Thinking about migrating from Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce) to BigCommerce’s B2B platform?
Not sure how to do it or what it entails?
No worries.
This guide will cover everything you need to know to successfully migrate your Magento B2B eCommerce store to BigCommerce B2B Edition.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Table of contents
eCommerce Migration Considerations
According to BigCommerce, B2B eCommerce businesses are focusing on eCommerce technology in these three key areas:
- Security and Performance
- Difficult to Integrate Systems
- Total Costs of Ownership (TCO)
1. Security and Performance
Protection and uptime are top of mind for B2B eCommerce merchants. In 2022, a 99.9% uptime—which is what BigCommerce boasts as the amount of time your audience or customers can access your website—is normal and expected. Anything less could significantly impact your business.
Why are uptimes and security so crucial to your B2B eCommerce business?
- Loss of customers, sales, revenue, and profit
- Damage to your company’s brand and reputation
- Loss of Productivity
- Costs to repair downtime and security issues
Several things could impact your site’s security and uptime, including:
- Traffic spikes (Black Friday, Holiday Sales, etc.)
- Power outages
- Server issues
- Domain name expirations
- Human error (broken code)
- Cyber attacks
- Outdated platforms (hosting, eCommerce platforms, CMS, etc.)
If your eCommerce business is experiencing any of the above security or uptime issues, it’s time to re-platform.
2. Difficult to Integrate Systems
Your eCommerce platform must be flexible, customizable, and fast to get the most out of it. Business-critical systems must easily integrate with your eCommerce platform—without negatively impacting security or performance.
Here are a few integrations your eCommerce should handle with ease:
- Consolidating or integrating multiple databases and data formats
- Customized B2B rules (quotes, product volume, invoicing, pricing structures, etc.)
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integrations
It’s time to migrate to a new B2B eCommerce platform when any of the issues above become problematic.
3. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)—also known as eCommerce tax—includes all associated expenses to run an eCommerce business, including hosting and maintenance, software licenses, payment processing solutions, software development, web design, apps and integrations, and more.
TCO or eCommerce Tax is a percentage of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), and you can calculate TOC or eCommerce tax with the following formula:
(Exact Software Costs + Software Management Costs)/GMV *100= TOC/eCommerce Tax
If you’re bogged down by TOC or eCommerce tax over 5%, migrating to a new platform could significantly reduce your costs.
Comparison of Adobe Commerce for B2B and BigCommerce B2B Edition
When comparing two B2B Platforms like Adobe Commerce and BigCommerce B2B Edition, you should look at the must-have capabilities for B2B eCommerce. While both offer similar B2B capabilities, consider which features are most important to how you want to do business going forward. After all, re-platforming aims to access better B2B functionality that will make online transactions more efficient.
Here are a few of the B2B capabilities to compare in each platform:
SELF-SERVICE B2B ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Adobe Commerce B2B Extension
Set up roles based on company structure with flexible permissions. Customize pricing rules and marketing campaigns based on company account setup. Payment and shipping methods can be applied to customer groups for special pricing.
BigCommerce B2B Edition
Set up buyers with specific roles and associated permissions, roles, and authority levels. Provide SKU-level customer pricing based on customer group. Offer specific customer groups bulk-buying discounts, special offers, promotions, and more.
QUOTE MANAGEMENT AND PRICE NEGOTIATIONS
Adobe Commerce B2B Extension
Adobe Commerce allows you to manage their customer quoting and price negotiation capabilities within Adobe Commerce or through external systems using APIs. Customers can negotiate better pricing for bulk orders within the portal. There’s also a complete quote workflow for buyers and sellers. Buyers can approve quotes and convert them to orders if they agree with the pricing. Sellers can approve and reject on the backend, too. Adobe Commerce also has a Quick Order Function allowing customers to order multiple products manually, entering SKUs or importing a CSV file.
BigCommerce B2B Edition
BigCommerce B2B Edition doesn’t have a built-in quote management system; instead, you must install the Quote Ninja app (link to the app) that BigCommerce recently acquired. BigCommerce’s B2B Edition has an Automated Product Configurator that can be used to automate B2B quotes—this can significantly reduce the sales cycle and increase conversions and sales. By automating B2B quotes, your team can focus on other customer-focused tasks that build your brand and customer relationships. Still require customized quotes from sales reps? Custom quotes, discounts, and special pricing are available with BigCommerce B2B Edition.
INVOICING, PAYMENTS, AND ORDER MANAGEMENT
Adobe Commerce B2B Extension
B2B customers want the ability to self-serve for order management tasks like access to invoices, order history, and company credit, with Adobe Commerce, this functionality standard. Customers can also manage buyers and permissions. With the Requisition List, similar to a wishlist or favorites, customers can save a list of frequently purchased products to reuse anytime. Flexible payment options are available to B2B customers on the platform.
