Monday 29 August 2016

The Steps Required For Migrating Your Existing Store To Prestashop


Migrating to a new e-commerce platform comes with a host of challenges. But, if you choose your new e-commerce platform in such a way that its features and advantages outweigh the challenges, then it is worth the game. One of the e-commerce platforms that can prove to be an ideal candidate for migration is Prestashop, mainly because of its following attributes:

1. The platform is easily scalable and customizable.
2. A wide variety of modules is available for use, giving scope for diverse functionalities.
3. The platform renders support to a good number of languages, making it an ideal choice for creating a store for an international audience.
4. The platform does not charge any monthly cost, download cost, or even a sales commission.

Considering the above-mentioned attributes of Prestashop, it can be deemed as a suitable choice for migration especially if you as a store owner are looking for a more feature-rich and/or scalable e-commerce solution. Taking note of the advantages of Prestashop, it would be worth knowing what steps comprise of the migration process. Therefore, let us look at the steps involved in a Prestashop Migration process:

Data Migration: When moving an online store to a new platform, the data of an existing store, which includes product attributes and descriptions, must be transferred to the new e-commerce platform. This is quite a challenge as databases of all e-commerce platforms are available in different formats, making the data migration process implementable by a skilled developer only.

Prestashop Module Development: Migrating modules and theme from a previous store to the new store is not possible. Thus, in order to render the new store with desirable functionalities, one is required to deploy available or customized Prestashop modules. Moreover, attributing to Prestashop’s active development community, it is highly likely that you, as a store owner find better and more innovative modules for your new store.

Prestashop Theme Development: Since the design of the previous store can also not be migrated, one is required to deploy a theme that is compatible with the platform of the new store. Prestashop, in this case, offers a variety of paid and free themes to choose from. Further, theme customization can be employed if one wants to arrange the elements of the new store in a specific way and have new elements and colours added as well. 

With the implementation of the above-mentioned steps, one can have their store migrated to the feature-rich e-commerce platform, Prestashop. However, it is important to note that these steps can only be implemented by a team experienced in rendering Prestashop Migration Services.