Replacing your ski shop's Wix site: what actually happens

Most ski shop websites started the same way: somebody in the shop built it on Wix one summer, because the shop needed a website and Wix was the fastest way to get one. It did its job. A few seasons later it loads slowly on mountain cell service, nobody remembers how to edit it, and the homepage still shows hours from two winters ago.

Replacing it sounds risky. What happens to your domain? Your photos and content? The Google results that bring people through the door? Fair questions — and most of the fear comes from not knowing the steps. So here is what a migration actually involves, with the honest version of every answer.

Nothing breaks while we work

First thing to know: your current site stays live and untouched for the entire project. We build the new one on a private preview link while the Wix site keeps doing its job. You watch the new site take shape, send corrections, and approve it before anything changes publicly. There is no awkward under-construction gap, and no point of no return until you say go.

Your content comes with you

We start with an inventory of what you have: pages, photos, service menus, rental info, hours, directions — everything a customer might come looking for. All of it moves to the new site, and most of it gets cleaned up on the way. The page that grew into a wall of text gets restructured. Photos get compressed properly so they stop dragging down load times. Anything outdated gets flagged for you to confirm or retire.

You don't write anything from scratch unless you want to. The raw material is your existing site plus a conversation about what's changed.

Your domain stays yours

Your domain was never really part of Wix — it just points there. When the new site is approved, we update where the domain points, and the switch happens quietly, usually within hours. Customers type the same address and land on the new site. Your email keeps working, because email runs on separate settings we deliberately don't touch. The old Wix site simply stops receiving visitors, and you cancel that subscription whenever you're ready.

The Google question

This is the worry that keeps shops on Wix, so it deserves the straight answer. Search engines rank pages, not platforms. What hurts you in a migration is broken links: if Google has indexed your tune-shop page at one address and the new site puts that content somewhere else with no forwarding, the history you built gets dropped.

So we map every old address to its new home with permanent redirects, carry over your page titles and descriptions, and submit a fresh sitemap to Google so it re-reads the site promptly. Nobody can honestly promise you a specific ranking — anyone who does is selling something. What we can say is that handled this way, a migration protects what you've built, and the new site is faster and structured the way search engines expect, which works in your favor over time.

The timeline

Two to three weeks from kickoff to live, for most shops. Roughly: the first week is discovery and the content inventory, the second is the build — with your preview link live early — and the third is your review, the redirect map, and the switch. We plan the cutover around your season. Late spring and summer are ideal; the middle of February is not, and we'll say so.

What it costs

The rebuild lands in the low four figures, confirmed as a fixed written quote after a short discovery call, before any work starts. No hourly meter, no surprise invoices. Hosting and ongoing support are scoped separately and kept deliberately small — this is sized for a shop's budget, not an enterprise retainer.

The FlowState option

One thing we offer that a typical web shop can't: we also build FlowState, our own ski shop operations product — a live multi-tenant SaaS that shops use daily to track customer equipment, work orders, and pickups. If you want, your new site can carry an embed of it, so customers check whether their skis are ready on your website instead of calling the counter.

It's genuinely optional. The website stands on its own without it, and you can add the embed later if the season proves you need it.

Where to start

Send us a link to your current site. We'll look at what you have, ask a few questions about your shop, and come back with a fixed quote and a launch date that fits your season. The discovery call is short, free, and commits you to nothing — worst case, you leave with a clearer picture of what your website is doing for you.