The principle that makes this work
Migrations go wrong when sellers try to big-bang cut over — disconnect Linnworks, connect the new system, hope for the best. Something always breaks on day one, and with no rollback you're firefighting during peak dispatch hours.
The phased approach below keeps Linnworks running as your safety net until the new system has proven itself for 30 days. You'll pay for both platforms for roughly a month — that's the cost of safe migration, and it is a tiny fraction of the revenue you would lose from a failed big-bang cutover during peak dispatch hours.
The five-phase playbook
Phase 1 — Export your Linnworks data (Day 1)
2-4 hoursDo this before you set up the new system. You want a complete snapshot of what Linnworks currently holds.
- Export your product catalogue with SKUs, barcodes, descriptions, images, categories, and pricing tiers
- Export suppliers with their contact info and payment terms
- Export customers, especially B2B customers with custom pricing
- Export open orders (not yet dispatched)
- Export closed orders from the last 12 months (needed for reporting continuity)
- Export current stock levels per warehouse
- Export purchase orders and goods-in records
- Save your courier/shipping rules as a screenshot — you'll recreate them
Phase 2 — Set up the new system in parallel (Days 2-7)
8-15 hours over a weekThe critical word is parallel. Do not disconnect anything from Linnworks during this phase — it stays live, taking orders, dispatching as normal.
- Import your product catalogue using the new platform's importer
- Import suppliers and customers
- Import the last 12 months of closed orders for reporting continuity
- Connect marketplaces in read-only mode if possible (just pulling data, not syncing stock back)
- Recreate courier accounts and shipping rules
- Set up user accounts and permissions
- Run a data QA: spot-check 50 random SKUs, 20 random orders, 10 random customers. Fix any mapping issues.
Phase 3 — Dry-run dispatch (Days 8-10)
3-5 hoursBefore you switch any channel's live sync, do a dispatch dry-run on the new system using real orders imported in read-only mode.
- Pick 10-20 orders that are already being dispatched on Linnworks
- Replicate the dispatch workflow on the new system: pick, pack, scan, print label, mark dispatched
- Time each step. If any step is 2x slower than Linnworks, fix the workflow before going live
- Verify courier labels print correctly on your printer (size, barcodes, tracking numbers)
- Test the accounting integration with a mock invoice and refund
Phase 4 — Switch channels one at a time (Days 11-21)
30-90 minutes per channelThis is the cutover. Do it channel by channel, lowest volume first, during a quiet 2-hour window (typically early morning UK time).
- Fulfil all in-flight Linnworks orders for that channel before cutover
- In Linnworks: pause order pull for the target channel only
- In the new system: enable live order sync for that channel
- Place a test order on that channel yourself and watch it flow end-to-end
- Monitor for 60 minutes — if anything looks off, re-enable Linnworks for that channel and investigate
- If all good, repeat for the next channel 1-2 days later
- Do not cut over more than one channel per day
Phase 5 — Lock Linnworks in read-only and watch (Days 22-52)
Ongoing 30 daysLinnworks stays available as a rollback option for 30 full days after the last channel migrates. You pay for it; it's cheaper than a disaster.
- Disable order sync on all channels in Linnworks (but keep the subscription active)
- Set Linnworks users to read-only access
- Run daily reconciliation: compare stock levels between Linnworks (read-only) and the new system
- Investigate any discrepancy within 24 hours — it's usually a small mapping issue
- After 30 days with zero issues: cancel Linnworks, archive the data export, and celebrate
What can actually go wrong (and how to survive it)
- SKUs don't match cleanly. Linnworks may have parent/child SKU structures that the new platform models differently. Fix this in Phase 2 during data QA — not after cutover.
- Barcodes are missing.Common when Linnworks was populated over years without strict discipline. Phase 2 is your chance to clean up — don't migrate dirty data.
- Courier credentials are cached somewhere weird. Some Evri/DPD accounts are tied to Linnworks credentials; you may need to request fresh credentials from the courier for the new system.
- Marketplace API rate limits.If both Linnworks and the new system pull from eBay/Amazon simultaneously, you can hit rate limits. Phase 2 “read-only” mode helps — turn off Linnworks's pull once the new system is ready.
- Peak periods. Never migrate during Black Friday, Christmas, or your own peak season. January and July are ideal migration windows for UK ecommerce.
If you're migrating to MaxInvent specifically
We do this for free as part of onboarding — our team handles Phase 2 and 3 with you, including the data cleanup, importer configuration, and dispatch dry-run. That typically saves 10-15 hours of your team's time. See the Switching from Linnworks guide for the MaxInvent-specific version.
Linnworks is a registered trademark of Linn Systems Limited. MaxInvent is an independent UK company with no affiliation, endorsement, partnership or licensing relationship with Linnworks or Linn Systems Limited. This page is a general migration methodology and references Linnworks only as the source system being migrated away from; it does not describe Linnworks' current features or make any quality assessment of the Linnworks product.