Adding Woo to active site / developing without launching

Hi.

I need to design and build a Woo store and integrate it into an existing WP-run site.

The site is active with many people creating content and visitors interacting with posts, form submissions etc.

I’ve had suggestions to copy the entire site to a free cloud host and develop Woo or do the same locally – after which I’m suggested to replace the online site with my version of the site with Woo prepared and ready to go.

I don’t see how this would be conveniently risk-free as the live site’s database is in constant change. I develop for 2 weeks, then upload everything and bam, loose 2 weeks of data from the live site. Have I missed something? I’m told to use a tool such as All In One Migration – plugin. Can this plugin import only the changed bits from an another inatallation whilst leaving the rest of the live site unchanged – and preferably not broken?

I would LOVE to just install Woo on the live site and develop it there!

What ways are there to ensure that links to the still-developing Woo store would not be found?

Am I just too hard-headed to understand that NO development is meant to happen on a live site?

If that is the case – how do you cope with the ever-changing database of your live site when adding something developed elsewhere? Manual database dumping/importing?

Thanks in advance. I’ve a lot to learn.