The Shopify Migration Playbook: How to Scale Without Losing 30% of Your SEO Traffic?

Shopify Plus is the best way moving forward because Plus is specifically targeted towards the enterprises who are looking to grow their business beyond a certain point, right? You get the right kind of API limits, you get the privilege to edit your checkout to the level you want, and you want to customize the experience of the customers that you want up to the level that you are expecting your business to run. That's all possible in Shopify Plus.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the eCommerce Coffee Break podcast. Scaling an e-commerce brand sounds exciting, but behind the scenes it gets messy fast. More orders, more tools, more complexity. And at some point every founder asks the big question: Is Shopify or whatever system I have really the right platform to scale this business, or should we be looking at something else? Today we're diving deep into that. I'm joined by Hitesh Matlani. He is the founder of Avid Brio, a Shopify Plus partner agency managing over 160 Shopify stores. Hitesh has been in e-commerce since 2011, long time before plug and play was the norm, and today he helps brands bridge the gap between complex tech and real growth. Hitesh, great to have you on the show.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.

Let's jump right into it. Is Shopify the right platform to scale a business, or are there other options that brands should consider?

Shopify is definitely the best way moving forward, and I would say Shopify Plus is the best way moving forward because Plus is specifically targeted towards the enterprises who are looking to grow their business. Beyond a certain point, right? You get the right kind of API limits. You get the privilege to edit your checkout to the level you want, and you want to customize the experience of the customers that you want up to the level that you are expecting your business to run. That's all possible in Shopify Plus.

Now there's many, many systems out there, but what's usually a sign or what usually breaks first when a brand outgrows its current technical setup?

When they are outgrowing their current technical setup, they are actually looking for some help, right? We try to get into the pain points on what exactly is the pain point, right? We are facing any issues in terms of raising the AOV, right? Reducing the CAC, right? Any problems they're facing with their current platform. So let's say they are stuck with WooCommerce, it's getting hacked and WooCommerce has issues slowing down and all of that stuff, right? So they would then consider moving to Shopify. But then if it's a Magento merchant and he has a lot of data, a lot of systems integrated, he might look to get into Shopify Plus. So we help those merchants get to the right kind of set of technologies that they want to run their solutions, like, so to run their business.

Now, a lot of brands as they're growing have these tooling problems, have these growing problems, and then they're sort of stuck in a situation situation where the transfer from what you mentioned, the data, and so replatforming is a huge pain in their neck. Let's talk through this. When you work with your clients, what's their biggest concern to move from one platform to another?

One of the biggest worries they have is they are worried that some of the data might be lost or their rankings might be lost or whatever reputation they have built in the search engines that might be lost. So we just guarantee them that this is not something that we really want to happen. So we wanna make sure that we give them the mental peace that whenever we are migrating the customers from one platform to another, they're gonna be super fine after the new platform is established, right? So that is one thing that we really take care of.

Now, a, a lot of our listeners are on the Shopify Basic plan or Starters, small and medium enterprises, and as they grow, what are the differences between the normal Shopify plans and the Shopify Plus plan?

So depending on the needs that you have, each of the plans have their own specialty. So let's say if you are a smaller merchant, you might sign up for Basic plan. If you are growing your revenues up to a certain extent, then you might opt for a Grow plan. That's where you can add more staff members into your account as well. Because now you're growing, you're not alone. You have multiple people assisting you in the team, right? And then if you're going to the advanced plan, that helps you get in, say, shipping rates from the carriers. So live shipping rates coming to your checkout when you're on the advanced plan. In the advanced plan, the other benefits that you also get is you get more staff members to be in, right? And if you're selling in multiple markets, so you have different geographies where you're selling in. Then you need to go on with the advanced plan because it allows you to customize your storefront in different languages, right? So in, sorry, not in different, not only in different languages, but also in different countries, in different geographies. Like you want to offer something else to the Australian customers and you want to offer something else to the US-based customers, you can do that, right? So you can create different markets, like position them separately if you want to. That can happen in the Advanced plan. And when you go to Plus, Plus is when you've accelerated your sales and you've grown beyond your expectations, right? So sometimes the clients have gone beyond what they expected that the D2C brand would go, right? They would now need Shopify Plus, right? Shopify Plus has higher API limits. What higher API limits means is you can integrate multiple systems with Shopify Plus. It won't slow down. Right. You have an OMS solution to manage your orders. You have a PIM solution, which is a product information management solution to manage your products. You have a taxation system. Avalara is one of them. TaxJar is one of them. You can set up those complex systems with the website. You can have, say, something like Katana to manage your inventory. So all the bigger sized systems and complex systems that would come into picture. can be handled by Shopify Plus. Of course, has its own capabilities and has its own set of features that it comes with, but the systems are definitely needed to make it a wholesome solution.

