Migrating a store from OpenCart to WooCommerce

As online commerce evolves, more and more businesses are looking for flexible and scalable solutions. In this whitepaper, we’ll take a look at why WordPress-based WooCommerce is the platform of choice for many eCommerce store owners and how to successfully migrate your store from OpenCart.

OpenCart in a nutshell:

OpenCart is an open source e-commerce platform designed specifically for building online stores. It offers a lot of built-in features specific to e-commerce, and is relatively easy to get started if your primary goal is selling products.

Cons of OpenCart vs WordPress + WooCommerce:

• Less flexibility outside e-commerce: the OpenCart is mainly focused on online stores. If you want to have a strong content presence (blog, portfolio, etc.), WordPress is much stronger in this regard. WooCommerce, as a plugin for WordPress, inherits this flexibility.
• Smaller ecosystem of themes and plugins: although OpenCart has its extensions, the number and variety of them is significantly smaller compared to the huge ecosystem of themes and plugins available for WordPress and WooCommerce. This means fewer options for customization and adding specific features.
• Content management: creating and managing non-shop content (About Us pages, blog articles, etc.) is less convenient in OpenCart compared to WordPress’ intuitive interface.
• SEO: Although OpenCart offers SEO features, WordPress is often considered a more SEO-friendly platform, especially with the help of specialized SEO plugins.

OpenCart is a good choice if your main focus is an online store and you don’t need a lot of extra content or advanced customization. However, if you’re looking for more flexibility, more design options, integrations and functionality, and better content management, the WordPress + WooCommerce combination is often preferable, which is why many clients come to us for migration.

Benefits of WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers:

1. Full integration with WordPress CMS and blog features. As soon as you activate WooCommerce, you get access to all WordPress functionality, including content management, blog posts, and custom pages.
2. Unlimited customization options through themes and plugins. Whether you want a minimalist design or a complete focus on products and promotions, choosing a theme and adding plugins can make your store unique and functional.
3. Powerful SEO tools and optimal structure for search engines. WordPress is among the most popular SEO platforms, and WooCommerce add-ons give you additional options to create SEO-centric content and improve your visibility on Google. For our clients, we use RankMath Pro.
4. Easy integration with social channels, marketing tools and ERP systems. With hundreds of plugins, you can easily connect your store to social networks, email, advertising platforms, and internal inventory management systems and more.
5. Maintenance of a large number of products without serious workload. With proper hosting, WooCommerce can serve a store with tens of thousands of items without slowing down or blocking. For medium and large stores we highly recommend mVPS from ns1.bg or superhosting.bg

Before, during and after: How the migration from OpenCart to WooCommerce works

Moving a store is no small job, but if you follow the steps, it will be easier.

1. OpenCart store backup

Before starting any migration process, make a full backup. Export the database (MySQL dump) and create a backup of all files – images, themes, add-ons. Check if the backups work by deploying them locally.

2. Choosing WordPress hosting

Make sure your hosting supports up-to-date versions of PHP and MySQL/MariaDB with recommended settings for WooCommerce (memory_limit, max_execution_time). If you already have a WordPress site, make sure it meets the requirements.

3. Install and configure WordPress and WooCommerce

Install the latest version of WordPress, then add and activate the WooCommerce plugin. Fill in your basic settings: currency, taxes, store pages, cart and product catalog layout.

4. Planning the store structure

Consider how you will organise the categories and subcategories on the new platform. Determine the URL structure (permalinks) according to SEO best practices. Create a list of features from OpenCart that should be retained in WooCommerce, and check which plugins will meet those needs.

5. Check the topic

Choose a suitable WooCommerce-compatible theme that fits your brand’s style and needs. It’s a good idea to use a child theme for shortcodes.

Learn more about our Online Store Migration to WooCommerce service

Data that is typically migrated from OpenCart to WooCommerce

When moving a store from OpenCart to WooCommerce, we typically transfer the following data types:

• Products: name, description, brief description, categories, SKUs, prices (regular and discounted), attributes (e.g. sizes, colors), tags, main images, and gallery.
• Customers: name, email, shipping and billing address, account status (active/inactive), and hash if possible.
• Orders: order number, status (processed, pending payment, etc.), date, total value, customer details, product list, quantity, pricing, payment method, shipping information.
• Coupons/Promotions
• Categories and subcategories: titles, descriptions, images (if any) and links to parent categories.
• VAT settings
• Payment and delivery methods: enabled payment methods, courier configurations and delivery classes. We easily integrate Speedy, Econt, BoxNow, Sameday.

Permalinks Setup

OpenCart and WooCommerce have different link structure (url). In order to maintain maximum SEO ranking during the migration, we set up 301 redirects from the old OpenCart links to the new WooCommerce links.

Steps during the migration from OpenCart to WooCommerce

Use of automated tools

You can use paid and free solutions that make the process much easier. It’s important to familiarize yourself with the documentation and requirements to have a smooth migration:

• LitExtension: professional tool for migration between platforms. Supports transfer of products, customers, orders and more.
• Cart2Cart: a service that allows easy and fast migration with a few clicks. Offers free demo transfer and flexible pricing packages.
• FG OpenCart to WooCommerce: plugin that imports data from OpenCart to WooCommerce. There is a free and a paid version.
• WP All Import & WP All Export: Combination of export and import plugins via CSV files suitable for precise data control.
• Custom MySQL and PHP scripts: suitable for more experienced developers who can tailor the migration to specific needs.

Check data after import

After the automatic transfer, do the following:

• Check the number of products, customers and orders in the WooCommerce admin panel and compare them with the original OpenCart data.
• Review several products: descriptions, price values, attributes and photos.
• Test the checkout process to make sure everything works (from adding to cart, to checkout page, to receiving a confirmation email).

Optimization of images and media files

Make sure all product photos are properly transferred and accessible. Install a compression plugin (such as Smush, Imagify or ShortPixel) to reduce size without loss of quality and ensure fast loading.

Integration of payment and logistics methods

After importing the data, check that the payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, MyPOS, bank transfers, etc.) are available and functioning correctly and set up the delivery methods as needed.

Testing the Checkout process

Make at least a few test orders with different payment methods to make sure that all email notifications (to the customer and admin) are sent correctly and that the process is seamless.

Actions after completing the migration from OpenCart to WooCommerce

Checking the functionality of the site

After migration, test all key pages: homepage, product catalog, category pages, “About Us”, privacy policy and terms of use. Check all contact forms and other interactive elements.

SEO and indexing

Make sure sitemap.xml is updated and includes the new URLs. Add or update robots.txt to allow indexing of important pages. Register the new site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for faster crawling.

Improving speed and productivity

Install a caching plugin (WPRocket, WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache or LiteSpeed Cache) and consider using a CDN (Content Delivery Network). Check and optimize your database, for example with a plugin like WP-Optimize.

Monitoring and debugging

Monitor your site with tools like Sentry or automated plugins that watch for errors and warnings. Regularly reach for server logs to identify potential security or performance issues.

When is it better to trust a specialist?

While there are tools that make migration easier, sometimes it’s wiser to turn to a specialist. If:

• Your store is big and you have a lot of data.
• You have a complex data structure or customizations in OpenCart.
• You’re unsure of your technical skills and want to avoid mistakes that could lead to data loss or store performance issues.

At Pixadoro we have performed many migrations of online stores from different platforms such as Joomla, OpenCart, CloudCart, Magento, Shopify, Shopiko, GombaShop and others and have extensive experience with all kinds of cases. We have the expertise to migrate your OpenCart store quickly and securely, taking care of all the details and integrations.