Import from another platform

The Migration Tool brings an existing catalog into Brainerce. It is a one-time, read-only import: it reads from your old platform and writes into Brainerce, and then it is done.

That is worth being precise about, because it is not what people expect from the word "connect":

• Nothing is written back to the old platform. Brainerce never touches it.
• There is no live mirroring. Change a price in Brainerce afterwards and the old store won't know.
• It runs once. It is a move, not a sync.

If you were looking for a live two-way connection to Shopify or WooCommerce, that no longer exists. Those connectors were retired, and this import replaced them.

What it brings across

Products, their categories, and orders. They arrive as normal Brainerce records, which you then manage here.

Customers, from WooCommerce only. Your registered WooCommerce customers can be imported on their own or together with products and orders. Each one arrives with a name, an email address and a phone number. Four things to know before you rely on it:

• Nobody is signed up for marketing emails. An imported customer is never subscribed, whatever they chose on your old store, because WooCommerce gives Brainerce no reliable record of who agreed to receive marketing. To email them, ask them to subscribe again or run your own consent flow.
• Passwords do not come across. A customer signs in with Forgot password, which sends them a reset link.
• No email is sent during the import. Importing 5,000 customers does not trigger a welcome message to any of them.
• Customers who only ever checked out as a guest are not included. WooCommerce keeps guest buyers on their orders, not in its customer list, so this import does not create them. A customer with no email address is skipped, and the import card says how many.

Importing customers again is safe. A customer already in Brainerce is matched by email address and only has empty fields filled in: their marketing choice, password, tags and anything you typed yourself are left alone.

Shopify customers cannot be imported yet. The Customers option does not appear when Shopify is the source.

Customers are not linked to imported orders yet. An imported customer's order count and total spent start at zero, and imported orders are not attached to the customer record. The orders still show the buyer's name and email.

Imported orders do not use up your monthly order allowance. They are a record of sales you already made elsewhere, so a large history import cannot push you over your plan's order cap or stop your store taking new checkouts. Your imported products do fill product slots, which is a separate limit; see plans and limits.

Orders keep their original date. An imported order shows the date the customer actually placed it on your old platform, not the day you ran the import, so your order history and your sales reports still line up.

Digital products stay downloadable, but their files do not move. A product marked downloadable on the old platform arrives marked downloadable here, with its download limit and expiry. The files themselves are still hosted on your old site: Brainerce links to them rather than copying them. So if you shut the old site down, or it blocks links from other sites, your customers' download links stop working. Re-upload each file in the product's Downloadable Product settings before you close the old store.

What it does not bring across

Shopify customers do not migrate. Only WooCommerce has a customer import; from Shopify your customer list stays on the old platform, and shoppers create a Brainerce account the first time they buy from you, or check out as guests. From WooCommerce, customers' saved addresses and accounts are not copied either: only the name, email address and phone number are.

Also left behind: passwords (never transferable between platforms), gift-card balances, discount codes, reviews, blog posts and CMS pages, theme and storefront design, and app configuration.

Outstanding gift cards need re-issuing by hand. Brainerce does have gift cards, but nothing imports them, and the old codes will not work here. Export the unspent balances from your old platform before you close the old store, or you will have no record of what you owe. You then issue a matching card in Brainerce for each one and send the customer the new code. Note that gift cards are still in rollout, so there is no Gift cards entry in your sidebar yet and you cannot issue those replacements today. Keep the exported balances safe until it arrives.

Plan for this before you switch. If your customer relationships matter, a loyalty base or a wholesale list, export that data from your old platform for your own records first. Customers you import need to use Forgot password to sign in, and since none of them are subscribed to marketing, expect to email them yourself to tell them about the new store.

Running an import

The Migration Tool is a marketplace app. Install it from Apps, then open it and follow the wizard. It walks you through three steps, Connect, Configure and Review. You need a store selected before you can start.

1. Connect a source

Choose Shopify or WooCommerce. Those are the only two sources.

• Shopify, store address only. Enter your store address (xxx.myshopify.com). Brainerce imports your published products straight from the public catalog. There is no app to install, no password and nothing to approve. Orders and drafts are not included when you connect this way.
• Shopify, with API keys. For a password-protected store, or to bring everything including orders, choose Store password-protected / want everything? Connect with API keys. Create an app in the Shopify Dev Dashboard, give it the read scopes, install it on your store, then paste the Client ID and Client secret.
• WooCommerce, automatic. Enter your store URL. You are sent to your own store to approve read-only access, and WooCommerce generates the key itself. Nothing is ever pushed back.
• WooCommerce, manual. Choose Enter API keys manually: in WooCommerce go to Settings, Advanced, REST API, add a Read-only key, and paste the Consumer key and Consumer secret.

Connected sources are listed under Connected sources, with Disconnect. A connection that was started but not finished shows Complete connection.

2. Configure what to import

Under What to import, choose Products (catalog, variants, images and categories; for WooCommerce also tags, brands, attributes and stock levels, for Shopify also stock levels) and/or Orders (past orders, view-only) and/or Customers (registered shoppers: name, email and phone; WooCommerce only). Customers can be the only thing you tick. For orders you can set Orders from date (optional); leave it empty to import all orders. Imported orders appear in your order list but cannot be fulfilled, refunded or edited. With several sources connected, pick one under Choose a source. Start import stays greyed out until a source is chosen and at least one of Products, Orders or Customers is ticked. Then click Start import.

3. Review

The Review step shows your runs with live progress (Pending, Running, Completed, Failed, Cancelled). A run that shows no progress for a few minutes is flagged Stalled: refresh the page or run another import. Remove from history deletes a run from the list only; it does not remove the products it imported. Run another import starts a new one.

Before you import

• Take a backup first if your store already has data. Import adds to what's there.
• Expect to tidy up afterwards. Categories, images and variant structures rarely map perfectly between platforms; plan to review the catalog once it lands rather than assuming it's finished.
• Start it once. While an import of the same data is still running, pressing Start again shows the run already in progress. It does not begin a second copy, so you do not need to click again to "make it go faster".
• Media takes time. Images are fetched and re-uploaded in the background, so a large catalog will look incomplete for a while before it settles.

How many products can I import on my plan?

The import fills every product slot your plan allows and stops there. It does not fail, and it does not delete anything: the products that fit are imported normally and become live Brainerce products.

If your old catalog is bigger than your plan, the import card shows the exact number that was left out, for example "480 products were not imported". Upgrade your plan from Settings -> Billing and run the same import again; the products already imported are recognised and updated rather than duplicated, and the run continues into your new free slots.

Orders are not capped this way. Imported orders are history, not new sales, so they do not count against your monthly order allowance.

After importing

Your products are now Brainerce products. The next step is usually connecting a storefront so customers can actually see them.

What's next?

• Connect your storefront to wire a site to your newly imported catalog.
• Managing products to bulk-edit the imported catalog into shape.
• Bulk import from CSV is the other way to bring products in.