Migration a website to OpenCart from Prom

Migration of a website to a separate OpenCart CMS becomes relevant when your business grows and there is a need to expand marketing channels, develop a personal brand, and improve interaction with other services.

Here are the main advantages of such a transition:

1. Reduced commissions. If the number of sales and the average check increase, then, according to Prom.ua rules, the total commission amount also increases, since you pay a percentage of each transaction. On OpenCart, however, you only pay for website maintenance, not for sales.
2. Brand development and uniqueness. The Prom.ua platform provides limited customization functionality, so stores often look monotonous. On OpenCart, you can use ready-made templates and adapt them to your style, or develop a unique design from scratch to emphasize the individuality of your brand.
3. Investing in organic traffic and scaling advertising. When promoting your site on Prom.ua, you will encounter many problems and functional limitations. In contrast, OpenCart was created and is constantly updated to reflect the latest trends in SEO (generation, SEO filters, indexing, etc.). If there are no ready-made solutions, you can always develop a unique one.
4. Full control over your business. When using Prom.ua, you depend on the platform’s decisions. On OpenCart, you decide for yourself what, when, and in what form you need to develop your business.

1. The ability to implement any functionality. CMS OpenCart allows you to develop virtually any functionality for an online store, since that is what it was created for. What’s more, a multitude of custom solutions and extended functionality are already available in ready-made add-ons that can be downloaded and configured with minimal modifications.
2. Personalization and unique design. Prom.ua offers a very limited list of templates, while OpenCart provides complete freedom in design:
   • you can create a completely unique design, layout it, and give the site an authentic look;
   • or choose one of hundreds of free or paid themes that you like and customize it according to your requirements. Most importantly, the functionality can be refined and expanded directly during the operation of the site.
3. No sales commission. A distinctive feature of Prom.ua is that you pay for each order. The percentage charged by the platform is set unilaterally and may vary depending on the connected features. On the other hand, when working with OpenCart, you do not pay any commissions, as the website belongs solely to you.
4. You control the content. Store owners on OpenCart decide for themselves which reviews to show and which not to show. All reviews and comments can be moderated so that only the necessary ones are published. You can also create custom functionality that parses product reviews from other sites.
5. Broader integration options. The functionality of websites on Prom.ua is very limited and rarely updated, which means you cannot integrate the services you need. OpenCart already has many ready-made solutions for integration. And if the necessary add-on is not available, you can always develop a personalized solution for your tasks.

When should you stay on Prom.ua, and when should you switch to OpenCart?

The answer to this question depends on many factors.

You should stay on Prom.ua if:

• You have a lot of positive reviews and a high level of user trust.
• Most sales are made thanks to Prom.ua’s own marketing tools (internal advertising, ProSale, etc.).
• Customers often use PromPay and other Prom.ua services that increase trust.

In such cases, it is advisable to create a copy of your store on OpenCart in order to develop both platforms in parallel. This will allow you to scale, open new marketing channels, and increase conversion rates to boost sales.

You should not stay on Prom.ua if you have:

• Very low sales through Prom.ua.
• A low rating due to a large number of negative reviews.
• Problems with products or functionality.

In this case, it is better not to spend money on maintaining two stores, but to invest once in creating a unique and functional website on OpenCart. This will allow you to grow your business by improving functionality and attracting additional sales channels such as SEO, SMM, PPC, targeting, etc.