Migrating from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus

A Step by Step Guide to Migrating from Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Migrating from one eCommerce platform to another can be a daunting task, especially when moving from a robust system like Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) to a flexible and scalable solution like Shopify Plus.

As businesses evolve, many find their current platforms can no longer keep pace with their needs, especially if their existing setup is complex and costly. Migrating from Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) to Shopify Plus allows enterprises to maintain powerful eCommerce functionality while reducing long-term operational costs and simplifying management.

What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is an enterprise-level eCommerce platform designed to handle complex and high-traffic online stores. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools for managing customer experiences, inventory, merchandise, and order management. Despite its robust feature set, SFCC can be cumbersome to manage due to its steep learning curve, reliance on custom development, and high cost, which makes it less appealing to businesses looking for flexibility and ease of use.

What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus, on the other hand, is the enterprise-level version of Shopify’s popular eCommerce platform. It provides businesses with flexible and scalable infrastructure, allowing them to customise their stores with ease. Shopify Plus is known for its user-friendly interface, powerful APIs, and ability to integrate with various third-party apps. Its lower maintenance costs and extensive out-of-the-box functionality make it an attractive option for businesses looking to streamline operations while maintaining powerful eCommerce capabilities.

Why migrate from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus?

Many businesses outgrow Salesforce Commerce Cloud due to its complexity, high operational costs, and limited flexibility for non-technical users. Shopify Plus offers a more intuitive, scalable, and cost-effective alternative. For merchants struggling with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, key pain points like difficult customisations, high development costs, and a need for quicker time-to-market can be solved by migrating to Shopify Plus.

Additionally, Shopify Plus’s ability to handle heavy traffic and integrate seamlessly with other tools helps businesses ensure a smooth customer experience.

At Liquify, our expert Shopify developers specialise in seamless migrations from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus, ensuring a smooth transition with minimal disruption to your business. With extensive experience in both platforms, we meticulously plan each phase—from data mapping and SEO preservation to feature replication and user experience enhancement.

Our team is skilled in handling complex data structures, custom integrations, and the unique requirements that come with large-scale migrations. We work closely with you to maintain brand integrity and site functionality, providing full support through each step, including post-launch monitoring.

The Migration Process: Step-by-Step

Migrating from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus requires a strategic approach to ensure a smooth transition without disrupting business operations. Below are the essential steps involved in the migration process:

Step 1. Plan, Prep and Back-Up Data

Before diving into the migration, it’s critical to perform a thorough audit of your current Salesforce Commerce Cloud site. This includes:

• Analysing all current features and functionalities.
• Assessing SEO performance, including current rankings and traffic-driving pages.
• Identifying areas of your site that perform well and any pain points.

The goal of this audit is to create a clear picture of what needs to be migrated, adapted, or improved.

• Define the business goals you want to achieve through migration, such as boosting conversion rates, enhancing customer experience, or lowering operational costs.
• Identify a project timeline with milestones for each migration phase.

Hiring an expert Shopify developer like Liquify ensures that your migration is handled with precision, expertise, and a deep understanding of both Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Shopify Plus.

One of the most crucial steps when migrating is BACKING UP DATA! Create secure data backups to prevent data loss during migration.

• Customer Data: Profiles, addresses, order history, and loyalty programs.
• Product Data: catalogues, SKUs, images, descriptions, and inventory levels.
• Order Data: Order details, shipping, and payment records.
• Content Data: Website pages, blog posts, and articles.

Migrating eCommerce platforms involves much more than transferring data; it requires careful management of SEO, custom functionalities, and brand continuity. As seasoned professionals at Liquify, we streamline the process, mitigate risks, and handle complex data structures that could otherwise lead to disruptions or data loss.

Step 2. Prioritise SEO During the Migration

One aspect of any eCommerce migration is maintaining your SEO positions and organic traffic. Any sudden loss of rankings can negatively impact your revenue, which is why SEO preservation is a top priority. During the migration, the SEO roadmap should include:

• A comprehensive keyword analysis and traffic report.
• A review of meta tags, URLs, H1s, and other key SEO elements.
• A plan for handling any changes to URL structure or site architecture.

Developing a strong SEO roadmap is crucial to ensuring that your site continues to rank well after the migration. This includes mapping existing URLs to new ones (if applicable), creating 301 redirects to preserve link equity, and ensuring on-page SEO elements such as alt tags, titles, and meta descriptions are properly migrated.  You will need to work with an established Shopify or Shopify Plus SEO Expert to manage this. At Liquify we have migrated websites for listed companies and routinely migrate those with 7 figure turnover.

