Weebly to Shopify Migration: A Seamless Step-by-Step Guide

As an online business owner, you want to improve your platform to establish a robust online presence and quickly scale. One of Weebly’s main competitors, Shopify, the e-commerce giant, controls 20% of the market. By September 2022, there were 3.9 million online merchants, with more wanting to join Shopify to open stores. So, how do you migrate everything from Weebly to Shopify? Is switching from one cart to another a good thing?

In this detailed guide, we at Ecomstart will answer the most frequently asked questions about Weebly to Shopify migration. We’ll walk you through migrating your data or customizing your new Shopify storefront in simple steps.

• Essential preparations.
• How to integrate Shopify with Weebly through data.
• How to transfer domain from Weebly to Shopify.

Let us unlock Shopify’s potential for your online store and boost its success.

Is it worth moving from Weebly to Shopify?

Weebly and Shopify are popular e-commerce platforms that build and host websites. These companies vary significantly in capabilities and audience.

In contrast to Weebly, which caters to beginners and small businesses with little technical knowledge, Shopify targets growing businesses and e-commerce professionals with advanced features, scalability, and flexibility. From those points of view, will switching from Weebly to Shopify be worth it?

Why would you switch from Weebly to Shopify? Figure it out!

Why should you move from Weebly to Shopify?

In this part, we list some compelling reasons to migrate from Weebly to Shopify.

• Outgrow Weebly’s limitations: As you grow your business and product, Weebly’s limited scalability and customization choices may become a disadvantage. Shopify offers comprehensive e-commerce capabilities like product variants, abandoned cart recovery, and marketing tools.
• Adopt a scalable platform for growth: Shopify’s solid design and infrastructure can support businesses of all sizes, from small startups to established companies, to grow without slowing down.
• Streamline operations and enhance the customer experience: Shopify’s centralized dashboard and streamlined processes can help companies improve order fulfillment and customer experience.

If you still need convincing to convert from Weebly to Shopify, read on to learn about the benefits of utilizing Shopify.

The top 5 benefits of Weebly to Shopify migration

We assert that moving from Weebly to Shopify offers numerous benefits to help your online store achieve more e-commerce goals.

Increase scalability to accommodate business growth.

Shopify’s distributed database architecture can manage massive amounts of data and items without slowing down, so you may introduce new products without worry.

Furthermore, Shopify provides several ways to organize your products, including collections, tags, and variants, helping customers find what they’re looking for and making it easier to manage an extensive catalog. 

For your information, Shopify’s infrastructure scales automatically to meet your needs, so you won’t have to upgrade your plan manually.

Ability to freely customize and design.

Shopify provides many more theme and customization options. Compared to Weebly, Shopify offers approximately 86 themes to choose from. Shopify’s theme editor allows you to change your themes anytime after creation. Shopify’s highly advanced customization tools allow you to change various settings. 

 

Weebly, on the other hand, allows for fundamental customization. Making changes in Weebly requires coding, which can be difficult if you need to learn how to code. 

In general, Shopify makes customization easier, more advanced, and more straightforward, allowing businesses to create a distinctive and brand-aligned storefront. 

Integrate comprehensive e-commerce tools and analytics.

Shopify provides many advanced tools for managing inventory, tracking sales, and analyzing customer behavior. For example, Shopify’s default plan includes essential inventory management features such as stock tracking, product variants, low-stock alerts, and order fulfillment tools. 

There are also a lot of third-party apps in the Shopify App Store that have advanced features like managing purchase orders, warehouses, barcode scanning, and dropshipping connections, as well as Shopify’s tools, which help you grow your business.

 

Integrate a streamlined payment process.

Shopify’s payment processing could be better than Weebly’s. As an e-commerce business, you rely heavily on online sales, so you must have reliable payment gateways. 

Weebly only accepts PayPal, Square, and Stripe. But Shopify allows you to use over 100 different payment gateways.  Customers will find it much easier to pay for items, increasing their likelihood of purchasing something. 

 

Increase SEO outcomes.

Weebly allows you to add meta descriptions and keywords and includes SEO tools. However, Shopify’s SEO is superior overall. Shopify also employs advanced SEO techniques and has 127 SEO apps in its app store. 

If you rely on this frequently, Shopify is a better option. Shopify allows adding and changing meta descriptions, tags, titles, and image text. Additionally, Shopify automatically generates canonical tags, social media sharing, and linking options.

