In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a WooCommerce designer shared their challenge of redesigning a client’s slow, outdated website.
The plan involved rebuilding the site from scratch on a lightweight, block-based theme while transferring 10 core products, existing product reviews, past orders, and customer data to the new site.
When faced with such a significant migration, transferring these elements manually can be complex, but with the right tools, the process becomes much simpler.
Step 1: Use the Webtoffee Import Export Suite Plugin
The Webtoffee Import Export Suite for WooCommerce is highly recommended for migrating products, reviews, orders, and customer data between WooCommerce sites. Here’s how to use it for a smooth migration:
Importing in the Right Sequence
Migrating elements in the proper order is crucial to maintaining correct relationships between products, reviews, and customers.
1. Start with Taxonomies (Categories and Tags)
- First, import your product categories and tags to ensure that product data aligns correctly during the migration.
2. Migrate Products with Reviews
- Use Webtoffee’s options to import products along with their reviews, preserving both content and customer engagement data.
3. Import Orders and Customer Data
- After products are in place, bring in orders and customers to avoid breaking associations. Webtoffee maintains the connection between past orders and corresponding customer accounts, a critical step for continuity.
Tips for Maintaining Data Integrity
- Preserve Old IDs: Instead of creating new IDs, opt to retain old IDs during the import. This helps ensure that imported data remains properly linked and prevents issues with re-establishing connections manually.
- Test on a Staging Site: Before launching, complete a full test import on a staging site to confirm data consistency.
Conclusion
Starting fresh with a clean WooCommerce site can improve site speed and functionality, but keeping essential historical data intact is just as important. With Webtoffee’s Import Export Suite and the recommended import order, you can efficiently migrate products, reviews, orders, and customer records while maintaining valuable relationships between them. This approach offers a seamless path to relaunch while preserving the legacy of the existing store.
