Published by Bastion Prime | WooCommerce Migration Specialists
One of the most common questions we get from sellers who are thinking about migrating from Etsy, Amazon, or eBay is some version of this: “I get the financial case for having my own store. What I don’t understand is what actually happens. What do you do, in what order, and what do I need to do?”
It’s a completely reasonable question. You’re considering spending $2497 to $7,997 with an agency you found online. You want to understand what you’re buying before you buy it.
This article is the answer to that question. It covers our process from the first consultation to launch day and beyond — including exactly what we handle, what we need from you, and what realistic expectations look like at each stage.
Before We Start — The Free Consultation
Every project starts with a free 30-minute consultation. Not a sales call. An actual conversation about your specific situation.
Before the call, we review your current marketplace presence. If you’re on Etsy, we look at your shop — your product count, your review rating, your listing structure, your best-selling products. If you’re on Amazon or eBay, same process. We come to the consultation already knowing the basics so we’re not wasting your time on questions we could have answered ourselves.
During the call, we cover four things:
What you actually have. How many products, what categories, what variants. Whether your product photography is strong enough to transfer directly or needs attention. Whether your listings are structured in a way that translates cleanly to WooCommerce.
What you want to achieve. Some clients want to leave their marketplace completely within six months. Others want to build a parallel channel while keeping their marketplace presence running. Some have specific revenue goals. Some just want to stop paying 18 to 22% of every sale in fees. The goal shapes the recommendation.
What the realistic numbers look like. We calculate your current effective fee rate — not the headline percentage, but the real number when you add every charge. For most sellers doing $3,000 to $5,000 per month, this number is between 16 and 22%. We then show you what the monthly cost of running your own WooCommerce store would be, and how long before the investment pays for itself.
Which package makes sense. Based on your catalog size, your goals, and your budget, we recommend one of our three packages — Starter at $2497, Growth at $3,997, or Premium at $7,997. We don’t upsell. If the Starter Package is genuinely the right fit for your situation, that’s what we recommend. The consultation is free regardless of whether you decide to move forward.
After You Say Yes — The Onboarding
Once you’ve decided to proceed, the project begins with a deposit of 50% of the total project cost. This is how we confirm commitment on both sides — yours to the project, ours to your timeline.
Within 24 hours of receiving the deposit, you receive our onboarding questionnaire. It takes about 20 minutes to complete and covers everything we need to begin:
- Your brand colors, fonts, and any existing brand assets
- Your domain name, or whether you need help choosing one
- Your preferred design aesthetic and any reference sites you like
- Your target customer — who they are, what they care about
- Any specific functionality requirements (personalization, subscriptions, bundles, etc.)
- Access credentials for your marketplace accounts so we can review your listings directly
- Any existing photography or content you want to use
We review the questionnaire within 24 hours and come back with any clarifying questions. Most projects are ready to formally kick off within two to three days of the deposit.
Stage One — Design (Days 1 to 5)
The first thing we build is the visual foundation of your store. Not the full store — just the core design elements. We do this first because everything else flows from it, and because it’s the most subjective part of the project. Getting your sign-off on the design before we migrate your products saves significant rework time.
What we deliver at the end of Stage One:
- Homepage layout and design — hero section, product sections, trust elements, call to action
- Product page template — how individual product listings will look
- Navigation structure — how the store is organized
- Color palette, typography, and overall visual tone
We share this as a preview link so you can see it on desktop and mobile. You review it and give us feedback. We aim for approval within two revision rounds — one substantive feedback session, one final polish. Most clients approve the design within three to four days of first seeing it.
One thing we’re specific about: we ask for feedback in writing via email, not in phone calls. This isn’t about being difficult — it’s about clarity. Written feedback means we can execute exactly what you asked for rather than trying to reconstruct a phone conversation two days later. It also creates a record if there’s ever any ambiguity about what was agreed.
Stage Two — Migration (Days 5 to 12)
With the design approved, we move into migration. This is the most time-intensive stage of the project, and the one that requires the least from you.
What migration actually involves:
Every product from your marketplace is transferred to WooCommerce. This means titles, descriptions, all photos, all variants (sizes, colors, materials, scents — whatever options your products have), pricing, and inventory quantities. We don’t use automated bulk import tools that create messy, inconsistent results. Every listing is reviewed during the transfer.
During migration, we make improvements that the marketplace format prevented. Product descriptions get reformatted for readability. Images get properly sized and optimized for fast loading. SEO elements — title tags, meta descriptions, alt text — get written for each product. URL structures get set up cleanly from the start.
For sellers with reviews on Etsy or Amazon, we curate the strongest ones — typically the 60 to 80 reviews that mention specific products, include photos, or provide detailed feedback — and format them as testimonials displayed throughout the store. This preserves years of social proof and transfers it to an environment you control.
What we need from you during migration:
Honestly, very little. The main thing we ask is that you’re available to respond to questions within 24 hours if something comes up that requires your input — a product variant that isn’t clear, a pricing question, a decision about how to categorize something. Most clients spend less than an hour in total on their side during the migration stage.
Stage Three — Technical Setup (Days 12 to 15)
With products migrated, we configure the technical infrastructure that turns a store into a sales system.
