Ecommerce sites handle all kinds of data, including product information, customer information, and order information — are you backing it up properly?
This article explains why you should back up your Shopify store, how to create manual backups, and what backup apps are available.
Why You Should Back Up Your Shopify Store
For a Shopify store that handles large amounts of data, backing up that data is essential. Here are the main reasons why.
Preventing Data Loss
When running a Shopify store, data such as product information and customer information is an extremely important asset. However, no matter how careful you are, the risk of losing data due to a system failure or human error can never be completely eliminated.
By performing regular backups, you can quickly restore your data in the event of an emergency and minimize the impact on your store operations.
Protecting Customer Trust
The loss of customer information or order information can directly harm the customer's purchasing experience.
For example, if you were running campaigns based on order history or customer information, those campaigns would stop working properly. (For example: issuing coupons during a customer's birthday month.)
If customers experience issues such as "I'm the only one who didn't receive a campaign offer" or "a discount that used to apply isn't being applied anymore," their purchasing experience will suffer, which will erode trust in your store. This will naturally lead to a decline in sales.
By using backups to keep customer information safely protected, you can continue to maintain a relationship of trust with your customers.
Data That Backups Can Protect
There are two ways to back up a Shopify store: taking a manual backup, or using an app to back it up automatically. The data you can back up differs depending on whether you use the manual method or an app.
Data You Can Back Up Manually
- Product information (excluding images)
- Customer information
- Order information
- Gift card codes
- Coupon codes
- Financial data
This data can be exported from your store in CSV file format.
Data You Can Back Up with an App
When backing up with an app, the data you can capture varies depending on the app. Many apps can capture the following data.
- Everything that can be captured with a manual backup
- Image and video files
- Collections
- Themes
- Blogs
- Pages
- Metafields
- Many others
By using an app, you can back up almost all of your store's data.
How to Manually Back Up Your Shopify Store
This section explains how to create a manual backup.
Manual Backup Steps
To take a manual backup, you work from the Shopify admin. Using product information as an example, here's how to perform a manual backup.
First, select "Products" from the left-hand side menu of the admin. The product management screen will appear, so click "Export" in the top right. "Export" means "to output data."
Image source: Shopify
A screen titled "Export products" will pop up. Select the export target and export type, then click "Export products."
If you select "Current page" or "Selected: xx products" as the export target, the CSV file will be downloaded immediately.
If you select "All products" and export, a download URL will be sent by email to your registered address. Clicking the link lets you download the exported data as a CSV file.
Rename the file to combine the date and the data type so you can tell "when it was backed up and what data it contains." (For example: 20240901_product.csv)
Next, let's go over how to restore data from a backup.
Click "Import" in the top right of the product management screen. Click "Add file" and select the file you want to import.
If you want to overwrite the current data, check the box for "Overwrite products with matching handles." Click "Upload and preview."
If everything looks correct in the preview, click "Import products" to run the import.
That completes the restoration.
The backup procedure for other types of data is similar.
Pros and Cons of Manual Backups
Here are the pros and cons of taking manual backups.
The biggest advantage is that you can freely choose when to back up and what scope to cover. The number of backup files also won't grow too large. In addition, while using a backup app comes with a cost, manual backups are free.
The downside is that manual backup work takes time and effort. There are also limits to the types of data you can back up. Furthermore, there is a risk of human error or missed backups. When an emergency does happen, you often find that only a fairly old backup is available.
Once your store gets up and running, we recommend making use of a backup app.
Apps That Automatically Back Up Your Shopify Store
Here are some recommended apps for automatically backing up your Shopify store.
Marixify
Image source: Matrixify | Shopify App Store
Matrixify is an excellent data management app. It can capture a lot of data that manual backups can't, such as collections, blogs, and metafields.
It also supports not just CSV but also Excel and Google Sheets as file formats. It has a feature for running backups on a regular schedule, which helps prevent missed backups.
This app can be used starting from a free plan. (As of September 2024.)
We introduce it in more detail in the article below, so please take a look.
Rewind Backups
Image source: Rewind Backups | Shopify App Store
Rewind Backups is an app specialized in automatic backups. It automatically backs up product information (including images), collections, theme information, and more every day. When you want to restore, simply clicking on a date will restore your store from that backup.
This app is available starting from $9 per month. (As of September 2024.)
The Protection Suite plan, priced at $79 per month, monitors your store around the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
BackupMaster Backups
Image source: BackupMaster Backups | Shopify App Store
BackupMaster Backups is also an app specialized in automatic backups. This app also backs up all kinds of store data every day, and if a failure ever occurs, it quickly restores your site.
With this app's PRO plan and above, you can also save your backup data to Google Drive. Since this makes it easy to duplicate your store from that data, it comes in handy when, for example, you want to duplicate your site for an overseas market.
This app is offered starting from $19 per month. (As of September 2024.)
TinyBackup: Backup & restore
Image source: TinyBackup: Backup & restore | Shopify App Store
TinyBackup is a backup app that can be used for free. (As of September 2024.)
The backup scope is limited to products, collections, and pages, but it runs automatic backups every day. Once installed, all you need to do is enable it — no detailed configuration is required. Restoring is also simple and straightforward.
This app is recommended for small stores that don't yet have much data to back up.
Goshu
Image source: Goshu | Shopify App Store
All of the apps introduced so far are only available in English. Goshu is a valuable app that supports Japanese. It also automatically backs up the data your Shopify store needs.
Goshu can be used for free to start, but pricing changes depending on order volume, the data captured, and the retention period. (As of September 2024.)
Most stores will need the Basic plan or higher, priced at $29.99 per month.
Take Backups and Be Prepared for the Unexpected!
This article explained the importance of backups on Shopify, how to perform manual backups, and apps that can perform automatic backups. When running an ecommerce site, backing up your data is essential. Use this article as a reference to set up the backups your own site needs.
