How to Migrate from Magento Go

Magento recently announced that it would be shutting down the Magento Go platform on the 1^st February 2015 in order to focus their resources on the Magento Enterprise Edition and Magento Community Edition. Find out more about Magento’s packages by visiting the Magento hub page.

So what does this mean for Magento Go users?

As of now, users are no longer able to sign up for a Magento Go account. If you are a current Magento Go user, you will be able to keep your store up and running for the next few months and through the holiday season with full support from the customer service team until 1^st February 2015.

However rather than letting your ecommerce operations come to a halt in February, we suggest creating a migration plan early. This will ensure a smooth transition to a new ecommerce solution.

Our team of experts can assist you in migrating your Magento site to a new platform.

Migrating to a new Magento platform

It is likely that you chose Magento Go over other ecommerce platforms as you wanted to benefit from Magento’s fantastic features (some of which can be found on our Magento hub page). Therefore if you want to continue benefit from Magento’s flexibility and great user control, it makes sense to upgrade to the Magento Community Edition.

Of course there is the option to migrate to a different company’s ecommerce platform, but the task of migrating to a new CMS can be very technical, complicated and time consuming. Choose the Magento Community Edition and you’ll benefit from being familiar with the dashboard and the fact you won’t lose any of your content!

Differences between Magento Go and Magento Community

When it comes to migrating from Magento Go to Magento Community, you will find that there are a number of key differences, some of which are pros, others cons. Below we have outlined some of the key differences between Magento Go and Magento Community.

Magento Go	Magento Community
Wide range of customer support from Magento team.	No official support. Access to community forums.
Built-in hosting.	Hosting not provided.
Payment provider built-in.	Payment options not readily available.
Store credit options.	Store credit options not built-in as default. Extensions available.
Access to themes and layouts via admin system.	No theme editor. Install themes using code. More customisation options.
Limited pre-set themes and extensions.	Wide range of plugins, themes and extensions. Very flexible.

As you can see from looking at the table of differences between the two platforms, whilst Magento Community does not offer in built hosting, credit options or support, it does provide merchants with more flexibility and control in terms of customising and managing their site. For example, you can integrate it with a wide range of Magento Extensions. Find out more about them here – Magento Extensions – a World of Choice.

What to do before migrating

Backup all of your customer and order data

Backup all of your products and categories

Look for a new theme

Choose a host

Unlike Magento Go, Magento Community does not have built in hosting. This means you will need to find a host for your ecommerce store. You also need to find a payment provider. For assistance in choosing the right host and payment provider for your ecommerce store, get in touch with Online Media Direct. You can also gain more knowledge of Magento hosting by visiting the link to Hosting Considerations When Implementing Magento page.

Exporting and saving data

It is recommended that you export and save your data as close to your migration data as possible. You should be able to export and save the majority of reports from your Magento Go store as ‘cvs’ or ‘.txt’ files. Data you should consider exporting and saving includes:

Catalogue data

Customer data

Invoice / order data

Sales reports

Shopping carts & products

Customer reports

Verify access to DNS settings

Access your domain registrar’s control panel (where you manage your account)

Verify that the contact info for your domain is accurate

Save all changes

Prepare DNS record updates

In order to prepare your DNS records ready for your ‘go live’ data, you will need to note down the following:

Required name server domains

‘A’ Record IP Address

CNAME settings

2364660555_9d8d0c54ac

Before your site goes live you will need to update your DNS settings for a final time.

Updating DNS settings

On the day that your Magento Community Edition store is ready to go live, you will need to update your DNS records again. Simply log into the control panel of your domain registrar and modify the DNS records in accordance with the platform’s specifications. This will direct shoppers to your new Magento store.

Seeking professional help with your Magento Go migration

Although Magento has created a Migration Centre, designed to assist merchants in transitioning from Magento Go to another ecommerce platform, the process can still be complicated, time consuming and stressful, especially if you are not so great at the technical side of running a website.

Online Media Direct can save you time, effort and stress by migrating your Magento Go website for you. We will set up a Magento Community test site on our test server, before migrating over your design and content. We will then export your products and categories and integrate your new payment provider.

Magento training

Not only will we migrate your website, but we will also teach you how to use the new platform. Although you will already be familiar with the Magento platform, we can explain how to get the most out of the Community Edition, as it does vary slightly, as we outlined earlier.

Testing

Before launching your website, we will thoroughly test your website and ensure there are no bugs or issues that could be problematic for your business.

We can provide on-going support services to Magento Community Edition users.

Support

We are certified Magento experts and are more than happy to set up support contracts for clients who require on-going assistance. As mentioned earlier, Magento Community Edition users are not provided with professional support, so our expert support services can provide a fantastic alternative at an affordable cost.

Contact us

If you have any questions about migrating from Magento Go or would like to enquire about our migration service, please get in touch by phoning 01706 830 965. We are also happy to discuss your migration options to help you choose the best ecommerce platform for your store.

Image credits: lumaxart, lumaxart and lumaxart

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