Now, it already shows there is a lot of complexity that goes in there and a lot of planning to get it right. And that's where you come in. Can you give me an example of, and you don't need to name the brand, of a brand that came to you and how the process looked like to get from a standard plan and then Fast growing, probably a lot of issues around this growth and how you help them to move on and replatform to a bigger plan. Yeah.

So when we initially started with one of the San Francisco-based brand, right, they were selling footwear. We initially started with them when they were on the Advanced plan, right? So directly came to us when they were on the Advanced plan, they were into the business. They were not sure what was happening and the business was growing, right? They wanted to organize everything really well. So we suggested them multiple tools to manage their site and to manage all their taxations. Because in, if you're in San Francisco, the tax system is very complex. So we helped them with the Avalara integration, right? That simplified the taxation so they could concentrate on the other activities. Now, when the taxation was sorted, we helped them in with ERP integration. So ERP helped them run 3 Online stores and three physical stores with one warehouse, so that automated a lot of their stuff. So they had to update the product only once in the ERP, and the ERP used to distribute it all across.

Right?

You don't have to worry about that. Now POS also was integrated with Shopify POS Pro, so the inventories are all in sync. You don't have to worry about some products running out, and sometimes. What used to happen is the product is getting ordered on the website. If that product is not available in the warehouse, you still want to deliver it to the customers, right? So we arranged a mechanism so that the product got picked up from the warehouse and transferred into the store so then we can pack and deliver it to the customer from the store. We help them in the strategies for loyalty building systems, affiliate marketplaces, So the retention strategies that we implemented with different email platforms, like we went in and out to help this brand grow from Advanced to Plus. And today they're like making about $700,000 a month. It's been about 3 years we have been working with them and it's been a wonderful journey.

What is a clear sign for a brand that it is time to replatform?

It's time to replatform when you think your margins are good enough to bear the cost of Shopify Plus, first thing, right? Because Shopify Plus is not that— it's expensive, right? For the brands that are selling small stuff, they're not making enough revenue. It's expensive for them, but for the enterprises, it's much more easier for them to spend, right? Because if you have been on Magento, you have been already spending lots and lots of money towards managing your own servers, AWS, and all the other, say, hassle that you had with your servers. Right. You had to hire someone for managing your infrastructure. You had to hire a developer to manage the website all around. And that's something was very cumbersome for the users. Now Shopify simplifies everything. Shopify gets you on Shopify Plus, which is a self-managed platform. You need developers when there's a complex thing that you want to establish. And you'd have to do some math in order to understand whether the monthly revenues are making enough so that you can Have Shopify Plus in your system.

What goes wrong when you have a rushed migration? Basically what I'm asking is how long does it take to get from one platform to another?

It depends on the data that we have, right? We would never take a project which is less than 8 weeks. If the project is 8 weeks, it's reasonable time for us to migrate the data into another platform, make sure we are doing all the QA checks. We're making sure all the data is proper. The marketing person is going into all the Google, Meta tools, TikTok, and everything, making sure the connections are working right before we switch the platform, right? So it requires enough time before you make that decision that you want to turn your website into a different platform. If you do it in a rush, things may go wrong, right? Some people are trying AI to transfer their data and trying to do all of that. So that has turned into a nightmare. Therefore, some of the clients, right, we've worked with, so they've lost their rankings, they've lost their data at some places, and then we are trying to figure it out how we achieve that back. And that becomes very complex thereafter. If not, if it's not planned right, then it becomes difficult.

If you're moving from one platform to another, just having the same rating is one thing, but maybe you want to work on, let's say, conversion rate optimization. Is that something you help too? With 2?

Yes, we do help merchants with conversion rate optimization as well. Just like I give you an example of the footwear business that we were working with, right? So we helped them with the conversion rate optimizations. We helped them grow from the Advanced plan to the Shopify Plus plan, right? Which helped through, which was through different strategies that we were applying together. We were understanding what their business is. How do you position their business in the right market? Now we are working with them on the AI searches, bring them up on the AI search engines, AEO and GEO. Which is what we are working with them on, right? So we really want to up their game, right? We wanna work with them in such a way that they would look for us as a partner who is concentrated towards consulting and helping them grow the business and not just a partner who is tech-driven.

Absolutely. Yeah. Now, one question I need to ask because I'm so deep into it and our listeners probably have the word around themselves every day, AI. How will AI change how Shopify stores are built within the next few years?

