Name: Duxly
Address: NL
Rating: 5.0

Frequently Asked Questions About Data Migration

Data migration is one of the most critical — and most misunderstood — parts of any e-commerce replatforming project. Whether you’re moving from WooCommerce to Shopware, switching your ERP from Exact to SAP, or consolidating three regional shops into one Shopify Plus store, the questions are often the same. We’ve compiled the most common ones we hear at Duxly, with honest, detailed answers.

What exactly is data migration?

Data migration is the process of moving data from one system to another — typically as part of a platform switch, a system consolidation, or a move to the cloud. In e-commerce, this usually means transferring products, customers, orders, categories, pricing rules, inventory levels, and content from a legacy platform to a new one.

At its core, every migration follows an ETL process: Extract, Transform, Load.

Extract — Raw data is pulled from the source system via API, database dump, or file export (CSV, XML, JSON).
Transform — Data is cleaned, reformatted, and mapped to match the structure of the target system. A product “EAN” in WooCommerce might become a “barcode” field in Shopify. Custom tax logic in Lightspeed needs to be re-expressed as Shopware tax rules.
Load — Transformed data is pushed into the new system via API or direct database import, in the right order (categories before products, products before orders).

This sounds straightforward. In practice, the transform step is where 80% of the complexity lives.

What data can actually be migrated?

More than most people expect — but not everything. Here’s what we typically migrate:

Products — titles, descriptions, images, SKUs, barcodes, variants (size, color, etc.), pricing, tax classes, and stock levels
Categories & collections — hierarchical structure, slugs, metadata
Customers — names, addresses, email addresses, account history
Orders — historical orders, line items, statuses, totals, fulfillment info
CMS content — landing pages, blog posts, banners (where the target platform supports it)
SEO metadata — page titles, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, redirects

What typically cannot be migrated 1:1: proprietary loyalty point systems, custom plugin data with no equivalent in the target platform, and encrypted payment tokens (which must be re-collected for PCI compliance reasons).

What about custom fields and non-standard data?

Custom fields are one of the trickiest parts of any migration. If your current platform stores product-specific data — installation manuals, certification numbers, compatibility tables — that data needs a home in the new system before migration can begin.

In practice, this means:

Auditing all custom fields in the source system
Mapping each field to an equivalent in the target (a Shopify metafield, a Shopware custom property group, etc.)
Transforming data where formats differ (e.g., a multi-select field stored as a pipe-separated string vs. an array)
Validating that the data rendered correctly post-migration

A real example: when migrating a B2B wholesaler from Lightspeed to Shopify B2B, their product catalog included 14 custom fields per product — things like voltage ratings, IP ratings, and installation categories. We modeled these as structured metafields in Shopify and migrated ~28,000 products with full custom field parity. Zero manual re-entry.

How long does a migration take?

It depends on scope, but here are realistic ranges:

Scenario	Typical Timeline
Small WooCommerce → Shopify (< 1,000 products, < 5,000 orders)	1–2 weeks
Mid-size Lightspeed → Shopware (10k products, 50k orders, custom fields)	4–8 weeks
Large multi-store consolidation with ERP integration	3–6 months

The timeline is rarely dominated by the actual data transfer — that part can run in hours. What takes time is: discovery, field mapping, data cleansing, building the migration scripts, running test migrations, validating results, and planning the cutover.

A rushed migration is a risky migration. We always recommend at least one full dry run in a staging environment before touching production.

Can you migrate during business hours?

Yes, but with caveats. The approach depends on your tolerance for downtime and data drift.

Option 1: Maintenance window migration. The source system is put in read-only or offline mode, migration runs, and the new system goes live. Cleanest data, but requires planned downtime — ideally during your lowest-traffic window (often Sunday night or early Monday morning for European e-commerce).

Option 2: Live migration with delta sync. Historical data is migrated first (this can happen while the old system stays live), and then a final “delta sync” captures only the changes made during the migration window. Downtime is reduced to minutes. This is more complex to implement but often the right choice for high-volume stores.

