After migrating products, customer accounts, and storefront content, there may be additional data you want to include in your new store. In this chapter, we’ll cover other data types that can be transferred from one BigCommerce store to another, including orders, customized invoices and packing slips, and 301 redirects.
| CSV Import | API | BigCommerce Apps | Manual Transfer | Non-transferable | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orders | X | ✔ | N/A | ✔ | X |
| Shipments | X | ✔ | N/A | ✔ | X |
| Gift Certificates | X | ✔ | Gift Certificate Importer (free) | ✔ | X |
| Customized Invoices and Packing Slips | X | X | N/A | ✔ | X |
| Automatic and Coupon Promotions | X | X | N/A | ✔ | X |
| Coupon Codes | X | ✔ | N/A | X | X |
| 301 Redirects | ✔ | ✔ | N/A | ✔ | X |
Limitations
- Tracking numbers can be transferred via CSV import, but other shipment information must be transferred via the API or manually recreated.
- Gift certificate emails do not send automatically when a gift certificate is transferred; they must be manually resent.
- You can copy and paste the content in promotion banners, but a promotion’s conditions must be configured manually.
Transferring Orders
Orders can only be transferred via the API. If you would like assistance in importing orders, reach out to a Certified BigCommerce Agency Partner that specializes in data migration using the Agency Design Request form.
How do I ensure that imported historical orders aren't counted as new orders or GMV? When migrating orders from another store, which involves creating new orders via API, use M-MIG in the external_source field to exclude these orders from affecting your store's trailing 12-month sales volume. These orders do not deduct product stock and will bypass quantity requirements.
Orders transferred via API will appear in the following Analytics reports:
- Store Overview
- Real Time
- Merchandising
- Marketing (the traffic source of transferred orders is Direct)
- Orders
- Customers
Transferred orders are not factored into the Purchase Funnel Report or the Conversion Rate calculation, as these orders don’t originate from the storefront.
After transferring your orders, you can include their corresponding shipments in a separate API request. See the Dev Center for more information.
To migrate purchased gift certificates from one store to another, you can use the Gift Certificate Importer in the App Marketplace to import a CSV of gift certificate codes gathered from the source store. Alternatively, you can transfer gift certificates via the API.
Before transferring gift certificates, make sure that you have enabled gift certificates in the destination store; the transfer will fail if gift certificates are disabled. Additionally, keep in mind that transferring gift certificates will not automatically trigger the gift certificate email. You can manually trigger the emails from Orders › Gift Certificates.
Transferring Customized Printable Invoices and Packing Slips
If you have made customizations to your store’s printable invoice or packing slip, you can easily transfer the templates via WebDAV. Connect to the source store via WebDAV and locate the PrintableInvoice.html, PrintableDetailedInvoice.html, and packing_slip_print.html files in the template folder.
Once you have found the template files, drag and drop them into the template folder of the destination store’s WebDAV. All customizations in the template files will immediately appear the next time you print an invoice or packing slip.
Transferring Promotion Banners
Although Automatic Promotions and Coupon Promotions themselves cannot be transferred from one store to another, you can migrate any promotion banners in your source store without having to redesign them. Use the steps below to copy the content and formatting of your promotional banners to a new promotion in your source store.
Using Coupon Codes? Coupon codes can be transferred using the API. See the Dev Center for more information.
1. In the source store, go to Marketing › Promotions and navigate to the promotion you are recreating. Scroll down to the Congratulations banner and click the Edit HTML Source button in the WYSIWYG editor.
2. In the HTML Source Editor, copy the HTML content of the banner. In the destination store, click New Automatic Promotion or New Coupon Promotion to begin recreating the promotion.
3. Scroll down to the Congratulations banner of the new promotion and paste the HTML in the HTML Source Editor. Repeat these steps to migrate the Eligible, Upsell, and Promotional banners as well.
Transferring 301 Redirects
When transferring products and content pages to another store, it is important to confirm that any redirects associated with them are maintained. You can transfer all of your redirects in bulk via CSV import.
Trial stores cannot access or import 301 redirects. Upgrade your trial store to a paid plan before transferring redirects from your source store.
If the domain of the destination storefront is different from the source storefront, you will need to update the Domain column in your exported redirect CSV file to match the new domain.
See 301 Redirects for more details and steps on how to export and import your storefront’s redirects.
Conclusion
Creating your store takes time, and using methods like CSV imports and the API makes it easy to move your store’s data quickly to a different BigCommerce store. Whether you’re experimenting with design changes or starting a new division of your business, BigCommerce has the tools you need to transfer content from one store environment to another.