Step 3. Build the Shopify Plus Site with Required Features

Once the audit and SEO roadmap are in place, the next step is to start building the new Shopify Plus site. During this phase, focus on ensuring all essential features from the Salesforce Commerce Cloud site are replicated or improved. Leverage Shopify Plus’s flexibility to introduce any new functionality that wasn’t possible with SFCC, such as:

• A more streamlined product management system.
• Simplified inventory tracking and fulfilment workflows.
• Integrations with modern tools and apps.

Hiring an expert Shopify developer means any custom features can be implemented with ease, ensuring that your new store aligns perfectly with your business needs and enhances the customer experience.

At Liquify, our expertise with Shopify Plus allows us to create custom functionalities, optimise integrations, and tailor the platform to support your growth goals. With an expert developer, you can confidently add advanced features, maintain site performance, and provide a seamless experience that keeps customers engaged and satisfied.

Step 4. Migrate Content While Keeping It as Close as Possible

Migration of product descriptions, images, blogs, customer reviews, and other essential content should be done carefully. It’s essential to maintain consistency to ensure a seamless user experience for returning customers.

Prepare your Salesforce Commerce Cloud data by correcting inconsistencies, removing duplicates, and resolving inaccuracies. Adjust data formats and structures as necessary to meet Shopify Plus requirements.

• Customer Data Migration: Include customer profiles (names, email addresses, and contact details), shipping and billing addresses, customer codes, and newsletter or subscription information.
• Product Migration: Transfer all relevant product information, including names, descriptions, SKUs, variants, and quantities. Ensure all product attributes (such as weight and dimensions), pricing (standard and special prices), product tags, and images (thumbnails and additional images) are accurately migrated.
• Order Migration: Migrate essential order information, including order ID, date, status, and item details. Include pricing data (total, discounts, taxes, and shipping costs), order comments, customer information (name, email, billing, and shipping addresses), and order tags to maintain order history integrity.

Many merchants have found that exporting data is the most daunting aspect of migration. They may encounter significantly different data structures, which means spending considerable time working with spreadsheets to migrate existing data. While some fields may only require a change of headings, the attributes will demand more extensive adjustments.

Customer and order data should remain relatively consistent, but Shopify has fewer fields available compared to Salesforce Commerce Cloud. To accommodate custom fields for customers, you might need to use a third-party app to ensure that all your data is transferred. For instance, fields such as “title” or “date of birth” are not natively included in Shopify. Additionally, you should consider how to migrate opt-in data related to customers, if applicable.

Our team specialises in Shopify website development, ensuring that your migration from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus is seamless and efficient.

We utilise advanced data mapping techniques to accurately transfer your information, minimising the risk of errors and inconsistencies. Additionally, we provide personalised support throughout the migration journey, guiding you through each step. By leveraging our expertise in e-commerce solutions, we help transform what could be a daunting task into a smooth and manageable transition, allowing you to focus on growing your business.

Step 5. Manage 301 redirects

During the migration, any changes to the site’s URL structure will require the implementation of 301 redirects. This ensures that traffic from old URLs is properly directed to the new Shopify Plus site, preventing any SEO ranking loss or broken links.

Step 6. Complete technical and user testing.

Before launching your new Shopify Plus store, it’s important to conduct thorough technical and user testing. This phase includes:

• Ensuring that all features and functionalities work as intended.
• Testing for any broken links or SEO errors.
• Checking site speed and performance across all devices.
• Reviewing the mobile experience to ensure responsiveness.

This step ensures that the user experience remains intact and that your site performs well under real-world conditions.

Step 7. Go live and monitor the migration.

Once testing is complete, it’s time to go live. However, the migration process doesn’t end here. Monitoring the site after launch is critical to catching any issues that may arise and ensuring that SEO rankings remain stable. Use tools like Google Analytics and Shopify’s built-in analytics to track performance, identify any dips in traffic, and resolve any lingering issues.

Contact Liquify Shopify Plus Experts for Your Migration Needs

At Liquify, we specialise in seamless eCommerce migrations, helping businesses transition from platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus without disrupting their operations. Whether you’re looking to reduce costs, streamline your processes, or take advantage of Shopify’s extensive features, we can help you plan and execute a smooth migration tailored to your business needs.

Our team of expert Shopify developers will guide you through every step of the process—from the initial audit to post-launch monitoring—ensuring that your business experiences minimal downtime and maintains its SEO performance throughout the migration.

To learn more on how we can assist with your migration, get in touch with Liquify Shopify Experts today.