Ecommerce Platform Migration · Staged and Controlled · UK Team
Ecommerce Platform Migration
Moving platforms is risky. Orders can vanish, payments can fail, and SEO can collapse overnight. Our migration service is built to keep your store trading normally while we move everything across safely. No surprises. No downtime. No excuses.
Trusted by:
We have worked with Jason & his team to develop our Shopify store, and the experience was outstanding from start to finish. The design is clean, modern, and perfectly aligned with our brand identity, while the build is fast, responsive, and easy to manage on the backend. They clearly understood our vision and delivered a store we’re genuinely proud of. Highly recommend to any brand looking for a top-quality Shopify partner.
What usually goes wrong, and why
Most migrations fail because they are rushed, poorly planned, or treated as a technical task rather than a business-critical change. The developer promises it will be fine. The agency says it is straightforward. Everyone underestimates how complicated the store actually is. Then the problems start.
Lost orders
Checkout breaks during migration. Payment gateways fail to connect. Orders disappear. Customers try to buy and cannot. You lose sales and trust at the same time.
SEO collapse
URLs change without redirects. Google loses your pages. Rankings drop. Organic traffic that took years to build vanishes overnight and takes months to recover.
Data chaos
Customer accounts do not migrate properly. Stock levels are wrong. Order history disappears. Your team spends weeks fixing problems that should never have happened.
Broken integrations
ERP connections fail. Email automation stops working. Analytics tracking breaks. Third-party tools that worked fine on the old platform are not tested on the new one.
Custom functionality lost
Features built specifically for your business on the old platform do not exist on the new one. Nobody thought to audit them before starting. Now they need rebuilding under pressure.
Rushed go-live
The calendar deadline matters more than the store being ready. Problems are discovered after launch rather than before. You go live with a store that is not working properly.
Every one of these problems is avoidable. It just takes proper planning and controlled execution.
A boring, controlled migration
This is not a quick lift and shift. It is a staged, tested migration designed to keep your business trading normally throughout. We plan the whole thing before touching any data. We run old and new stores side by side. We test everything. We only switch when it is ready. The whole point is to make the migration feel boring. If you barely notice the switch, we have done our job properly.
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1
Discovery and audit
We audit your current store: catalogue, custom functionality, integrations, SEO footprint, and data structure. The migration plan is built around what we find, not a template.
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2
Data mapping
Every data type mapped to its equivalent on the new platform before any migration begins. Data that does not map directly is handled carefully, not dropped.
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Parallel development
The new store is built while your existing store stays fully live and trading. No downtime, no risk to current revenue.
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4
Data migration
Products, variants, images, customers, orders, CMS content, and all associated data transferred and validated. Nothing left behind.
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Integration rebuilding
ERP connections, warehouse systems, payment gateways, email automation, analytics, and third-party tools all reconnected and tested.
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6
SEO redirect mapping
Every URL on the old platform mapped to its equivalent on the new one. 301 redirects set up and validated before go-live. Post-migration technical SEO audit included.
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Testing
Checkout, payments, tax calculations, shipping, emails, returns, stock updates, and integrations all tested against real scenarios. We go live when testing is complete, not when the calendar says so.
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Controlled go-live and monitoring
DNS cutover at the planned point. Intensive monitoring in the days immediately after launch. Issues fixed immediately. No disappearing after delivery.
What you get
- Orders preserved with complete history visible to customers
- Customer accounts intact with logins working
- SEO protected with comprehensive redirects in place
- Analytics tracking configured and confirmed
- Payment gateways tested and processing correctly
- Stock levels accurate and syncing properly
- All integrations reconnected and validated
- Custom functionality replicated on the new platform
- Handover documentation and team training
- Post-launch monitoring and rapid-response support
What you do not get
- Surprise downtime: your store stays live until we switch
- Forced redesign: we migrate what you have, design changes come later
- Rushed launch dates: we go live when it is ready, not when the calendar says
- Excuses: if something breaks after go-live, we fix it
Brands that have migrated with us
Chi Chi London, Motel Rocks, Sara Miller, AX Paris
These are not simple catalogue transfers. Chi Chi London and Motel Rocks are high-volume UK fashion brands with large product ranges, complex variant structures, ERP integrations, and years of accumulated custom functionality. Sara Miller is a premium lifestyle brand where precision in data and design was critical. AX Paris required a complete back-office rebuild alongside the migration.