Have the above five reasons convinced you to switch from Weebly to Shopify? If so, please keep reading to find out what data is transferrable between these two platforms.

From Weebly to Shopify, what kinds of data are transferrable?

Below is the complete list that we, Ecomstart, provide for you to identify the eight main parts that can be moved from Weebly to Shopify.

Data	Details
Products	Name, SKU, full description, status, manufacturer, price, product tags, variants, additional images, manage stock.
Product categories	Name, description, status image, meta title, and meta description.
Customers	First name, last name.Email, newsletter.
Orders	Order details, customer name.Email, billing address, and shipping address.
Coupons	Coupon code, coupon date.
Reviews	Created date, rating, user name, and title.
CMS page	Title, created date, URL, and description.
Subscriptions	Users, recurring dates, gift cards.

Next, we’ll talk about some things you need to get ready for before you start the detailed platform conversion phase.

Weebly to Shopify migration: Things to get ready

In this part, we recommend preparing carefully to ensure a smooth conversion from Weebly to Shopify. Here are three things to get ready for a transition.

• Back-up data

First, you should export all the critical data from your Weebly store before moving. This includes products, orders, customers, and other essential data. Besides, ensure you have a copy of your current Weebly store, including the theme, website, and any other important files.

• Create a Shopify account

Then, you open a Shopify account and learn how to use the dashboard and primary navigation. After that, pick a Shopify theme that fits your brand and goes well with your products. Let’s think about how the design looks, how easy it is to change, and how well it works with your other products.

• Maintain domain compatibility

The last checklist is to ensure that the domain name you already have works with Shopify. If not, you might want to get a new domain name. You may need to modify your name for Shopify. Your domain registrar can assist. If needed, you can buy a Shopify-compatible domain. 

Carefully, we’ll talk about how to transfer a domain from Weebly to Shopify in the next section. You can keep reading for more information.

After getting ready, the next section will review the steps for moving from Weebly to Shopify.

How to migrate from Weebly to Shopify in 3 stages

There are several steps to moving your online store from Weebly to Shopify, but we at Ecomstart will divide it into two main stages: moving the content and the domain name. You must pay close attention at every step to avoid missing important details. Let’s start with moving the content and then on to the domain.

Stage 1: Move the content

Step 1: Open a Shopify account and select a theme

You only need to complete this step if you have not opened a Shopify account. If yes, you can skip this step.

• Visit the Shopify main page.
• Click on the Start free trial button.
• Follow each step to set up your store.

 

When setting up Shopify, you must select a theme. Indeed, you can choose from many beautiful themes on Shopify, and it’s effortless to do so.

• Head over to the admin page of your Shopify store.
• Click Online Store (1), then Themes (2).
• Option 1: In the Theme library, select Add theme > Visit Theme Store, which will open a window with various themes.
  • If you like a theme, click on it for a preview and read about what it offers.
  • Click the Add button when you find the one you like, and it will be added to your Shopify store.
• Option 2:  In Popular free themes tab, choose a theme you like and click Add to install it for your online store.

 

If you want to save time, we offer the Best Shopify Themes to help you quickly pick a suitable theme that matches your orientation, requirements, and desires.

Step 2: Export data from Weebly to Shopify store

Exporting your Weebly data ensures continuity and prevents data loss during migration. Follow our instructions below.

• Navigate to your Weebly store dashboard and locate the data export option. The exact location may differ depending on your Weebly plan and version.
• Choose which data you want to export from your Weebly store. This typically includes products, orders, customers, and other pertinent data.
• Download the exported data in CSV format.

 

Step 3: Import data into Shopify

The Weebly to Shopify migration continues with data import. We recommend a third-party migration program to streamline data import. Because these apps automate data transfer, no manual involvement is needed.

Here are our step-by-step instructions.

• Download and install your preferred migration app on your Shopify store. 

 

• Follow the on-screen instructions to link your Weebly store to your Shopify account. Then, enter the required information. While you’re transferring information, the app will set up a safe connection.

 

• Check on the box of the information you want to move from your Weebly store to Shopify.
• The process of importing begins as soon as the data is approved. The app will copy your store’s information from Weebly to Shopify by moving your chosen data.

Step 4: Check and organize the data you imported

When you finish step 3, you will move to step 4 of testing and ordering your data. Follow the steps below to ensure the data is correct and consistent.

