All things Shopify and commerce
I currently have a heavily customised website ( www.bikerstoolbox.co.uk ) based on Sellerdeck Desktop which has a huge number of products. Sadly the business has never really made much over the running costs and currently Sellerdeck are trying to extract even more money from us and force us to use their card payments system.
I am considering biting the proverbial bullet and moving platforms. About a year ago I tried building a Woo Commerce site but didn't get on too well as with all WOrdPress sites it was constantly being attacked by criminals and allied nare-do-wells.
I am now considering Shopify. Can anyone give me some idea of how difficult it would be to design a site in Shopify that looks and feels fairly like the original site and migrate in the data from Sellerdeck. I have basic html understanding, but am rubbish with data-bases and coding.
The other problem is my lack of available money so financing is going to be tight.
Many thanks
Ralph
Hi @Ralphrama
First, I am sorry to hear business is not going so well. I bet there is a lot of work and not much gain. Been there, done that.
Now about Shopify, it is the best solution right now and it could help you increase sales. Lack of financing is always an issue but that
means you have to try to do a few things by yourself.
The first step is migrating data, from this link
https://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/faq/70-actinic/334-how-can-i-get-data-out-of-sellerdeck
it says you can easily export catalog and customers to CSV files. With that, you can try directly to import to Shopify, here is one guide
https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/import-export/import-products or you can try several apps from the marketplace like
https://apps.shopify.com/excel-export-import?ref=itissible&utm_campaign=get-excelify-now-button It is a process with several trys and
a bit of learning curve, but possible.
When data is all migrated and customer accounts are working you can test Shopify features like collections, discounts, payment gateways, and checkout.
If that all works that is a minimal thing you should aim for. A working store. But then you mention the design "that looks and feels fairly like the original site". Don't take this the wrong way, but that design is like from 1999 🙂 You can make a custom theme that looks like your current site but why would you?
So that your customers do not feel too much change. I think that is wrong and that your customers would easily get used to the new design, with a better flow and better conversion. Your current site has one great thing, it is really fast, but it lacks in user flow, conversion, marketing, and SEO. So I do recommend getting a paid theme. There are free themes, Dawn is just fine but paid ones bring a lot of good features plus a design that matches your business. You can take a look at EnvatoMarket https://themeforest.net/popular_item/by_category?category=ecommerce/shopify themes are hit and miss, same as support for them but you can find affordable themes.
If your financial situation was better you could use a migration service like Cart2Cart https://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/possible-shopping-cart-migrations/52844-sellerdeck-to-shopif... , you can try it out and get a quote but if you have a lot of products it might get pricey. And also use better themes from the official Shopify marketplace like
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/impact/styles/home or
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/athens/styles/default or
Sorry for a lot of text, and just to mention this is just my opinion and there might be better solutions.
I do wish you luck and that your business gets a lot better in 2024.
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