Every one of these stores was kept trading throughout the migration. Every one went live on schedule. None experienced SEO ranking drops. None lost customer data or order history.
- Chi Chi London: high-volume fashion migration with full ERP integration rebuild
- Motel Rocks: complex Magento migration followed by Oracle NetSuite and 3PL integration
- Sara Miller: premium lifestyle brand, full data migration and custom theme build
- AX Paris: Shopify migration with bespoke ERP-style back-office built alongside
- All migrations included comprehensive SEO redirect mapping and post-launch audit
Migrating from a specific platform?
We have dedicated pages covering the specific requirements, gotchas, and process for the migrations we handle most often.
Magento to Shopify
Custom functionality audit, full data migration, SEO redirect mapping, and theme build. Clients include Chi Chi London, Motel Rocks, and Sara Miller.
Magento migration detailsVisualsoft to Shopify
Visualsoft's data structure requires specific handling. We are currently migrating Visualsoft clients independently and have a proven process for it.
Visualsoft migration detailsTo Shopify
Standard replatforming with full data migration, SEO handling, and custom functionality assessment. We are Shopify Select Partners.
Shopify developmentLegacy Platform Migration
Moving from a bespoke PHP ecommerce system or legacy platform requires careful business logic extraction. We handle this as part of our custom software work.
Custom software developmentWhat our clients say
20 clients. A few of their words.
A well-rounded team, ensuring a full suite of expertise & resource is always available. CDS Global have seen the successful completion of major projects over the years where Dev Partners' ability to grasp the underlying business needs to provide a future-proof solution has been invaluable.
We have worked with Jason & his team to develop our Shopify store, and the experience was outstanding from start to finish. The design is clean, modern, and perfectly aligned with our brand identity, while the build is fast, responsive, and easy to manage on the backend. They clearly understood our vision and delivered a store we're genuinely proud of. Highly recommend to any brand looking for a top-quality Shopify partner.
After ongoing issues and delays with our previous developers, we brought in Rob & Jason at Dev Partners to take over all our websites and bespoke software. What a breath of fresh air, fully focused, excellent pre-launch designs and clear communication throughout. Highly recommended.
BPC Energy Ltd turned to Dev Partners for a complete turnkey solution, and they exceeded our expectations. The team handled everything from project management to development and support with real care and attention. They understood what we were aiming for, stayed on top of every detail, and always delivered on schedule with excellent quality.
Working with Dev Partners to redesign and modernise our WMS system: the whole process has been thoroughly professional from the outset and a delight to work with. Cannot recommend enough.
Great agency. Have used Dev Partners for several years and they have built 20+ sites for us, in addition to taking on our legacy websites, upgrading and maintaining. Easy to work with and some great practical ideas to improve our digital offerings.
Jones Hire have been working with Dev Partners on several projects, which have been very successful. They linked our catering database to a new improved website so clients can easily place and update orders, created a custom warehouse picking app to fulfil all our challenging requirements, and are currently developing a custom transport app to streamline our loading and delivery process.
We have been trying to reinvent our website for over 5 years, trying to make it convert and failing each time. Spoke to Rob at Dev Partners, the team helped create our new site and the improvement was instant.
We have been working with Rob and the team for about 10 years now. Dev Partners helped us build a completely bespoke CRM from scratch which manages our daily business and is always well maintained. We have been able to use the system and roll it out in our new franchise branches.
We collaborated with Dev Partners on the front end of a fairly complex telemarketing platform. Rob and Jason took the time to properly understand the moving parts, asked the right questions, and delivered a clean, intuitive interface that's made the system far easier for our team to use.
I have been working with the team at Dev Partners for the last 3 years and we have always been impressed with the speed in which they act on things for us, along with the honest open communication. The team are a valuable and vital part of our supply chain.
We've had a program for our business in the electronic security sector that Dev Partners developed and keep up to date. They've never let us down, always there when needed. Thanks Rob and the team.
