How to Migrate Big Cartel to Shopify Using LitExtension: Complete Guide
By Braincuber Team
Published on May 18, 2026
Merchants around the world are constantly seeking better solutions to share their valuable products and release their creativity to the masses. Big Cartel has long been the go-to platform for artists, painters, photographers, crafters, and authors who want to make money supporting their passions. But as businesses grow, many merchants hit the limitations of Big Cartel and look to migrate to Shopify. This complete tutorial walks you through the Big Cartel versus Shopify comparison and provides a step by step guide on how to use LitExtension to migrate your store data seamlessly. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced merchant, this beginner guide gives you everything you need to make the transition.
What You'll Learn:
- Big Cartel versus Shopify platform comparison
- Why merchants migrate away from Big Cartel
- Shopify advantages in apps, product management, and payments
- How to set up a LitExtension migration from Big Cartel to Shopify
- Entities selection and data transfer process
- All-In-One Migration Service for hands-off migration
Big Cartel versus Shopify: Platform Comparison
Big Cartel versus Shopify is an important question when comparing the best way of exploring ecommerce. Both platforms have similar functions and features such as helping merchants build their online store with easy steps and without any coding or designing skills. However, additional marketing, shipping, billing, and CRM tools need closer examination. Let us draw a comparison between these two ecommerce platforms to see which one is more suited to you.
Big Cartel: Best for Beginners, Limited for Growth
Big Cartel is the only platform on earth that allows you to create a store and sell for free with their Gold Plan. It is suitable for beginners, small businesses, and anyone who has a limited budget working on creating products based on individual creativity. However, there are significant limitations if you plan to use Big Cartel for a long-term period. The main problem is Big Cartel lacks features that cannot serve a business to scale up, even to medium size, not to mention large size.
| Limitation | Details | Impact on Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Limited Products | 5 to 300 products depending on plan | Cannot scale catalog beyond plan limits |
| Themes and Customization | Only around 19 themes available | Poor design freedom, constrained layouts |
| No Abandoned Cart Recovery | Missing critical conversion feature | Lost sales from shoppers who leave carts |
Shopify: Powerful Capacity for Scaling Stores
Shopify is the most famous ecommerce platform that anyone who wants to make a website and sell online should know. Established in 2004, Shopify was designed to help merchants build their own scalable online store with hundreds of built-in features and tons of apps. Shopify now has over 1,000,000 businesses in approximately 175 countries. Both Big Cartel and Shopify have easy to use features, but Shopify has a more powerful capacity so you can sell products easily directly on your website and across multiple marketplaces and social media.
Apps and Integration
Shopify has over 3,800 apps on its app store, making it easy to scale your store. Find marketing tools, dropshipping services, reviews sections, and more without technical skills.
Product Management
Full range of product management tools including inventory tracking, order processing, and product organization by category, type, sale items, and price.
Payment Gateways
Over 100 payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, and Shopify Payments. Big Cartel only supports PayPal and Stripe.
Support and Community
Strong merchant community, dedicated support, and extensive resources create a powerful ecosystem for growing businesses.
Overall, Big Cartel is great for beginners but not ideal for medium and large online stores. It does not have much to offer as bigger and better ecommerce builders like Shopify. But it does give you a range of standard features to build a basic, functional online store. Shopify is way more powerful for merchants, not to mention their support and community create a very strong bond between merchants who are involved.
Why Merchants Migrate from Big Cartel to Shopify
Real merchants share their experiences about why they made the decision to migrate from Big Cartel to Shopify. Common reasons include the need for more product variants, better design customization, abandoned cart recovery functionality, and access to a wider range of payment gateways. The process of migrating to Shopify from Big Cartel may seem too hard for some merchants who have to deal with a lot of data, products, and codes. Hiring developers from job hiring platforms is very expensive. That is why merchants want a solution like LitExtension as a third-party professional service to help them with Shopify migration.
How to Migrate from Big Cartel to Shopify Using LitExtension
LitExtension is an extremely easy to use software and a simple but powerful solution for platform migration. With a reasonable price, it has all the features that a merchant needs when migrating from one platform to another. Here is the complete step by step guide:
Register LitExtension Account
Go to LitExtension.com and create your account. You can also start with the Free Demo Migration to see how LitExtension works before committing.
