How To Migrate Your Online Store From OpenCart To WooCommerce?

If you own an eCommerce store, it’s important to constantly update and optimize it in order to maximize sales potential. This means you might notice that the current eCommerce platform you’re using may no longer be suitable. There are other platforms that can provide you with more flexibility, letting you grow your business the way you want.

At times like that, you’ll need a seamless and safe cart-to-cart migration to move your store to a new platform. In this article, we’ll guide you through the methods to migrate from OpenCart to WooCommerce. 

Migrate From OpenCart To WooCommerce: An Overview

What is OpenCart?

OpenCart is an open-source, user-friendly eCommerce platform that is suitable for online selling beginners, and works best for small to medium-sized businesses. 

Being packed with features and supporting many plug-ins, OpenCart currently caters to over 400,000 active stores worldwide.

What is WooCommerce?

Similar to OpenCart, WooCommerce is also an open-source solution for eCommerce businesses. This platform works as a plugin to your existing WordPress site, meaning you need to have a pre-existing website in order to use WooCommerce. 

With the high recognition of WordPress and its large user community, WooCommerce has now become one of the most popular eCommerce platforms. It provides users with outstanding blogging features and store customization options. If you deploy your WooCommerce store on a specialized WordPress hosting plan, it will display blistering performance and excellent reliability. Providers like ScalaHosting have worked with WordPress and WooCommerce for decades, and they know how to configure their servers to provide you with the speed and uptime you expect. You just need to pick the service that best fits your needs and requirements.

Why you should migrate from OpenCart to WooCommerce?

OpenCart is a satisfactory choice for many eCommerce stores. It’s free to use and comes with most of the necessary features for them to sell their items. However, it still has some limitations and lacks flexibility if you want to expand your business. 

OpenCart requires users to have good coding knowledge in order to fully take advantage of its customizing functions. There are fewer themes available to choose from as well. As a result, many store owners have to give up eCommerce flexibility in exchange for simplicity.

On the other hand, WooCommerce has a significant number of functions that are optimized for eCommerce use. It offers store owners over 50,000 diverse plug-ins and 30,000 website themes. You can easily set up WooCommerce without much coding background, as it only takes 1 click to install this plug-in to your WordPress site.

Therefore, if you have a fast-growing eCommerce store and need a more optimized solution, WooCommerce is our suggested solution. Check out this full WooCommerce review and see all the features this online selling platform has to offer.

Before we show you how to perform a successful migration from OpenCart to WooCommerce, take a look at this head-to-head comparison of these two platforms to grasp the broad picture:

And now, let’s go through the steps to safely move your store’s data from OpenCart to WooCommerce. 

How To Migrate From OpenCart To WooCommerce In 4 Simple Steps?

Step 1: Backup your OpenCart store’s database

Before your migration process, it’s important to make sure that your database is up to date and stored safely. Even though you won’t have to make changes to your database while migrating, this will help avoid any data loss.

To export your store data from OpenCart, follow these steps:

• Log in to your OpenCart store account and access the Dashboard
• Access the following: System > Maintenance > Backup / Restore
• In the Backup tab, choose the file format that you want to export. Select all the given options in order to export all the data in your store.
• Click Export. Your exported data will come in a zip file and include all the data tables available for download in the MySQL database.

Step 2: Create your new WooCommerce store

Next, you need to create your new WooCommerce store so that you can import all the data from your previous OpenCart site. Similar to setting up any other website, you should have a hosting service and a domain name. 

Most hosting providers can now provide you with a one-click installation for both WordPress and WooCommerce. The process of setting up WooCommerce can be simplified into the following steps:

1. Download and run the installation for WordPress
2. Install WooCommerce plugin to your WordPress site: From your WordPress Dashboard, access Plugins > Add new, and choose WooCommerce

3. Configure your WooCommerce store settings: shipping, payment methods,…

4. Start importing data to your WooCommerce store

Step 3: Perform Cart-to-cart Migration

To move your store data from OpenCart to WooCommerce, there are a few methods you can apply:

Manual migration

For this method, you will be handling all data transfers by yourself. Thus, it requires you to be confident in your technical knowledge. 

Manually migrating from OpenCart to WooCommerce means you’ll have full control over the data and can make any customization you want. You also don’t have to spend too much more. 

However, it can be very time-consuming and isn’t suitable if you have no coding background. 

Get professional assistance

If you have no coding experience, it’s advisable to hire a developer to do the data migration on your behalf. The developer will help you manage and store data, fix errors, and can even set up your new site as well. You can basically request them to make any changes if needed.

Based on the size of your existing database and customizing requirements, this method can cost you $50-$250 per hour. 

Even though you’ll be able to migrate from OpenCart to WooCommerce successfully, this is certainly a costly method. You’ll also have to depend on a third party until your new store is completed.

Use automated migration tool 

Then, how can you perform an error-free migration for a reasonable price?

Due to high demand, automated migration tools have been developed in order to make cart to  cart migration easier. These tools will simplify the process of moving your eCommerce business from one platform to another, saving you time while maximizing your store’s efficiency. All your data will be automatically collected and transferred from OpenCart to WooCommerce. 

LitExtension is currently the leading migration tool on the market. For merchants who wish to change their eCommerce platform, the company provides them with a worry-free solution and a competitive pricing plan. 

With just a few clicks, all your data including products, orders, and customers can be transferred from OpenCart to WooCommerce. The automated procedure ensures that your data are moved accurately and securely. 

What’s more, during your migration, all sales can be recorded normally so you don’t have to worry about losing sales. 

