCommerce takes a competitive edge. For your website to grow traffic and sales, its optimization is paramount. The basic optimization features like URL structure, and meta description are offered by OpenCart, but for your site to be optimized you need more optimization opportunities.

Performance Issues

With your growing sales and product catalogs, the expansion of your website size is guaranteed. One of the major drawbacks of OpenCart is that it results in performance barriers with website growth. In a nutshell, we can say that OpenCart is not a scalable solution and you need a better option if growing your online store is what you aim for. 

Product Management Barriers

Customization is highly required for improved product management, but OpenCart fails to provide higher levels of customization. WooCommerce allows you to manage your products based on varying details like color, type, and size. With this level of customization opportunities and variations, WooCommerce becomes the ideal choice compared to OpenCart.

Why Convert OpenCart To WooCommerce?

The limitations in OpenCart are some of the reasons why one must migrate to WooCommerce. However, the wide range of opportunities and benefits WooCommerce offers also make the migration compulsory.

These are some of the benefits WooCommerce offers:

Customization Range

The flexible nature of WooCommerce makes it extremely customizable and can mold to your specific business needs. There is a wide range of themes available that help you structure your online store according to your needs without compromising on anything. Additionally, you can customize your store for more features with the range of premium plugins available. 

Ease Of Use

Feeling the need to hire experts even for minor changes and for store management purposes is a headache. WooCommerce is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin that does not demand any expertise or technical skills. Moreover, there is a lot of community support in the form of additional documentation and other resources for easy handling of this platform. 

Scalability Needs Served

With eCommerce solutions, the need for growth and expansion is always there and it is the best way to grow your business. With the WooCommerce platform scalability is achievable and you can grow your online store from increasing product categories to sales volume. This expansion to your online store does not affect your website’s performance and that is the art of WooCommerce.  

Store Analytics And Reporting

WooCommerce gives you powerful store analytics and reports about your online store's performance. From past data to real-time data all can be extracted with WooCommerce, providing an opportunity to improve your website for better performance. The built-in features and add-ons help you generate reports to track order management, customer management, and marketing trends. 

Maximum Store Security

Although the OpenCart marketplace offers maximum support to offer security through additional plugins, the cost of these extensions is very high. Moreover, too many plugins can also open gates for security threats. On the contrary, WooCommerce offers maximum website security with its built-in security features and an extensive range of security plugins at a reasonable rate. 

How To Transfer OpenCart To WooCommerce?

Regardless of whether you want to migrate from whatever platform you want to WooCommerce, the migration process should be simple and easy.

There are three ways you can choose to migrate from OpenCart to Woo:

Do It Yourself Manually–(Risky)

One of the complex ways to migrate your store from OpenCart is the manual method. You have to manually download your required store data which is risky and time-consuming. You can get technical support from the OpenCart support team for a deeper understanding of the process.

But, this is not a reliable migration process for so many reasons, and here are some you must know:

• Data loss while extracting the data.
• Issues with the database structure.
• Requires proper backup plan before migration.
• Website downtime issues.
• Time consuming.

Hire A Woo Expert–(Recommended)

Although WooCommerce does not require a lot of technical expertise for its management. However, when it comes to OpenCart to WooCommerce migration without a plugin, you need help. You have two options to get this expert help and these are:

• Hire a Woo partner agency
• Outsource third-party Woocommerce experts

Compared to manual methods to transfer Opencart to WooCommerce, hiring Woo experts is the ideal option. These hired experts have command over WooCommerce and specialize in dealing with every task related to this platform.

Migrate With A Plugin– (Safest Option)

To migrate successfully and with ease, the safest and fastest way is to go with an OpenCart to WooCommerce plugin. With the right choice of plugin, you do not necessarily have to hire a web development company, a developer, or any expert to ensure migration safety. 

With a plugin to migrate, you can:

• Migrate without data loss
• Migrate your store in less time
• Accurate data mapping
• Customizable data migration
• Reduces website downtime

All these benefits and more can be achieved with the right and appropriate migration plugin. To make it simple for you, the best plugin to migrate your store is by using OpenCart to Woo migration.

How To Migrate Your Store With This Plugin?

With just a few clicks and within a reasonable amount–$79 annually, migration is easy with this plugin.

To migrate your store from OpenCart to Woo, this is how you can do it:

• Download the OperCart to Woo Migration plugin.
• Upload the downloaded .zip file to your plugin section to install it.
• Activate the plugin once installed.
• Make configuration settings to initiate the migration process.
• Go to API settings and provide
  • Opencart Store URL
  • Opencart database host address
  • Opencart store database name
  • Opencart store database username
  • Opencart store database password
  • Opencart database prefix
  • Enable email notification
  • Import completion notice email
  • Connection status
• Now provide the details for the type of data that you want to import
  • Product import settings: Import product details using various filters.
  • Customer import settings: Provide preferences for the type of customer data you want to import.
  • Order import settings: Import order details using various filters for order data.
• If you do not want to import filtered data, you can run a bulk import to migrate the entire store data.
  • Run bulk import for product data only
  • Run bulk import for customer data only
  • Run bulk import for order data only
  • Run bulk import for all three: customer, order, and product data
• From the import status tab, you can check the import status for all the data you wish to import.
• You can also cancel the import by clicking on the “Cancel All Running Imports” button.

With just a few clicks and steps, your store is migrated from OpenCart to WooCommerce without you finding the need to hire a developer. If you still have any confusion about the migration process, you can get all the details from the available documentation for this plugin.

Never Compromise On Your Online Store’s Availability!

No matter what factors either performance issues, ease of use, or any other element added to your need to convert OpenCart to WooCommerce– never compromise on your website availability.

While opting for the migration process, make sure that it is not adding to your downtime issues, while your customers struggle to find you online. Using the best plugin from the Woo marketplace is the safest way to migrate without going offline. 

If you are still confused about the migration process, do not hesitate to reach out to the support team to get the best and most genuine support you need.