Best way to move hosters and then build Prestashop store ?

[BlizzardUK]

Okay, here is my situation. Hopefully someone can help me

 

I am helping out my family who have a business website, this website is not a prestashop, yet. They want to move to a new hoster with the minimum of downtime. They then want their current website totally moved over to a prestashop made store. I am going to be doing this for them. So here are my questions.........

 

1. My problem is moving their site to a new hoster and then building their prestashop store while keeping their existing one running as long as possible. If I move the site to a new hoster, can I install prestashop in a folder like "/temp" and create it, and then when it is built move it over to the front page and it will all work as normal ? Or is it best to make it "/shop" and then have a front page that links to that ?

 

2. When I move the existing site to a new host, what happens to any emails people send during the change over (to the domain name email) ? Will they bounce ?

 

3. Do I need to contact the hosting company I am leaving or the company I am moving to when moving the site over ?

 

4. Does anyone here know what 1&1 are like for Prestashop's ? Are they fast ? We currently have another domain with them so it seems to make sense to just use them.

 

Thanks for your help !!

[alanf21]

Blizzard,

 

1. My suggestion for moving your site to a prestashop site (I'm assuming that the old site is also an e-commerce store) is that you create a copy of the current site and move, modify, etc. all the files to be sure everything works perfect. There's two ways to do this:

1) Set up a working environment which imitates as close as possible your current hosts' environment (this would only be an ideal situation, it is not necessary) and begin moving the site over without enabling the shop (this can be done through the backend settings in prestashop), but since it is on your local machine, no one will have access to it except yourself.

2) Buy a new space and domain (I'm sure they won't cost more than $20-$30 a month) and work there. Once ready, enable the shop in the new domain and simply disable the old site and redirect customers to the new site.

 

There are many ways to skin a cat, therefore you are not limited to these scenarios, but I am providing ideal working cases since you will need either of them to take all the time you need to work on the new site.

 

2. E-mails should not prove to be an issue if you test for them properly, and when you enable the shop through prestashop, you will have absolutely no issues with bouncing e-mails. If you do, the worst case scenario would be that you have to apologize to your customers, explain the situation at hand (moving the site), and solve their issues. Of course, this all depends on your shop's policies but not too many people complain for good customer service after a hiccup here in the US.

 

3. As far as contacting the host: when leaving the old host, all you need to do is discontinue payment for hosting your site with them and buy the hosting contract with the new company. You would need to read both companies' hosting contracts to ensure maximum return when switching (not much else I can help with your case here). If you never want your site not to be "down due to maintenance", then buy the new hosting contract, switch over, and discontinue payment for the old contract.

 

4. 1&1 is one of the best and largest hosting companies in the US, if not the world. You need to make sure that the contract you're buying provides what you need for prestashop to run smoothly and you should research information on different requirements for prestashop. You can find some of these in the prestashop Administrator's Guide in the link I've provided. There is also lots of documentation available for these things as well so don't feel overwhelmed.

 

Aside from these points, you should simply do your own research as to what you may need because every person's website can be as unique as a finger print. You may need to buy modules, ask your host to enable certain libraries (like the GD library, for example) and ensure the highest return on investment by preparing for every step of the moving process.

[BlizzardUK]

Thanks for your very detailed reply, I appreciate it. I will read it fully and take on your advice.