Option 3: Parallel run. Both systems run simultaneously for a defined period. Orders are processed in the old system, but the new system is validated in real time. This is common for ERP migrations where business continuity is non-negotiable.

At Duxly, we design the migration strategy around your operational constraints — not the other way around.

What does data migration cost?

Migration cost is driven by four factors:

Data volume — number of products, orders, customers
Data complexity — custom fields, nested variants, multi-language content, B2B pricing tiers
Source system — some platforms (Magento, legacy ERPs) require more effort to extract from
Target platform — API rate limits, import restrictions, and data model differences affect build time

For a typical mid-market replatforming (say, WooCommerce to Shopware with 5,000 products and 30,000 customers), migration engineering typically runs between €3,000 and €8,000. Complex scenarios with ERP integration, custom field mapping, and multi-store setups can exceed €15,000.

What’s rarely discussed: the cost of not doing it right. Re-entering data manually, dealing with broken order history, losing SEO equity from poorly handled URL redirects — these hidden costs often dwarf the migration budget itself.

How do you validate that the migration was successful?

Validation is not optional. At Duxly, we run a structured validation process in three phases:

Pre-migration:

Row counts per entity type (products, customers, orders) in the source system
Sample data audit — manually check 20–50 records across different categories
Identify known edge cases (products with no images, customers with duplicate emails, orders with partial refunds)

Post-migration (staging):

Automated count reconciliation — source totals vs. target totals
Field-level spot checks — price, stock, custom field values
Image and asset verification
Functional QA — can you actually add a product to cart, complete checkout, look up an order?

Post-migration (production):

Re-run count checks on live data
Monitor error logs for the first 48–72 hours
Verify SEO redirect chains are working (critical for organic traffic)
Confirm integrations (payment providers, fulfillment, email marketing) are firing correctly

The goal is to catch discrepancies before they affect customers or business operations.

What should be on a post-migration checklist?

After go-live, don’t close the project. Work through this:

✅ All products visible and purchasable in the new store
✅ Inventory levels match the source system (or ERP)
✅ Customer accounts accessible and order history intact
✅ 301 redirects in place for all changed URLs
✅ XML sitemap updated and submitted to Google Search Console
✅ Payment gateway tested end-to-end
✅ Email flows (order confirmation, shipping notification) triggered correctly
✅ Analytics and tracking verified (GA4, Meta Pixel, etc.)
✅ Rollback plan confirmed still available (keep source system on standby for 2–4 weeks)
✅ Team trained on the new platform

Real migration scenarios we’ve handled

WooCommerce → Shopware 6: A Dutch fashion retailer with 3,200 products, 12 custom attribute groups, and 80,000+ historical orders. The main challenge: WooCommerce’s flexible attribute model doesn’t map cleanly to Shopware’s property groups. We built a transformation layer that preserved all product attributes, maintained category hierarchy, and migrated complete order history with status mappings.

Lightspeed → Shopify Plus: A B2B electrical wholesaler moving their trade portal. Lightspeed’s pricing model (customer-specific price lists, quantity breaks) required custom Shopify metafield structures and integration with their ERP for ongoing price sync. Migration of 28,000+ SKUs completed over a weekend with zero data loss.

Magento 1 → Shopware 6: End-of-life platform migration for a home goods retailer. Magento 1’s database structure is notoriously complex; we wrote direct SQL extraction scripts to pull data reliably, then mapped to Shopware’s API. Included multi-language product content (NL/DE/FR) and 150,000 customer records.

Ready to migrate? Talk to Duxly.

Data migration doesn’t have to be stressful or risky. With the right preparation, tooling, and expertise, you can move to a modern platform with full data integrity, minimal downtime, and no surprises.

Duxly specializes in e-commerce integration and replatforming. We’ve migrated data across every major platform combination — and we know where the edge cases hide.

Contact Duxly to discuss your migration project. We’ll give you a clear scope, realistic timeline, and a plan that fits your business.

Frequently Asked Questions About Data Migration