Why eCommerce Data Migration is Important

Article topics

1. What is data migration?
2. The benefits of data migration
3. What you need to look out for when migrating your data

You’ve decided to replatform your website. You’ve got a fantastic new eCommerce provider lined up, and your web developers have created a brilliant new design that really showcases your brand.

But what do you do with all the data behind the website?

When you have lots of information, like product data and customer records, it’s essential to migrate them across so you can continue to do business with your loyal shoppers. You need to have a plan in place to make sure this is done accurately and with minimal disruption.

Here’s our guide to eCommerce data migration.

Want to know more about replatforming your website? Download our free cheat sheet

1. What is data migration?

Data migration is the process of moving data from one place to another.

Think of eCommerce data migration as you would moving house. When you’re moving into a new home, you want to make sure all your furniture not only comes with you, but is put in the same room it was before. After all, you don’t want your bed to end up in the kitchen!

Data can be moved from:

• One application to another, for example, implementing a new customer relationship management or product information management system

• One database to another, for example, moving from one database software provider to another

• One storage system to another, for example, moving from a hard drive to the cloud. Even moving from paper to digital documents could be seen as data migration!

2. The benefits of data migration

Moving data from one place to another is typically done to see time savings or cost efficiencies.

• You may move from an on-site server to cloud-based services, making your data more agile and flexible

• Migrating means you can take advantage of features and benefits that a brand-new system can provide, making it easier to scale in the future

• You may consolidate several sources of data into one, meaning everyone in the business can access information and reducing the likelihood of siloed data

• You can analyse data more efficiently, giving you the intelligence you need to drive your eCommerce business forward

3. What you need to look out for when migrating your data

You need to plan your data migration carefully. You might think it’s simply a case of dragging and dropping your files from one place to another, but there is more to the process!

In fact, four out of five data migration projects run over time or budget because they’re more complicated than initially thought.

Planning, preparing, and testing the data before it goes live is essential. In addition, we recommend backing up data, so that if something goes wrong or a critical piece of information goes missing, you can restore it and start again.

Check your data first to see if you need to move it across. You may have old data you no longer need that can be archived or deleted.

Here are some of the other things you need to bear in mind when migrating your data:

• Any sensitive data you have, like customer payment details. It’s vital that this information is not infiltrated or corrupted during the migration, and is moved to a protected area. We recommend securely encrypting data before migration begins

• How much data you have. As a rule of thumb, the more data you need to migrate, the more complex the project becomes

• What tools you will use to migrate your data. Your IT team can create your own script in-house, you can use an off-the-shelf solution, or a cloud-based migration tool. Examples of commonly used tools include Microsoft SQL, Oracle Data Service Integrator, and AWS Data Migration

• Where data will be mapped to. If you’re moving to an entirely new system or database, it might be that your existing data may not be able to be moved over to the exact same location

• Whether you will carry out the migration in phases (‘trickle migration’) or in one go (‘big bang’ migration’). While moving your data in one shot may be faster and more cost-effective, it may increase the risk of downtime and customer complaints

Xigen: your eCommerce data migration specialists

We hope this guide has explained the benefits of data migration and how to ensure every last piece of information is accounted for.

Our team of experts specialise in replatforming solutions. We’ll assign a dedicated project manager who will help you choose the right platform for your needs, evaluate which features you can take advantage of, and ensure every byte of data ends up in the right place.

Just leave the hard work to us and take advantage of all the benefits a new website can offer. Contact us today to find out more.