← Back to Portfolio
E-Commerce Shopify Migration 200 Products

Barrage Miniatures

A full Prestashop-to-Shopify migration for a wargaming terrain and miniatures store - moving a 200-product catalogue without losing a single description.

Brief / Summary

A 200-product Prestashop catalogue, moved to Shopify without losing a single description

Barrage Miniatures had built a large wargaming terrain and miniatures catalogue on Prestashop, but it had become slow to manage and wasn't built for browsing a catalogue this size. We rebuilt all 200 products on Shopify - titles, descriptions, prices, images and scale specs - mapped one-for-one into Shopify's product structure, with the same categories and sub-collections carried over so nothing about how the store was browsed had to be relearned. The result is a Shopify storefront that browses like the old catalogue, just faster: instant filtering, predictive search across all 200 products, and a checkout built around the payment methods European wargamers already use.

The Build

The Highlights

Five specific screens pulled from the live migration - proof of what actually moved over, not a walkthrough of every page.

Snippet
barrageminiatures.com/collections/all
Filtering and sorting the full 200-product catalogue on Barrage Miniatures

Full Catalogue Grid

Full Catalogue - Browsing

What it does

The Full Catalogue page: all 200 products in one filterable, sortable grid - by category (Terrain, Buildings, Scenery, Roads/Streets, Vehicles/Boats), by scale, and by the same Featured / Best Selling / Price / A-Z sorting Prestashop customers already used.

Key decisions

  • Filters run client-side against Shopify's collection data, so narrowing 200 products down never triggers a full page reload
  • Scale (15mm through 28mm) is its own filter, not buried in the title - it's the first thing a wargamer checks
  • Every sort option from the old store carried over, so returning customers don't have to relearn how to browse
Key insight
With a catalogue this size, the migration's real value isn't a new homepage - it's whether someone can still find the one product they came for.

Category Navigation

Site-Wide - Structure

What it does

The main menu's mega-dropdowns rebuild Prestashop's category tree exactly: Terrain (Grass, Sand, Snow), Buildings (Europe, Asia/Pacific, French-Indian War, Medieval), Roads/Streets (Cobblestone Roads, Cobblestone Streets, Dirt Roads), and Vehicles/Boats (Vehicles, Boats).

Key decisions

  • Category names and structure were kept identical to the old site wherever possible, to protect search rankings built up over years
  • Sub-categories are grouped by theme - era, region, material - instead of a flat list, since five top-level categories were hiding real depth
  • "Full Catalogue" stays as its own link for customers who'd rather browse everything than drill into one category
Key insight
Category structure was the one thing that couldn't just be exported - it had to be rebuilt to match how customers already shopped, or the migration would have cost search rankings and repeat visits.
Snippet
barrageminiatures.com
Opening the category mega-menu on Barrage Miniatures
Snippet
barrageminiatures.com/products/...

Product Page

Product Page - Detail

What it does

Every one of the 200 product pages carries its scale and material as structured spec fields, the full multi-image gallery, and the original Prestashop description - migrated product by product, not bulk-copied.

Key decisions

  • Scale and material sit in their own spec row, not buried in a paragraph, since that's the first thing a buyer scans for
  • Products that come in multiple scales use Shopify's variant system, replacing what used to be several near-duplicate Prestashop listings
  • Every description was mapped field-by-field from the old catalogue - nothing shipped with placeholder text
Key insight
Those Prestashop descriptions were years of accumulated product knowledge - the migration treated them as content to preserve, not text to regenerate.

Live Search

Site-Wide - Search

What it does

Predictive, as-you-type search across all 200 products - matching against title, description and scale - replacing Prestashop's page-reload search results.

Key decisions

  • Results appear in a dropdown as you type, so a shopper never has to leave the page they're already on
  • Search checks scale and description text, not just titles, so a query like "28mm boat" actually returns boats
  • Results rank by relevance and best-sellers rather than plain creation date
Key insight
In a 200-product catalogue split across five categories, search is often the fastest way in - especially for scale-specific searches the old search never handled well.
Snippet
barrageminiatures.com
Typing a predictive search query on Barrage Miniatures
Snippet
barrageminiatures.com/cart
Barrage Miniatures cart and checkout - free shipping progress and payment method icons

Cart & Checkout

Checkout - Conversion

What it does

Shopify's single-page checkout replaces Prestashop's multi-step flow, with the free-shipping-over-€200 threshold surfaced right in the cart drawer and PayPal, card, Apple Pay and Google Pay all supported from day one.

Key decisions

  • The free-shipping threshold shows as a progress indicator in the cart, not just a banner, to nudge basket size upward
  • Guest checkout stays front and center - Prestashop's account requirement had been dropping carts before checkout even started
  • Every payment method the existing customer base already used was carried over, not swapped for something new
Key insight
Checkout is the one page nobody notices when it's working - so matching the old store's payment options mattered more than adding new ones.
YOUR TURN

Want a site like this?

We're taking on new projects now. No obligation.

← Back to Portfolio Start Your Project →