JTL to Shopify: change the shop, keep JTL-Wawi, live in 4 weeks.

JTL to Shopify is a move with one special feature: JTL-Wawi stays. Most JTL merchants have set up their ERP over years, with marketplaces, warehouse, shipping and accounting. What slows them down is JTL-Shop: own hosting, template changes only with a developer, a checkout from yesterday. This text explains how the shop moves to Shopify, how the Wawi stays connected and when the move is not worth it.

Why JTL merchants move to Shopify

In the German-speaking market JTL is strong above all as an ERP. JTL-Shop is the add-on, and it works as long as your own online shop is one channel among many. As soon as your own shop is supposed to grow, the difference shows: hosting, shop updates, PHP versions and plugin compatibility are with you, every change to the NOVA template goes through a developer, and the checkout often demands a registration that scares customers away. Several languages, countries or B2B are each a project in JTL-Shop.

Shopify turns this around. Hosting, security, checkout and updates are part of the platform, the team maintains pages and campaigns itself in the theme editor, and languages and countries are a setting with Shopify Markets. The Wawi remains the leading system via the connector, so Amazon, OTTO and eBay keep running as before.

JTL to Shopify: how the Wawi stays connected

The JTL connector for Shopify synchronises items, variants, stock, prices, categories, orders, customers and shipping status between Wawi and shop. We set it up in staging, define which fields are led by the Wawi and which are maintained in the shop, such as marketing copy and images, and test the sync with real orders in both directions. After go-live the Wawi keeps running as usual, only the storefront is new. How marketplaces keep running is shown in our article on the JTL OTTO connection.

Items, variation combinations and characteristics on Shopify

JTL knows parent items with variation combinations, characteristics, attributes, function attributes and customer group prices. Shopify has products with up to three options, metafields for everything beyond that, collections instead of categories and price lists for customer groups. Variation combinations become products with options, characteristics and attributes go into metafields and are displayed and made filterable in the theme. The connector keeps them up to date after go-live. During the initial import we check samples against the old shop so that variants, prices, stock and images are correct before anything goes live.

Customers move with accounts, addresses and order history. Passwords cannot be exported from JTL-Shop, so customers set a new one at first login. We carry over orders with status and order numbers; the Wawi keeps its complete history anyway.

Redirects in a JTL to Shopify migration

JTL-Shop generates SEO paths from item and category names, often with parameters for variants and filters. Shopify uses /products/handle and /collections/handle. Without redirects every Google click lands on a 404 page. We export every indexed URL from JTL-Shop and Search Console, assign its new target and create the 301 redirects before go-live. How the redirect mapping works in detail is explained on the Shopify migration page.

Checkout and conversion after the move to Shopify

The JTL checkout is multi-step and often demands a registration. The Shopify checkout is a single page, offers guest checkout, Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and TWINT and is tested continuously by Shopify itself. Shopify reports up to 50 percent higher conversion for Shop Pay compared with guest checkout, measured in a study commissioned by Shopify. In our own projects we regularly see more completed orders after the migration. How we then grow your own channel with SEO is described on the Shopify SEO agency page.

B2B and customer groups on Shopify

Many JTL merchants sell to resellers with their own prices and payment terms. Shopify Plus covers this with company accounts, price lists per customer, quantity rules and payment terms, in one shop together with the consumer business. What Shopify B2B can do and where the limits are is described on the Shopify B2B page.

When JTL to Shopify is not the right decision

If your own shop stays a side channel and the marketplaces make the revenue, the move is often not worth it. The same applies to assortments with very many variation dimensions beyond three options that do not fit into metafields, or to processes that reach deep into the Wawi and cannot be mapped via the connector. We check this in the analysis and tell you before the project whether Shopify fits.

JTL to Shopify with Rankist

We have been in e-commerce since 2015, have supported 293 shops and are one of three Shopify Plus Partners in Switzerland. We know JTL from marketplace and shop projects and know which fields the connector needs so that nothing is maintained twice after go-live. After the move we stay on board for SEO, ads and email if you want, as a Shopify Plus agency from one team. The first step is a free 30-minute call in which we look at your JTL-Shop and your Wawi and tell you what the move needs.