Dev Partners have been working with us for just over 2 years. They have significantly upgraded and redesigned our existing web platforms, and always deliver a first class service.
Dev Partners helped us build an event website. The team were very knowledgeable, easy to work with and quick to deliver a high quality product.
Working with Dev Partners has been an exceptional experience. Their team is highly skilled, professional, and committed to delivering results. What truly sets them apart is their communication and transparency; we always felt informed, supported, and confident.
We've worked with Dev Partners a few times to support us on bespoke web build tasks. They're very easy to work with, approachable, and explain the detail in a way that's understandable. A great partner for technical issues at sensible prices.
Excellent customer service backed up with solid experience. As a media business we have had five websites built by Dev Partners. I would certainly recommend them.
Found Dev Partners and they were great, nothing too much trouble. They managed to help us with integrating our old existing system with Shopify.
I've worked with Rob and his team off and on for many years and have always found them to be professional, knowledgeable, and best of all, they listen to their clients and deliver what is required.
We have worked with Dev Partners for 7 years and can highly recommend them for their expertise and excellent customer service.
Ecommerce migration: frequently asked questions
The questions we get most often before a migration project starts.
It depends on the complexity of your store. A straightforward migration with a standard catalogue and minimal custom functionality can be completed in 4 to 8 weeks. Complex migrations with large catalogues, multiple integrations, extensive custom functionality, or significant bespoke development take between 10 and 20 weeks.
We scope this carefully at the outset and give you a realistic timeline based on what we actually find in your current store. We do not give optimistic timelines to get the project started and adjust later.
Not if it is handled correctly. The critical requirement is comprehensive 301 redirect mapping from every old URL to its new equivalent, preserving the link equity and indexed pages you have built over years. We also migrate all meta titles, meta descriptions, and alt tags, and conduct a post-migration technical SEO audit to catch anything missed.
Migrations that ignore redirects can cause severe and lasting ranking drops. This is one of the most common ways migrations go wrong and one of the most avoidable. It is treated as a core part of the migration scope, not an optional extra.
Yes. We run the new platform in parallel with your existing store throughout the build and migration process. Your current store remains fully live and trading. The switch happens at a planned point when the new store has been fully built, tested, and signed off. The go-live is a controlled DNS cutover rather than a site shutdown and typically causes less than an hour of interruption.
We migrate all core ecommerce data: products and variants, product images, categories and collections, customer accounts and order history, CMS pages and blog content, reviews and ratings, URL structures and redirects, and meta data. Data that does not map directly between platforms is handled carefully rather than lost. We validate all data after migration before anything goes live.
Every migration is different. The cost depends on how much data needs migrating, how complex your checkout and integrations are, whether custom functionality needs rebuilding on the new platform, and the extent of your SEO redirect requirements.
We do not rush quotes. We look at your current setup properly, work out what is genuinely involved, and give you a realistic price. This is not the cheapest migration service available. If your main concern is avoiding an expensive disaster, we should talk.
We monitor closely in the days immediately after go-live and fix any issues that emerge quickly. Intensive post-launch monitoring is built into every migration project. Beyond that, most clients move to an ongoing support retainer.
Because we built the migration, we know exactly how everything is configured and can diagnose issues faster than any third party coming in cold. We do not disappear after delivery.
We handle migrations from Magento, Visualsoft, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, bespoke PHP ecommerce systems, and other legacy platforms. We have specific experience with Visualsoft migrations, which require more careful handling than standard replatforming due to Visualsoft's data structure and custom functionality patterns. We are currently migrating Visualsoft clients independently.
If your current platform is unusual or particularly old, tell us about it during the discovery call and we will give you an honest assessment of what the migration involves.
Ready to migrate properly?
Start with a discovery call. No pressure, no sales nonsense. Just a sensible conversation about your migration.
We start with a short call to understand your current setup and confirm the right approach. You will leave knowing exactly what is involved and whether this service is the right fit.
On the call we will cover:
- What platform you are on and where you want to move to
- How much data needs migrating and any known complications
- What integrations and custom functionality you rely on
- The main risks and how we would manage them
- A realistic timeline and cost
We reply to all enquiries within one working day.
Book Your Discovery Call
Tell us about your current platform and we will be in touch within one working day.
