Difficulties When Migrating from InSales to Horoshop in 2023–2024

In September 2021, we published a comprehensive review article on the Destra blog about working with the InSales and Horoshop platforms. At that time, the Russian platform looked more convincing and was developing more actively than its Ukrainian counterpart.

Therefore, we recommended InSales to all serious companies operating online, while Horoshop was recommended for small businesses planning to test the waters of e-commerce.
This remained the case until February 24, 2022.

After the full-scale invasion began, using InSales became inconvenient, unprofitable, practically impossible from a technical standpoint and, equally importantly, problematic from a legal perspective.

As a result, Ukrainian businesses that wanted to operate responsibly began switching to Ukrainian platforms or taking a closer look at them. To be clear, we were not paid to promote Horoshop in this article, and the opinion expressed here is entirely independent and professional.

Therefore, we believe we can claim a degree of objectivity: according to the leading specialists at the Destra Marketing digital agency, Horoshop is currently the best Ukrainian platform for growing a business online.

Today, the Ukrainian Horoshop platform has caught up with InSales in many respects and is now suitable not only for small businesses but also for medium-sized projects. A clear indication of this is the thousands of Ukrainian projects already operating on the platform and the large volume of orders generated by its online stores. For example, in 2023, Horoshop stores processed around 25,000 orders per day on average, while in 2024 this figure increased to approximately 35,000 per day.

Among the well-known businesses using Horoshop are the MasterZoo pet-store chain, as well as other established Ukrainian retailers. MasterZoo, for instance, was able to restore its online operations after the start of the full-scale invasion while its store data remained intact because the website was hosted on Horoshop's cloud platform.

Business automation with Horoshop is very straightforward because the platform integrates with all major Ukrainian delivery services, electronic payment systems, price generators, and marketplaces:

It also offers integrations with Binotel, email services, SMS marketing platforms, and parcel-locker delivery services throughout Ukraine. As for InSales, before the war the platform only had an integration with Nova Poshta, and this connection currently works much less reliably.

Given the current situation, Horoshop is objectively the most suitable option for migrating an online store or another website from InSales.

Of course, there is no point in assuming that everything will be easy and smooth. When switching to Horoshop, virtually any company will encounter a number of specific challenges and potential issues.

They are all related to the fact that InSales and Horoshop remain significantly different from a technical standpoint. The current situation has created even more technical challenges when migrating from one platform to another.

The good news is that if you delegate the platform migration to the professional digital agency Destra Marketing, there will be far fewer reasons to worry.

A self-managed migration that can drag on indefinitely can be reduced to just seven days. In many cases, the process can be completed even faster. During this time, we provide a comprehensive migration service to move your project from a Russian platform to a Ukrainian one.

The benefits you receive are difficult to overstate:

• SEO losses will be minimized as much as possible;
• when planning the migration, we will take into account our experience working with previous clients from industries or business niches closely related to yours;
• if you have a relatively large business, the likelihood of errors or unforeseen issues will be reduced even further;
• the comprehensive service includes design and technical development, as well as marketing and advertising support.

At Destra Marketing, we are used to working fairly and honestly. We don't believe in hiding potential problems that may arise in the future. That's why we decided to explain exactly what your migration from InSales to Horoshop will look like, including both the advantages and disadvantages of the process.

Because a Ukrainian domain may have been purchased through the Russian InSales platform, it can sometimes open in the platform's format. Following DDoS attacks from Ukraine at the beginning of the war, many Russian IP addresses remained blocked.

DNS can also be blocked because of an IP address associated with Russia, while on Horoshop, these settings can be changed upon request. We will help resolve the situation while preserving the domain correctly and quickly transfer it to the Ukrainian platform.

Working with an agency or web studio is simpler: you pay, and they create and promote your website. This involves not just one programmer, but an entire team of specialists, each responsible for specific tasks. As a result, you get an attractive, user-friendly, and optimized website that the agency is also ready to continue promoting. This is why the cost of such a service is higher than simply paying for a website builder's subscription.

However, if you take into account all the nuances of creating, maintaining, and promoting a website yourself, the costs will be only slightly lower than what you would pay an agency. At the same time, you will be spending your valuable time and nerves.

Here is a list of the main issues we pay attention to during the migration.

It is also unclear exactly how this happened. Whether it was due to converting rubles into tenge or InSales' “friendly” policy after the start of the war. But if we calculate the cost in Kazakhstani currency, the picture looks like this. To stay with InSales, you now have to pay UAH 2,500 per month. Comparable services from Horoshop cost only UAH 600.

The absence of a mobile app in Horoshop is something InSales customers will have to get used to. InSales has a mobile version that makes managing an online store much easier. You can manage your store literally on the go, straight from your pocket. You can take out your phone whenever convenient to respond to a customer message or manage an order.

Among Ukrainian platforms, something similar is available only with WooCommerce. However, finding the right specialist to configure this software will take more time than migrating from InSales. At the same time, the WooCommerce mobile app itself is complicated, requires additional development for key functions, and has rather limited capabilities.