BigCommerce B2B Edition
BigCommerce B2B Edition comes with customer-focused features that streamline the B2B-buying process. From a wide array of payment methods and credit card authorizations, customers have the flexibility to pay how they like. With custom pricing—whether SKU-level, punchout, customer groups, or bulk—your B2B customers will enjoy a B2C-like buying experience.
Now that we’ve discussed B2B features in Adobe Commerce for B2B and BigCommerce B2B Edition, let’s look at the migration checklist.
Platform-to-Platform Migration Checklist
You can migrate the following from Adobe Commerce to BigCommerce:
- Content or CMS pages
- Products and Product Categories
- Customers and Customer Demographic Information
- Orders and Order Histories
- Promotions and Coupons
- Reviews
Here are the steps required to migrate your data from Adobe Commerce (Magneto) for B2B to BigCommerce B2B Edition:
Step 1: Audit Your Adobe Commerce store’s data
Verify category, subcategory, product, and customer data
Step 2: Back your Adobe Commerce data
Admin Panel> Systems> Tools> Backup
Keep a backup of your original store, so you can restore it to its previous state if needed.
Step 3: Migrate Your Tech Stack (Apps and Integrations)
Some apps and integrations are available on both platforms. In that case, simply install the BigCommerce B2B Edition version of any apps and integrations installed on your current platform.
Step 4: Conduct Post-Launch Testing
Test everything—from links to site search to the complete checkout experience and everything in between—to ensure it’s working as expected.
Maintaining SEO During eCommerce Migrations
Getting your eCommerce to rank in the search engines takes time and effort. Maintain your SEO rankings while migrating from Adobe Commerce to BigCommerce B2B Edition with these tips:
- Benchmark current SEO and website performance metrics (Screaming Frog, GSC, GA)
- Audit and inventory content; determine which content to keep, update, and delete
- Keep H1 and title tags intact to maintain SEO juice
- Create a 301 redirect strategy to continue to drive visitors to high-traffic pages
- Setup your Google Analytics (or similar) and Google Search Console (GSC)
- Create and submit a new XML site map to Google Search Console (GSC)
- Post-launch testing: test everything that changed for errors; fix or optimize as needed
For more information on maintaining SEO during eCommerce migrations, check out our article, Website Migration SEO – Checklists for Migrating an eCommerce Store
Some of Our Favorite B2B Apps
Get more out of your new platform with apps and integrations. BigCommerce offers a wide range of B2B apps and integrations to create a better B2B customer experience. Here are a few to get you started:
1. Shipper HQ (Shipping)
ShipperHQ allows you to customize pickup and delivery options and shipping rates. Offer transparent delivery times. Reduce cart abandonment and increase conversions by up to 50% with ShipperHQ’s customizable shipping options, including delivery dates, duty, and tax collections.
Free Trial: 15 days
Price: $75/Month
2. Klevu Search (Onsite Search)
With Klevu Search, you can turn search into sales with this AI-powered app. Klevu enables searches with real-time shopper intent. The integration learns what your best-selling products are and servers those up based on related searches. Klevu customers have increased conversion rates by up to 6X using the app.
Free Trial: 15 days
Price: $499/Month
3. BundleB2B (B2B Operations)
Take your B2B eCommerce store to the next level with the BundleB2B app. BundleB2B extends the functionality of your online B2B operations. Get needed B2B features like sales rep quoting, shared shopping lists, corporate account management, invoice and pricing portals, and more.
Free Trial: No free trial
Price: From $1600 upfront and $225/month
4. TradeCentric/fka PunchOut2Go (PunchOut)
Enable a punchout catalog, a web-based catalog accessed from the buyer’s organization to purchase products at contracted rates and within the buyer organization’s procurement and approval process. Sellers have the flexibility to accommodate complex B2B punchout requests—without costly or time-consuming development work.
Free Trial: No Free Trial
Price: Starts at $10K
5. B2B Ninja /fka Quote Ninja (Quote Request & Management)
Build professional B2B quotes within a few clicks. Fully integrated into BigCommerce, B2B Ninja allows customers to build quotes quickly. Sales reps can create, view, and manage quotes from the B2B dashboard. An API integration is available.
Free Trial: No Free Trial
Price: $75/Month
Now that you have more information on what’s required to migrate from Adobe Commerce for B2B to BigCommerce B2B Edition, you can start to prepare by planning your migration with the included checklist.
If you need more one-on-one help, contact our experienced team for a free consultation.
Gentian, CSO and co-founder of Shero Commerce, guides the company and client digital strategies. He's an expert in technical SEO, Inbound Marketing, and eCommerce strategy.