Yeah, I was having a conversation with one of of friends recently about it, right? Since last 6 months, we have stopped getting inquiries of people who want to develop a new website. So previously we used to get customers who would develop their own website and ask us to develop our, develop their website. So now the number of inquiries of getting a website developed has reduced. We're getting more serious customers who understand that not AI cannot do everything for them. Right. They would understand that if we went with AI, we might lose some of the stuff that we have already gained in so many years. So those serious customers are only reaching out to us. And that's one good thing that I've found with AI, right? At least we're getting more serious customers and we're not wasting our time with the dropshipping stores. So dropshipping stores, of course they grow up, like some of the serious businesses have grown to a lot bigger extent, but dropshipping stores, uh, most of them are hustlers. They're doing it part-time. They're not concentrating on it well, and we may not be able to help them grow. So that is not really our target market or our ICP, um, ICP, I would say.

Yeah. On that note, who's your perfect customer? What kind of industries or verticals do you work most with?

The customers who are perfect customers, maybe, um, those who are serious about their business, those who understand they're here to solve a problem. Those who are here that they understand this is what I'm here for and this is a problem I'm looking to solve. This is my target customer. This is how I want to position my brand. This is how I want to focus on my market, right? He understands whether he wants to go DTC, D2C, or he wants to go B2B and all of that stuff. So the vision is clear, then we are here to help them grow. So if they, if they're clear on what they want to achieve, that's what really helps.

You already said about the timeline a little bit. Is there any kind of homework that a brand or merchant needs to do before they can get started working with you?

No, not really. I mean, when, when we onboard the clients, we usually start with a shared drive, which consolidates all of their branding assets and their imagery and their UGC videos or ad videos and all of that into a single folder. So we can pick those assets when we are building their sites or migrating their sites from one platform to another, because when we are migrating the site, obviously you won't take the website as it is and move it, right? You want to improvise on it when you're moving the platform. So we do say improvise the websites based on the assets that they provide and go from there.

What advice would you give to our listeners when they're thinking about replatforming? What should they work first on? Is it design? Is it systems? What kind of hierarchy?

They really want to understand why is the redesign happening or why is the replatform happening, right? If they have a pain point with the platforms that they're currently working with, they understand why the migration is happening. The redesign might happen for certain reasons. So the current design is not giving them the right kind of conversions that they're expecting, right? Or the current design is very old, outdated, right? Or the current design does not provide the facility or the ability for the users to understand the brand really well. So if they are sure how they want to position their brand, if they are sure that how they want to showcase their brand to the customers, definitely we have a good insight on this is what the customer is expecting and this is how we should be building it. And when we are migrating, some brands are really very smart. So I've, I've recently been working with one of the Salesforce Commerce Cloud customers to migrate them to Shopify Plus. They were really well planned with it. So what they did is instead of connecting their external systems with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, they connected it with a third-party data warehouse and all of the systems were connected to the data warehouse and only data warehouse was communicating to Salesforce. Now, if you want to migrate, all we need to do is just switch off Salesforce Commerce Cloud and plug in Shopify Hub Plus. All the other systems are in place. So that was a very good move from the tech manager that they had, the tech lead that they had, right? And I really loved it. I wish everyone could do it, but not everyone is that smart.

Cool. Obviously our listeners want to know on how your pricing structure works.

Not really. So it totally depends on how much complex their current business is and how much complex, they want to go deeper into Shopify and Shopify Plus. So the pricing is all dependent based on the efforts involved, based on the systems that has to be integrated, based on the kind of workflows and kind of marketing strategies they're going to apply. It all depends, right? Sometimes the client would migrate even when they are into the business in 2 months, right? So they realize that WordPress is not a good platform in 2 months and they will start migrating to Shopify. So they might not be the right kind of people to say that they have a higher budget and they want to do something bigger, right? They're just getting started, but they're good and they're lucky enough that they found out that WordPress is not the right platform. But sometimes WordPress can be a good platform as well if you're not selling the right kind of products that Shopify doesn't support. So Shopify doesn't support arms and ammunition. Or certain restricted supplements, right? Then WordPress might be the right platform for them.

Before our coffee break comes to an end today, is there anything you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet?

So I have seen the growth of Shopify from 20,000, 30,000 customers to now more than 4 million customers. So there's definitely something that they're going, doing better than the other platforms, and which is why Like 90% of our customers consider Shopify, Shopify Plus, right? They won't consider any other platform until and unless there is a particular restriction that they cannot fit into the Shopify framework.

Yeah, absolutely right. I'm biased. I was selling myself for many, many years on Shopify and I love the platform. I started with Shopify, I think in 2015, if I'm not mistaken, and it has come a long way. And obviously the market share that they have shows that they're doing something right. Hitesh, where can people go and find out more about you?

They can visit my LinkedIn profile. I'm available on LinkedIn. They can go to the website, drop us an email, and one of ours, one of us will get back to them.

I will put the links in the show notes as always, then you're just one click away. And I hope that a lot of people thinking about replatforming, growing their business will reach out to you and hopefully have a smooth process in doing so. Thanks so much for your time today.