Selective Content Migration in StagingPro for BigCommerce

Selective Content Migration is the StagingPro screen for surgical updates: copy a single product, a specific promotion, a category, a theme, a custom page, or a page template’s Page Builder content from one environment to another without overwriting everything else. Use it as a follow-up to a Bulk migration, or as the primary tool when you only need to sync a small slice of the catalogue.

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When Selective is the right tool

Selective is non-destructive on items you do not select. Selective runs always update: a picked item that already exists on the destination is brought into sync with the source rather than duplicated — there is no strategy choice on this screen.

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The interface

The screen shows six pick tabs: Products, Categories, Custom Pages, Promotions, Themes, and Page Templates. For each tab:

• Pick source store and storefront, then destination store and storefront. The storefront (channel) mapping can be reviewed via Edit mapping on any tab except Themes (shown when the source is set to All Storefronts; it also appears inside the product-options popup at start). Default↔Default is pre-mapped, and mappings are remembered per store pair in your browser.
• Search and tick the items you want to copy. Your staged picks accumulate across pages, and the Start Selective Migration (N) button shows the total.
• Dry Run — Forecast & ETA prices exactly the run you have staged (your picks plus your product-option choices) before you commit.

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Advanced Filters (Products and Categories)

The Advanced Filters button (at the right-hand end of the search row) opens a panel with:

• A category checkbox tree — checking a category selects its whole subtree; a “Select all” row sits at the top. With a single source storefront selected, only that storefront’s tree is shown.
• Product filters: Visibility, Availability, Featured, and Modified on or after (a date floor).
• Storefront Assignment → “Not on any storefront” (available on All Storefronts and on single-storefront stores; hidden only when you’ve scoped to one of several storefronts): because BigCommerce has no native filter for this, the browse switches to a batch scan — a progress line (“Checked 100 of 115 products — 1 not on any storefront”) with a Scan next 100 button. Matches accumulate and can be ticked and migrated like any other pick.

The button shows a badge counting active filters; Reset clears them.

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Products

Picking products and pressing Start (or Dry Run) opens the Selective Product migration options popup, where every sub-component is ticked by default and the engine honours your ticks exactly: Include Images · Videos · Variants · Variant Metafields (needs Variants) · Custom Fields · Bulk Pricing Rules · Metafields · Reviews · Related Products · Channel Assignments · Modifiers · Complex Rules (needs Modifiers) · Product Locale (multi-storefront destinations only) · Custom Template Associations. Include Brand and Include Categories are locked on: product-to-brand and product-to-category links can’t exist without them. Only the brands and categories your picked products actually reference migrate (plus category ancestors, so the tree stays intact). Behaviours worth knowing:

• Related products link, they don’t import. Related products that already exist on the destination are connected by SKU; missing ones are neither migrated nor associated (the skipped link is listed with a reason). The product’s “Automatically show related products” setting is copied as-is. A selective run never widens beyond your picks.
• Storefront assignments mirror the source, within the mapping. Each picked product’s placements on mapped storefronts are made to match the source — missing placements added, extra ones removed. Storefronts outside the mapping are never touched. A product unassigned everywhere on the source ends up unassigned on the destination. (The Deleted column itself appears only on Make Exact Copy bulk runs.)
• With Include Channel Assignments unticked, no channel assignments are made: products created by this run stay unassigned (they appear on no destination storefront), and existing destination products keep their current assignments.
• Product-list modifier options are linked by SKU to products already on the destination; unmappable choices are dropped with a warning naming the choice and the fix, and a dependent complex rule becomes a reasoned skip rather than a failure.
• The Breakdown by Phase on the run detail counts only your picked products’ components — never store-wide totals.

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Categories

The Categories tab renders the tree hierarchically (parent-first, with indentation). Selection is hierarchy-aware: picking a child auto-picks its ancestor chain (even across pages); unpicking a parent unpicks its descendants; unpicking a child keeps its ancestors. Under All Storefronts, a Channels column shows which storefront tree(s) each category belongs to. Category metafields and template associations ride along automatically. Existing destination categories are matched (case-insensitively) and updated rather than failing as duplicates. Category picks migrate the categories themselves. To bring across the products inside them, either use the Products tab with the category-tree filter, or run a Bulk migration.

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Custom Pages

The Custom Pages tab lists pages hierarchically, like Categories; picking a child page auto-picks its parents. Search matches the page name only. A pages pick migrates the page records and the Page Builder designs on those exact pages — nothing else:

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Promotions

Picked promotions migrate as complete units (conditions, actions, schedule, coupon codes). Customer groups ride along automatically because promotion targeting references them. Product, category, and brand references are re-pointed at the matching destination items; a promotion whose reference cannot be mapped is skipped with a reason rather than migrated with broadened scope — a discount is never silently widened. Storefront-scoped promotions land on the mapped storefronts.

Note that promotions created via the BigCommerce API cannot be edited after creation. This is a BigCommerce constraint. Workaround: delete the promotion in the source, recreate it correctly using the standard editor, then migrate.

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Themes

Pick one or more themes and choose, per theme, which destination storefront(s) to set it live on in the Activate on column (Stencil storefronts only — headless channels are not listed; a storefront can have only one active theme, so two picked themes can’t target the same storefront). Activation is optional — leave it empty to upload without activating. Theme migration guarantees:

• The theme is only touched when you migrate it — product, page, or settings runs never change themes.
• Theme files travel byte-for-byte; only the theme’s settings file is adjusted so your live design settings (fonts, colours, logo) carry over instead of the vendor’s demo defaults, with links re-pointed at the destination.
• Nothing on the destination is ever deleted or overwritten: every migration uploads a brand-new copy (auto-renamed if the name exists), and old copies remain as an instant rollback path. StagingPro never deletes a theme, under any setting.
• Activation is verified by reading back which theme is actually live, and other storefronts are restored to their original themes — each restore is verified, and any restore or activation that could not be confirmed is reported with the one manual step (Storefront → My Themes → apply the copy). The same applies when a safety rule refuses a switch.

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Page Templates

The Page Templates tab picks template files (for example pages/home) and migrates their Page Builder template-level content. Templates with no Page Builder content are hidden from the list. Tick Include global widgets once for the run to also carry the channel-wide global widget content (header/footer) — it’s a single run-level choice, because global regions are channel-wide rather than template-specific, and it is the only way global widgets migrate. The run detail shows a Page templates section recording what was picked and whether global content was included and migrated.