Can Shopsite be moved?

[Peter Gregg]

I have purchased Shopsite (the highest version of the 3 levels offered) at Bluehost about a year ago. I have become more and more unsatisfied with their "up time" just in general. As a result I am thinking to move.

Is that possible? When i bought at Blue Host does that mean I have to stay there and buy Shopsite all over again? I am looking into FatCow which offers Shopsite there too, but I am reluctant to spend another $1k so I would like to know what is customary before I call them.

Thanks,
Peter

[Jim]

Yes, if you purchase the ShopSite license and are not just renting it then you can move the software to another host. But before you move to a different host I would do research on how the host supports ShopSite. The lower price hosting companies generally offer little or no support for programs that you install on their servers. I would definitely look into some of the hosts who specialize in ShopSite and provide direct support. You can do a search of the forum and see the names of some hosts who provide excellent support. They may cost a little more but you get what you pay for.

[Peter Gregg]

Thanks Jim.

The company I was interested in is FatCow.com

They have Shopsite featured as a supported software add on. The guy I talked to said he has been trained on Shopsite so that is good, but I have to purchase it again as they will not allow it to be transferred from BlueHost.com. They also said I had to pay monthly as it cannot be purchased outright for their system.

I will keep looking around because the Pro is the one I own and I don't want to buy the same thing twice

Regards,
Peter

[robm]

Peter,

Since you own your Pro license, you shouldn't need to re-purchase ShopSite. There are a number of ShopSite partners (us included) that support purchased license stores that do not require leasing or re-purchasing.

Look for a host that can seamlessly transfer your store (pages, products, images, settings, etc...) and website, so you do not have to do any re-work when you migrate. This makes for a smooth transition with no downtime, and no loss of Google ranking in terms of SEO.

That's the beauty of a purchased ShopSite license - You can seamlessly move to another host without starting over from scratch. When done right, your store and website move over with everything intact, and to the outside world, it all looks the same (hopefully just faster and more stable).

Rob