Try Hecta without risking the store you’ve already built

You’ve spent years on your store. The rankings, the regular customers, the subscribers who reorder without thinking about it — none of that happened overnight. So when someone suggests moving to a new platform, the honest first thought isn’t “great,” it’s “what if it breaks?”

That’s a fair worry. A store is your shopfront and your till at once, and you can’t afford for either to go dark. So here’s the thing we want to say plainly, up front: trying Hecta doesn’t mean moving anything.You don’t switch. You don’t migrate. You don’t take your current store offline for a second. You run a small piece of Hecta alongside what you’ve already got, and you only ever move more across once you’ve watched it work with your own eyes.

Here’s how that actually goes.

Your current store stays exactly where it is

First, the part that matters most: your existing store keeps running, keeps selling, and keeps ranking on Google the whole time. We don’t touch your domain. We don’t touch your product pages. We don’t touch the search equity you’ve built up. It carries on earning while Hecta runs quietly next to it.

Start with one thing, not everything

The safest way to try Hecta isn’t to rebuild your whole shop. It’s to put one line on it — a limited release, a seasonal drop, a farm-gate pickup option, something you can offer that lives only on your new Hecta store.

That does three quiet, useful things at once:

Prove it on one line. Then decide.

It lives under your name

Your Hecta store sits on your own address — something like shop.yourfarm.com.au— so to your customer it’s just your shop. Same brand, same look, same trust. They don’t know or care which platform is behind it, and any search traffic it earns over time builds up under your domain, not ours.

We’ll be honest about the tricky bits

We’re not going to tell you it’s all magic, because you’d see through that and you’d be right to.

Subscriptions: leave them where they are

If you run subscriptions, keep them on your current platform for now. Subscription billing is tied to your current payment provider, and moving live subscribers means asking each of them to re-enter their details — not worth the risk for a trial. Keep that revenue exactly where it works.

If you want to test subscriptions on Hecta, start a new plan for new subscribers only. A “Summer Box” that only exists on the new store. Existing subscribers stay untouched.

Stock doesn’t sync between two stores

While you’re running two stores, the two don’t share a stock count. That’s the real reason we suggest starting with a product that only sells on Hecta — different line, no clash. It keeps things clean while you’re finding your feet.

What you keep

Run the maths on what’s actually at risk in a trial like this, and the answer is: almost nothing.

The only new thing is one small storefront, under your brand, that you can switch off as easily as you switched it on.

What 30 days gets you

Your free trial runs for 30 days, and your existing store runs right alongside it the entire time. You’re not on a clock to migrate anything — you’re just seeing how Hecta handles a real corner of your business.

• Does the checkout convert? Did your test customers get through without confusion? Did the confirmation email make sense?
• Does packing day work? Could you pull up the packing list, pack 20 orders, and get them out without missing items? This is where platforms succeed or fail — on the bench at 6am Saturday, not in the dashboard.
• Does variable-weight pricing work? If you sell by the kilo, did the weigh-and-confirm flow feel natural? Did customers understand the estimated vs. final charge?
• Does the payment flow work? Money in, money out. Did Stripe payouts arrive on time? Did a refund process correctly?

And you won’t set it up alone. We’ll help you get your first products on, get the store looking like yours, and get that first line live. If you’re coming across from a spreadsheet or another platform, we’ll help move what you need — that’s on us, not on you.

When to switch fully — and how

The trial isn’t the move. The move is a separate decision you make after the trial has proven the platform works. When you’re ready, the sequence is straightforward.

First, migrate your full product catalogue — every product, every description, every photo. If you’d like us to handle this, our migration service covers the lot. Second, set up 301 redirects from your old URLs to your new ones so Google transfers your search authority. Third, point your main domain at the new store. Fourth, email your customers: “We’ve upgraded our online store. Same farm, same products, better experience.”

Subscriptions move last. Email existing subscribers individually: “We’ve moved to a new platform. Your current subscription will end on [date]. To continue, sign up here — takes 30 seconds.” Give them a month’s notice and a one-click signup link. Most will move. The ones who don’t were probably about to cancel anyway.

The entire migration, from “I’m ready to move” to “old store is off,” takes about a week for a typical farm. Not a month, not a quarter. One focused week after a confident trial.