Once you have done the export / import multiple times, it gets really easy :)

Here are some things that made things alot easier for me

  1. Update magento/app/etc/local.xml with your changed database details
  2. Update the secure / unsecure urls to match your new domain / setup
    These settings are saved in the magento_core_config_data table.
    The two settings you need to alter are
    – web/unsecure/base_url
    – web/secure/base_url
  3. Sometimes the foreign key constraints break tables on import. The most common are :
    – magento_customer_group
    – magento_core_website
    – magento_core_store
    – magento_core_store_group

    Just check your old setup and update those tables by hand.

    You can run queries by activating and deactivating the foreign key check like this:

    SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;

    INSERT INTO magento_core_website (website_id, code, name, sort_order, default_group_id, is_default) VALUES
    (0, ‘admin’, ‘Admin’, 0, 0, 0),
    (1, ‘base’, ‘Main Website’, 0, 1, 1);

    SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1; 

  4. Make sure to delete the following folders before you try to access the install again
    – var/cache
    – var/sessions