Moving 20,000 users meant moving a habit

When we prepared to move roughly 20,000 Basket users into a new app, the obvious work was technical: accounts, saved products and collections had to arrive intact.

That did not make the new product feel like a continuation. People also had a habit around the old one. They knew where saving started, what the extension did and where their products appeared afterwards. A successful import could still feel like an interruption.

One message could not work for everyone

Some people used Basket constantly and needed proof that their collections and saving flow would survive. Some returned occasionally and needed a quick reminder of what they had. Dormant users did not need a long explanation at all. They needed one clear reason to care now.

Treating those groups as one audience produced either too much explanation or too little reassurance. The migration flow had to respond to the relationship each person already had with the product.

Lower the commitment in stages

The sequence started with advance notice and a chance to see the new product before the move. Import was one action rather than a setup project. Only later did the old app become a route into the new one.

That order mattered. Asking someone to abandon a familiar product before they could inspect its replacement would have made the migration feel irreversible too early.

Do not break the old habit before the new one works

The browser and share extensions were part of how people saved, not optional marketing surfaces. The old extension needed to explain the transition and point to the new one at the moment the person tried to use the existing habit.

The migration therefore existed in both products. The old product prepared people and caught the behaviours they already knew. The new product received their data and had to make the next save feel familiar enough to continue.

A migration is complete when people understand where their work went and how to keep doing what they came for. Moving the records is necessary. Moving the habit is the product design problem.