Payments:
We set up and fully test Stripe and PayPal. This means not just connecting the accounts — it means running actual test transactions to verify that payments process correctly, that order confirmations fire, that funds route properly. For Stripe, we also enable Apple Pay and Google Pay, which can meaningfully improve mobile conversion rates. For sellers whose customers skew younger or more tech-forward, these one-tap payment options reduce checkout friction significantly.
Email automation:
This is included in Growth and Premium packages and represents some of the highest-value work we do. We configure Klaviyo with three core automations:
The abandoned cart sequence — three emails sent at one hour, 24 hours, and 72 hours after a shopper leaves items in their cart without purchasing. Industry data consistently shows that 60 to 70 percent of online shoppers abandon their carts. A well-configured abandoned cart sequence recovers 10 to 15 percent of those. For a store doing $5,000 per month with a typical abandonment rate, that’s $300 to $525 in additional monthly revenue running automatically.
The welcome series — four emails sent to new subscribers over the first two weeks. Email one delivers the first-order incentive and introduces the brand. Emails two through four build the relationship — the brand story, product recommendations, what makes this shop different from what the buyer would find on a marketplace. Welcome sequences that are written with genuine voice rather than generic template language convert 20 to 25 percent of subscribers into first-time buyers.
The post-purchase sequence — four emails that begin with the order confirmation and continue through delivery, review request, and a 30-day follow-up. These emails have open rates of 60 to 70 percent because customers are actively looking for them. We use them to build relationship, gather reviews, and create the conditions for repeat purchases.
Analytics:
We connect Google Analytics 4 with full e-commerce tracking configured. This means not just pageviews — it means purchase events, add-to-cart events, checkout funnel analysis, and revenue attribution by traffic source. For the first time, you’ll know exactly where your customers come from, which products convert best, and where people drop off in the purchase process.
Stage Four — Quality Assurance (Days 15 to 17)
Before any store goes live, it goes through a full QA pass. This is non-negotiable regardless of how smoothly the project has gone.
What QA covers:
- Every page tested on desktop, tablet, and mobile (iPhone and Android)
- Every button, link, and form tested to verify they work
- Complete purchase flow tested with real transactions — add to cart, checkout, payment, confirmation email, order appears in dashboard
- Email automations tested end-to-end — abandonment triggers fire, welcome emails send, post-purchase sequence activates
- Page speed tested and optimized — we aim for a PageSpeed score above 85 on mobile before launch
- All product images verified for correct loading and sizing
- SEO elements verified — meta titles, descriptions, canonical tags, sitemap
If we find issues during QA, we fix them before launch. The client doesn’t see the store again until it passes QA. This is one of the things that separates a professional migration from a DIY effort — by the time you’re clicking around your new store, it’s already been tested thoroughly.
Launch Day
Launch day is when your store goes live on your domain. For most clients, this is a genuinely exciting moment — after two to three weeks of work, your brand has a home it owns completely.
What happens on launch day:
Your store goes live. DNS changes propagate — typically within a few hours, sometimes up to 48 hours depending on your domain registrar. We monitor the launch to catch any issues that arise in the first few hours of real traffic.
You receive a Loom walkthrough video. Depending on the package, this is 20 to 50 minutes long and covers everything you need to know to manage your store day to day — adding products, processing orders, updating content, reading your analytics, managing your email sequences. Most clients watch it once and feel confident managing their store independently. Some clients watch it twice.
Growth and Premium clients also receive the 90-Day First Sales Playbook. This is a written document — 15 to 20 pages — with a week-by-week action plan for the first 90 days after launch. It covers how to announce your new store to your existing marketplace audience, how to use package inserts to convert marketplace customers into direct buyers, how to approach Pinterest for free organic traffic, what to post on social media and when, and how to run your first email campaign. The Playbook exists because launching a store is only half the work — the other half is building the traffic and customer relationships that make the store financially significant.
After Launch — What Ongoing Support Looks Like
Standard and Growth package clients receive no formal post-launch support period, but we’re available via email for questions in the first 30 days if technical issues arise from our work. We respond within 24 business hours.
Premium clients receive 30 days of dedicated post-launch support. This means we’re actively monitoring your store in the first two weeks, reviewing your early analytics data, and making adjustments based on what we see. It means you have a direct channel for questions and requests, with responses within 24 hours and fixes within 48. And it means at the 30-day mark, you receive a written performance review — revenue, conversion rate, email list growth, abandoned cart recovery stats — with specific recommendations for month two and beyond.
What Makes This Process Work
A lot of sellers have been burned by web developers who built something, handed it over, and disappeared. The store looked fine but didn’t perform. The email automations were never configured. The checkout had friction they didn’t notice until they lost sales to it.
Our process is designed around a different philosophy: we don’t consider a project finished until the store is genuinely ready to perform. That means QA that catches problems before launch. It means email automations that are tested end to end. It means a walkthrough video that actually teaches you how to manage your store. And for Premium clients, it means 30 days of support through the period when real problems surface.
If you want to understand what this process would look like for your specific store — your catalog, your timeline, your goals — our free consultation is the place to start.
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