Create New Migration
On the Dashboard, click on Create New Migration to get started. The Migration Setup field will appear where you need to fill in all required information.
Configure Source Cart (Big Cartel)
Select Big Cartel as your source cart type. Enter the Source Cart URL in this exact format: https://api.bigcartel.com/store-name/products.json. Replace store-name with your actual Big Cartel store name.
Configure Target Cart (Shopify)
Select Shopify as your target cart type. Enter your Target Cart URL in the format https://store-name.myshopify.com. Follow LitExtension instructions to get your Shopify API Key and Password, then fill them in the API Key and Password fields.
Select Entities to Migrate
Check the boxes for data you want to migrate: Products, Categories, Customers, Orders, and advanced options like Strip HTML, Preserve Order IDs, and more. LitExtension charges based on data volume.
Start Migration Process
Settle down and wait for the process to complete. When everything is done, an email will be sent to you from the LitExtension system confirming the migration is finished.
Free Demo Migration Available
LitExtension offers a Free Demo Migration for every merchant to first see how the service works before committing to a full migration. Take advantage of this to test the process.
All-In-One Migration Service
If your business is too large and you do not have time to do the migration yourself, LitExtension provides a solution called All-In-One Migration Service. This full service means their data experts will take care of your data migration process from the very beginning until the end. It reduces all errors that may happen in your migration process. The service is a one-time charge with full support included without paying extra for hours of assistance. All you need to do is provide necessary information to LitExtension, and the data experts will do the rest.
One-time charge, no hourly fees
Data experts handle end-to-end migration
Error reduction and full support included
Just provide necessary information and let experts handle the rest
Is LitExtension Worth It: Customer Reviews
Based on 88 reviews compiled on Trustpilot, LitExtension has an average score of 4.8 out of 5. That is an excellent score because the rating of 5-stars is about 91 percent. Most customers are truly satisfied with the service. Key praise points include ease of use, reasonable pricing, comprehensive feature set, and responsive chat support that guides users from beginning to end.
| Migration Step | Action Required | Time Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Register Account | Sign up on LitExtension.com | 2 minutes |
| Setup Migration | Enter source and target cart URLs and API keys | 5-10 minutes |
| Entities Selection | Check boxes for products, customers, orders, etc. | 3-5 minutes |
| Process Migration | Wait for automated transfer, receive email confirmation | Varies by data size |
Migration Summary: Four Main Steps
To sum up the migration guide from Big Cartel to Shopify and quick review of LitExtension, there are four main steps to remember:
Register LitExtension Account
Create your account and optionally try the Free Demo Migration.
Set Up and Create New Migration
Configure Big Cartel as source and Shopify as target with proper URLs and API credentials.
Entities Selection
Choose which data types to migrate including products, categories, customers, and orders.
Process Migration
Start the migration and wait for the confirmation email. Use chat support if any problems occur.
With the nature of its ease to use, powerful operation, and reasonable charging, you can totally save time and reduce costs with both manual processes and the All-In-One Migration Service. If there are any problems that occur during the process of migration, you can easily ask through the chat support of LitExtension, and they will guide you from the beginning till the end.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I migrate from Big Cartel to Shopify without losing data?
Yes. LitExtension transfers products, categories, customers, and orders securely. You can also preserve order IDs and strip HTML during migration for clean data transfer.
Is there a free way to test LitExtension before migrating?
Yes. LitExtension offers a Free Demo Migration for every merchant to see how the service works before committing to a full paid migration.
What is the Big Cartel API URL format for migration?
The Source Cart URL must be in this exact format: https://api.bigcartel.com/store-name/products.json. Replace store-name with your actual Big Cartel store name.
What is the All-In-One Migration Service?
A full-service option where LitExtension data experts handle your entire migration from start to finish. It is a one-time charge with no extra hourly fees.
How much does LitExtension cost for Big Cartel to Shopify migration?
LitExtension charges based on the volume of data being migrated. You can check their pricing page to compare costs with other migration services before starting.
Need Help Migrating Your Store?
Our experts can help you migrate from Big Cartel to Shopify, set up your new store design with PageFly, and optimize your product listings. Get personalized guidance for your migration.