If any problem arises, their dedicated customer support team is always willing to assist.

Let’s take a closer look at how you can perform a quick and risk-free OpenCart to WooCommerce migration using LitExtension’s tool.

First, sign up with LitExtension either with your email address or social profiles. Once you’ve successfully created an account, you’ll be redirected to the My Migration page. 

Click on Create New Migration to start your migration process.

#1 – Set up your Source Cart and Target Cart information

Next, you’ll be moved to the Create Migration page. Follow the instructions to enter the required store information. 

Choose OpenCart as your Source Cart Type, and enter your current store’s URL. 

Install the LitExtension Connector based on the given instructions. This connector will act as a bridge for data transferring between your stores. 

Similarly, choose WooCommerce as your Target Cart Type along with your new WooCommerce store’s website address. Once the connector has been successfully installed in both your Source Store and your Target Store, you can start the next step of the migration process.

#2 – Configure your cart-to-cart migration 

Choose the data entities that you want to migrate from OpenCart to WooCommerce. You can move just your products, customers, or all information available in your old store by checking the Select All box.

If you have other particular entities that you also want to move from OpenCart to WooCommerce such as order IDs or customer passwords, you can migrate them with the LitExtension tool as well. There are more than 10 additional migration options for you to choose from, helping you preserve all the progress you’ve made with your old store. 

#3 – Perform your migration

If you want to first check out how the migration will happen, you can choose the Start Demo Migration option. 20 entities will be migrated to your new store for free. But if you want to perform a full migration right away, check the Skip Demo Migration box to run the Full Migration.

You don’t have to keep your browser open when the migration is running. When your data has been successfully transferred from OpenCart to WooCommerce, LitExtension will send an email to notify you about the completed migration.

Step 4: Check migration results

Finally, it’s important to check your migration result in order to make sure all your data has been transferred successfully and correctly. Your migrated data should be accurate at both the front and back end of your WooCommerce store. 

Should you run into any problems during and after the migration, seek assistance from LitExtension’s support team.

Tips To Rocket WooCommerce Sales After The Migration

Now that you have successfully moved your store from OpenCart to WooCommerce, all you have to focus on is to maximize your selling potential. 

With WooCommerce’s abundant features, you can rocket sales by applying these tips below:

• Optimize site performance: No customer likes a slow-loading website. Luckily, there are many plugins that work with WooCommerce to improve your site speed and reduce bounce rates. At the same time, update your WooCommerce store regularly to make your site even more optimized. The longer you can keep customers browsing your products, the better!

• Provide discount codes and coupons: This is a great way to increase your customers’ buying incentives. You can easily create your own custom coupons with WooCommerce and promote discounts to land more sales. Here is a detailed guide on How to set up WooCommerce bulk discounts.

• Set upselling and cross-selling products: By applying these techniques, you can either convince your customers to buy more goods in one purchase, or decide on more expensive items. Using WooCommerce built in Linked Products function, you can set upsell and cross sell items to encourage customers’ consideration.
• Notify customers about cart abandonment: A lot of customers with high buying intention tend to forget about the products they’ve already added to their cart. Luckily, WooCommerce lets you remind your customers about buying the products they want, using email marketing integrations. 
• Use pop-ups to draw customers attention: Knowing how to take advantage of your pop-ups can bring many benefits to your business. Not only can you grab buyers’ attention to important info such as discounts or best selling items, you can also use pop-ups to collect their email addresses. Adding pop-ups to your WooCommerce store is also very convenient as there are many plugins now available to serve this purpose.

OpenCart To WooCommerce Migration: FAQs

Can I migrate from OpenCart to WooCommerce manually?

After you have already set up your WooCommerce store, you can manually migrate your store data from OpenCart to WooCommerce using the following steps:

1. Install the free Export/Import plugin for your OpenCart store. This will help you export your data to an Excel or CSV file. This file will contain data about your Products, Customers and Orders.
2. Install two free extensions for your WooCommerce store: Order Export & Order Import for WooCommerce and Import Export WooCommerce Customers.
3. First, migrate Products from OpenCart to WooCommerce by accessing WooCommerce > Products > Import. Import your downloaded Products data from OpenCart.
4. Next, continue using the installed extensions to import your orders and customers to the new WooCommerce store.
5. Check for import results and verify that all data has been imported thoroughly.

Is WooCommerce free?

WooCommerce is a plugin that is free to install and provides many eCommerce functions without additional costs. However, you are required to have a WordPress site beforehand in order to use WooCommerce. You will have to pay the fees for maintaining a website such as domain name, hosting,… What’s more, there are extra fees if you want to upgrade your WooCommerce features or make heavy customizations to your store. 

Is migrating from OpenCart to WooCommerce worth it?

OpenCart is an open-source eCommerce platform that is easy to use and suitable for small to mid-sized businesses. On the other hand, WooCommerce has a much wider variety of features and endless customization capability, making it one of the top choices for businesses of all sizes. If you want to expand your sales potential and have a more impressive online presence, you should consider trying out WooCommerce. 

OpenCart To WooCommerce: Wrap Up

Moving your store from one eCommerce platform to another is a complicated process that is usually time-consuming and requires a lot of effort. However, with the assistance of current automated migration tools such as LitExtension, cart-to-cart migration has become less of a struggle. 

We hope that with this guide to migrating from OpenCart to WooCommerce, you can successfully transform your business and rocket sales with your new platform. If you are having trouble migrating by yourself, there is a vibrant pool of WooCommerce Developers who can take care of your migration and get your WooStore up and running in no time.