Migration · BigCommerce → WooCommerce

BigCommerce to WooCommerce on your own terms.

BigCommerce trades app-store sprawl for built-in features — and for revenue-based plan tiers that raise your bill as you grow, plus the same ceiling every hosted platform has. WooCommerce removes the tiers and the ceiling. The move itself is well-trodden: structured exports exist, and the craft is in mapping BigCommerce’s option model onto WooCommerce correctly.

Get a migration plan See the gotchas
  • Products with options and modifiers mapped to Woo variations correctly
  • Customers and full order history migrated and verified
  • Category and product URLs 301-redirected — search equity kept

Why switch

Why people leave BigCommerce.

Plans priced on your growth

BigCommerce tiers are triggered by revenue — succeed and your platform bill rises automatically. WooCommerce takes no percentage.

The hosted ceiling

Checkout, platform behaviour and data live on their infrastructure, adjustable only where the platform allows.

Feature bundling

Built-in features you do not use are still priced in. On WordPress you install what the store needs, nothing else.

Portability

Moving your stack, your host, or your checkout flow should be your decision — on a hosted platform it is theirs.

What moves

What comes with you, and how.

Scope your migration ↗︎
  1. Products — with images, options, modifiers and rules mapped into variations and add-ons
  2. Categories — hierarchy and merchandising order carried across
  3. Customers and orders — exported via API/CSV, imported and count-verified
  4. URL map — BigCommerce category/product paths 301-redirected to Woo permalinks
  5. Payments and shipping — gateways and zones re-established and tested with live orders
  6. Content pages and blog — moved into WordPress, where they finally have a real CMS behind them

The BigCommerce specifics

The gotchas we plan for.

Every platform has traps that generic migration checklists miss. These are the BigCommerce-specific ones — the difference between a clean move and a rescue job.

Options vs modifiers

BigCommerce distinguishes variant-building options from add-on modifiers. Options map to Woo variations; modifiers map to product add-ons — conflating the two corrupts the catalog. This mapping is checked SKU by SKU on your complex products.

Faceted URLs and search equity

Category filtering creates URL patterns that may hold rankings. The redirect map covers canonical category and product URLs, and the new store canonicalises its own facets properly from day one.

Hosted checkout habits

Fraud screening, wallets and some payment behaviours were platform-provided. Their WooCommerce equivalents (gateway-side fraud tools, wallet buttons) are configured deliberately, not assumed.

App parity audit

BigCommerce apps and built-ins each need a WooCommerce answer — plugin, native, or retire. The audit happens early because it sets the real budget.

Email deliverability

Order emails that “just worked” hosted now need proper SMTP/API setup on your stack, or the first thing customers notice is missing receipts.

Process

How the move runs.

Our full process ↗︎

Every migration is a parallel build: your BigCommerce site keeps running while the new WooCommerce site is built and verified beside it. The switch is a planned window, not a leap.

  1. Audit and inventory. Content, URLs, rankings, integrations — everything that must survive gets listed before anything moves.
  2. Parallel build. The WooCommerce site is built and the data migrated on staging, while the live site trades on untouched.
  3. Verification. Content counts, redirect map, metadata parity, forms, payments and a live test order — checked against the inventory.
  4. Cutover. DNS switches in a low-traffic window; the old site stays reachable to us until everything is confirmed.
  5. Aftercare. We watch Search Console, 404s and the numbers for the following weeks and fix what the real world surfaces.

Questions

BigCommerce migration questions.

If your situation isn't covered here, send us the details and we'll reply with a straight answer.

Ask your question ↗︎
How do BigCommerce product options come across?

Variant-building options become WooCommerce variations; add-on style modifiers become product add-ons. The distinction matters — mapping them interchangeably corrupts the catalog — so we verify the mapping on your most complex products before migrating the rest.

Does our order history move?

Yes. Customers and orders export via the BigCommerce API and import into WooCommerce, with counts and totals verified against BigCommerce’s reports. Support and accounting keep full history from day one on the new store.

Will we save money after the move?

Typically yes, and structurally: no revenue-based plan tiers and no platform percentage. You take on hosting and maintenance costs instead — a fixed, controllable spend that usually lands well below a growing store’s BigCommerce bill. We put real numbers on it during scoping.

How long does a BigCommerce migration take?

A typical store takes three to five weeks: parallel build, data migration with verification, payment and shipping re-setup, then a planned cutover in a quiet window. The store keeps selling on BigCommerce until the moment the switch is flipped.

Related

Where to next.

All migrations Every platform we move sites from, in one place. WooCommerce & Shops The engineering standard the store lands on. Checkout conversion guide What we optimise once you own the checkout.