Moving off a marketplace or a self-hosted store
If you’re reading this, you already have a shop somewhere — a marketplace storefront, a self-hosted cart, or both — and you’re weighing whether a dedicated node is worth the move. This playbook is the honest version of that question: what comes with you, what gets rebuilt, and what the actual work looks like.
We’re not going to argue that marketplaces are evil or that self-hosting was a mistake. For many sellers they were the right call at the time — the buyers were there. The case for a node isn’t that your current setup is bad; it’s that you are the durable asset, and a node is the form your business takes when you stop renting its front door.
The asset checklist — what you should inventory before you move
Before touching any settings, take stock of what you actually own today. Work through this list and keep the answers somewhere you control:
- Product catalog — every SKU or product line: names, descriptions, specifications, pricing, category structure. If a platform exports this (CSV or similar), export it. If it only shows you a web UI, that’s a finding worth noting.
- Media files — product photos at original resolution, datasheets, certificates, manuals, packaging artwork. Download originals, not the compressed previews a storefront serves.
- Your domain — the address itself. Confirm you control the registrar account and that the registration is in your company’s name, not auto-renewed inside a marketplace’s subdomain.
- Inquiry and order history — buyer messages, past inquiries, order records. This is the one asset a marketplace is most likely to keep from you, because it’s the data it believes makes you stay. Whatever you can export, export now — even if you don’t plan to move it anywhere yet.
- Customer contact data — the addresses and consent records you’re legally entitled to take. If a platform’s terms restrict this, know exactly what that restriction is before you rely on a mailing list you may not own.
- Credentials — your email provider login, DNS host login, registrar login, and any two-factor recovery codes. Migration is the worst possible time to discover you can’t reach your own accounts.
What Nodipe rebuilds vs. what you bring
A clean expectation up front: Nodipe is not a one-click importer from every platform, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What moves depends on how your current shop stores things.
| Asset | Typical path | Who does what |
|---|---|---|
| Product names, descriptions, specs | Structured export (CSV/JSON) where available | You export; we map fields into your catalog |
| Product photos & documents | Original files, downloaded at full resolution | You provide originals; we publish them |
| Site copy, layout, navigation | Written fresh for a dedicated site | We rebuild to fit a node, not a marketplace template |
| Domain & DNS | Kept in your name, re-pointed at your node | The domain and DNS guide covers the two paths |
| Left exactly where it is | Coexistence verified — see the email coexistence guide | |
| Inquiry history | Imported from your export where you have one | You bring the file; we load it into your dashboard |
| Order/payment history | Not imported | Payment records stay with the platform you transacted on — that’s where the financial trail legally lives |
The last two rows are the ones to think hardest about. Inquiry history you bring with you becomes yours to work forever. Order and payment history, on the other hand, should stay where the transactions happened — you don’t want a copy of financial records on a new system that wasn’t party to them. A node starts holding your future inquiries; your past transactions stay archived where they legally belong.
The move, in phases
Most migrations don’t need to be a big-bang cutover. A phased path keeps you selling while the new site comes together:
- Inventory (week one). Work the asset checklist above. Export everything you can, download originals, confirm domain and email credentials. No settings change yet — this is just taking stock.
- Build (weeks two to three, typically). Your node is stood up with the content you have ready. If your catalog is large, we stage it in order of what sells — the top lines first, the long tail as copy is finalised. This is the phase where the honest-timing rule from the deploy handover guide applies: speed tracks your content readiness.
- Coexist (weeks two to three). The new site is live at your domain before you leave anything. Domain points at the node; email verifiably coexists; inquiries land in the dashboard while your marketplace listing is still up. Buyers have two ways to reach you, and both work.
- Shift (when you’re ready). As confidence grows, your marketplace listing winds down or narrows to the channels it genuinely serves. Because the node was never an either/or, this is a decision you make from a position of having both, not a leap into the unknown.
- Archive (ongoing). Keep the exports from phase one — and run fresh ones — in storage you control. The data export guide explains the habit.
Two traps to avoid
- Moving your email by accident. The single most common migration mistake is touching mail records while changing web records. The rule of thumb is worth repeating: move the web records, leave the mail records. The email coexistence guide’s troubleshooting table exists precisely for this.
- Treating migration as an all-or-nothing cutover. A marketplace that hosts your buyers is hard to leave in one afternoon, and you don’t have to. The node’s value is that it lets you build the independent channel while the marketplace still feeds you — then decide from strength.
What “done” looks like
You’re done when three things are true: your domain resolves to your node over HTTPS and your mail still works; every inquiry now lands in a dashboard and inbox you fully own; and you hold a current export of your catalog, media and history somewhere outside Nodipe. At that point the platform you came from is a channel you use, not a ceiling you live under — and that’s a position no one can revoke.