• Check the imported data, such as product descriptions, prices, and other information, etc.,
• Fix the product information when there are mistakes, such as typos, prices, or images.
• Sort your imported goods into collections and categories to help customers quickly look through and find what they want.

Step 5: Customize your Shopify store

After you’re done testing and moving your data from Weebly to Shopify, you can make your online store look and feel better on the Shopify platform.

 

You can look through Shopify’s massive collection of themes to find one that fits your brand and goes well with the products you sell. Pick one that speaks to your audience after looking at themes based on how easy they are to customize, and how much they fit your brand’s personality. 

In particular, you can change how your store looks by using Shopify’s built-in theme customization tools to change colors, fonts, layouts, and other things.

People will want to visit your online store if you post high-resolution pictures of the items and write interesting product descriptions that explain how the items can help people. 

You have finished the first stage of moving content from Weebly to Shopify. Then, we move on to the next and most crucial stage, which is to transfer domain from Weebly to Shopify.

Stage 2: Transfer domain from Weebly to Shopify

Changing your old domain name to point to your new Shopify store will keep your brand’s online profile current. Shopify accepts .com, .net, .org  domain name transfers. These days, your current registrar might temporarily stop domain transfers if certain things happen. If you’re unsure, you should ask their customer service team first.

Now we show you two options for transferring domains from Weebly to Shopify (in case you use paid plans on Weebly and Shopify). Please choose the way that best suits you.

Option 1: Connect your domain name to Shopify

You can connect your domain name from Weebly to Shopify without transferring everything if you purchased your domain name from another company. You can accomplish this by pointing to your Weebly website’s DNS records.

• Step 1: Go to the domain control section of your Weebly Dashboard and get the DNS information you need.
• Step 2: Let Shopify’s host or support center know you want to point a domain name without changing name servers. Afterward, go to the Domains section of your Weebly account and choose the right domain if you have more than one.
• Step 3: Change your DNS settings and delete or add your CNAME records. After that, get rid of and change your A records.
• Step 4: Save the new DNS records and see how your Shopify domain is linked to Weebly.

 

Option 2: Transfer domain name from Weebly to Shopify

Here is how to transfer domain from Weebly to Shopify if Weebly hosts your online store.

• Step 1: Go to your Weebly account’s Domains tab to get the authorization code and change the DNS settings.
• Step 2: Go to the settings menu and click the Domains field. Find the domain name you want to use,e and uncheck the box next to Lock Domain. You will be able to get the transfer key in the control panel.
• Step 3: Sign up for Shopify and make the necessary changes to the DNS settings.
• Step 4: Bring in the activation code that Weebly sent you.
• Step 5: Set up shipping, payment, and tax information if you want to sell physical goods. You can change them in the dashboard of your Shopify store.

 

You are currently 90% of the way there when switching from Weebly to Shopify if you have read the step “How to transfer domain from Weebly to Shopify.” 

Let’s find out the last stage, which is to test your Shopify store and improve it.

Last stage: Test and optimize your Shopify store

You need to test and improve your Shopify store to work well and give customers a great experience. Here are some things to think about:

• Test whether the store’s product pages, checkout, and mobile site work well.
• Google Analytics lets you monitor your website’s traffic, trends, and SEO.
• Use surveys or reviews to get feedback from your customers.

Now, you have read all the steps on how to migrate Weebly to Shopify. We’ll help you summarise by giving you a short guide to the Weebly to Shopify migration.

Step 1: Create an account on Shopify and choose a theme.
Step 2: Move data from Weebly to Shopify store.
Step 3: Import your product CSV file to Shopify.
Step 4: Review your imported products.
Step 5: Customize your Shopify store.
Step 6: Transfer domain from Weebly to Shopify
Step 7: Test and make improvements

Conclusion

Generally, weighing Weebly’s limitations against Shopify’s growth potential, a well-planned Weebly to Shopify migration presents a strategic opportunity for your ambitious e-commerce businesses. 

Ecomstart will accompany you in unlocking the power and scalability of Shopify to thrive in the competitive online marketplace. Not only Weebly, but we also help you migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify with detailed guidelines. Follow our blog for more in-depth e-commerce articles and tips for your online store.

Want to learn more about migrating from other platforms to Shopify? We have done many other migration guides, check it out!

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