However, we would not recommend getting too upset about this. Given the current situation, the Horoshop team understands its role in the Ukrainian internet market and is actively developing a mobile app that will meet the requirements of modern e-commerce projects.

Any official relationship with a legal entity registered in Russia now looks like a mockery of everyone who is holding back the enemy on the front line: Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, medics, volunteers, and ordinary citizens who donate tens of millions of hryvnias to support the army every day.

But while the patriotic aspect is purely ethical and remains a matter of personal conscience, from a legal perspective the situation is much more serious. According to the tax authorities and law enforcement agencies, any cooperation with a Russian counterparty may be interpreted as an attempt to illegally finance a terrorist state. And that is an entirely different matter, with all the consequences that may follow.

In practice, you could be accused of financing the production of ammunition and weapons that Russia actively uses in its war against Ukraine.

But there is another important issue: the information security of your customers. Imagine that when placing an order, your website collects data such as the customer's name, address, phone number, and other information.

Through InSales, this data could quickly fall into the hands of Russian intelligence services. If your store sells something needed at the front, Russian intelligence could potentially identify information about volunteers, their home addresses, and possible warehouse locations, which could quickly become “legitimate” military targets.

Probably the most noticeable difference between InSales and Horoshop is the difference in their interfaces. Initially, you will need some time to get used to them. In practice, operations such as importing, exporting, and other basic functions will have to be learned from scratch.

If you want to significantly speed up the learning process or train your company's employees more quickly, contact Destra Marketing for assistance.

If a website migration from InSales to Horoshop is not accompanied by an experienced SEO specialist, the key SEO performance metrics are likely to decline.

During the migration, the URL structure will inevitably change, and after the transition, the old URLs may return a 404 error. However, this can be prepared for in advance by mapping out the redirect structure before the migration begins.

The SEO specialists at Destra Marketing will identify which pages generate the most traffic. Their content and URLs will be carefully preserved during the migration. If there are only a few pages, we will transfer them manually; if the workload is extensive, we will configure 301 redirects.

We will take similar steps with product and category pages. They may generate low-volume search traffic while still having a significant positive impact on the overall performance of the website.

When migrating to Horoshop, it is also important to consider another feature: the platform supports redirects to only one version of the website. As a result, all other URLs may return a 404 error. For example, if an English-speaking visitor follows a link from InSales to Horoshop, they may land on the Ukrainian version of the website and have to figure out how to switch to the English version themselves.

If your company chooses to migrate from InSales to Horoshop with the help of Destra Marketing, this will significantly reduce the migration time. In addition, after the transition is complete, Google will find and index all the most important pages of your store more quickly, meaning that traffic can recover within a relatively short period.

If you did not pay attention to SEO before the migration, it is enough to simply transfer the website to another platform and wait for Google to index it. Once this is complete, all the main pages of the website will appear in search results. Other Important Considerations When Migrating from InSales to Horoshop.

InSales is a SaaS service, so configuring virtually any website element requires just a few mouse clicks. There is no need to access or modify the code or have any other technical knowledge. Unfortunately, Horoshop is less flexible when it comes to custom modifications. At the same time, numerous customizations are particularly important for large online stores. It is worth noting, however, that the Ukrainian platform's team is actively working to improve the flexibility of its settings for different types of online businesses.

Google Analytics 4 in InSales operates without the main reports. In practice, this means there is no full integration with one of the most useful and effective analytics services. With Horoshop, everything is in order: the team has already implemented all the capabilities of the new analytics system into the platform.

Services such as InSales often experience outages and can remain unavailable for up to 30 minutes. Fortunately, this is much less likely when working with Horoshop. Of course, there is always some degree of risk, but the Ukrainian platform is more reliable in this regard.

A good example of such a situation is the Ukrainian project Golos, which unexpectedly lost two servers at the same time. At that point, the issue was resolved by migrating to InSales, but now the team is deliberately moving to Horoshop.

For this reason, when choosing a platform for your website, it is very important to consider the platform's development plans, flexibility of settings, response times, the qualifications of its support team, and even its backup plan in case of unforeseen circumstances.

The best way to prepare for any changes, reconfiguration, or re-indexing is to enlist the support of professional SEO specialists from Destra Marketing.

If you are considering migrating from InSales to Horoshop or have already planned to do so in the near future, contact the professional Destra Marketing team for assistance.
We have already migrated dozens of businesses to the Ukrainian platform. Therefore, we know how to prepare a detailed technical specification for a migration while taking into account the specifics of your company's online operations. Before starting work, we will conduct a detailed audit of your website and, based on its results, develop a step-by-step migration plan to the Ukrainian platform.
Why do we recommend migrating as soon as possible? The longer you remain on InSales, the more technically complicated the migration will become. This will also increase the time required to move to Horoshop and the cost of the service.
Ask any questions and book a consultation about migrating from InSales to Horoshop by phone: +38 (066) 88-10-300.

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