How to Migrate to Shopify: The Practical Guide Nobody Gives You

Migrating an online store to a new platform sounds straightforward until you actually start doing it. I know because I spent nearly six years at Shopify headquarters, and platform migrations were one of the most common reasons merchants reached out for help. Not because they'd chosen the wrong platform — but because the migration itself had gone sideways.

The pattern was almost always the same. Someone would use an automated tool, assume everything transferred correctly, go live on Shopify, and then spend weeks discovering missing products, broken URLs, vanished customer data, and SEO rankings that had dropped off a cliff.

None of that has to happen. After leaving Shopify and running my own consultancy, ShopiCraft, I've handled migrations from WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and several other platforms for merchants across Ireland and Europe. As a Shopify consultant who's seen the process from both sides — inside Shopify and now as an independent expert — this guide covers what I wish every store owner knew before they started.

Before You Touch Any Migration Tool

The biggest mistake I see is people jumping straight into the data transfer without doing any planning. Before you export a single product, you need to answer three questions.

First, what data actually needs to come across? Products and customers are obvious. But what about order history? Blog posts? Discount codes? Customer reviews? Not everything can be migrated automatically, and some of it might not be worth migrating at all. Historical orders, for example, are useful for reference but don't affect how your new store operates — some merchants choose to archive them separately rather than complicate the migration.

Second, what's your URL structure going to look like? This is the one that kills SEO if you get it wrong. Your current store has URLs for every product, collection, and page. When you move to Shopify, those URLs will change unless you set up proper 301 redirects. I've seen stores lose 40-60% of their organic traffic overnight because nobody planned for this. We'll cover redirects in detail later.

Third, how long can you afford to be in transition? Some merchants want zero downtime — they want to flip from old platform to Shopify in a single evening. That's possible but requires more preparation. Others are happy to run both platforms in parallel for a week while they verify everything. Know which camp you're in before you begin.

What Migrates (And What Doesn't)

Here's what most migration guides don't tell you clearly enough: no tool migrates everything. Regardless of which platform you're coming from, there are things that transfer cleanly, things that transfer partially, and things that simply can't be automated.

Transfers well across most platforms: Product titles, descriptions, images, prices, SKUs, variants, customer names, email addresses, order history (as records), collection and category structures, basic blog posts, and discount codes.

Transfers partially or with caveats: SEO metadata (titles and descriptions usually come through, but verify every page), product reviews (depends on which review app you're migrating to and from), customer passwords (these can never be directly migrated due to encryption — customers will need to reset their passwords on your new store), and metafields or custom fields (may need manual mapping).

Doesn't transfer automatically: Your store's design and theme — you'll need to set up a new theme from scratch. Page builder content (Elementor layouts from WooCommerce, for instance, don't convert to Shopify sections). Plugin or app logic — if you had a bundle builder on WooCommerce, the bundle components may migrate as separate products, but the bundling logic won't recreate itself. Custom checkout flows. And any platform-specific functionality that doesn't have a Shopify equivalent.

Understanding this upfront prevents the most common migration disappointment: expecting to flip a switch and have your store look and work exactly as it did before. It won't. That's not a failure of the tools — it's just the reality of moving between platforms that are architecturally different.

Platform-Specific Notes

While the overall process is similar regardless of where you're coming from, each platform has its own quirks worth knowing about.

WooCommerce is the most common migration source I see. The good news is that WooCommerce stores export data relatively cleanly, and all major migration tools support it well. The main complication is that WooCommerce stores vary wildly in complexity because of the plugin ecosystem — a store running 30 WordPress plugins will have a lot of custom functionality that needs to be rebuilt with Shopify apps or custom code. Product data usually comes through cleanly, but if you've used Advanced Custom Fields or complex variable products, expect to spend some time mapping those to Shopify's metafield and variant structure.

BigCommerce migrations tend to be smoother in my experience because BigCommerce's data structure is more similar to Shopify's. Products, customers, and orders transfer well. The main thing to watch is that BigCommerce handles product options differently — you may need to restructure some product variants after migration. BigCommerce also allows more product options natively than Shopify's default three option limit, though Shopify's Combined Listings feature now supports up to 2,048 variants per product, which has eliminated most of those issues.

Magento is the most complex migration by far. Magento stores tend to be larger, more customised, and have deeper integrations with ERPs and other backend systems. If you're on Magento, you're likely dealing with thousands of products, custom attributes, multiple store views, and potentially multi-language setups. The data export process itself requires database access in most cases. I'd strongly recommend working with someone who's done Magento-to-Shopify migrations specifically — the edge cases are numerous.

Squarespace is the simplest to migrate from, but it's also the most limited in terms of what you can bring over. Squarespace's commerce features are relatively basic, so there's usually less data to transfer. The challenge is more about rebuilding the design and content pages, which are often heavily styled in Squarespace's editor and don't translate to any other platform.

The Tools That Actually Work

There are three categories of migration tools, and the right one depends on your store size and technical comfort.

Shopify's own Store Importer is free and built into Shopify. It supports direct imports from WooCommerce, Squarespace, BigCommerce, and several other platforms. For small stores with straightforward product catalogues, it does the job. However, it has significant limitations — it can struggle with larger datasets, doesn't handle complex product structures well, and provides limited error reporting when things go wrong. I'd use it for stores with fewer than 100 products and simple requirements.

Automated migration apps like LitExtension, Cart2Cart, and MigrationPro are the middle ground. They support 80-140+ platforms, handle larger datasets reliably, and offer features like demo migrations (so you can preview results before committing) and 301 redirect mapping. They typically charge based on the number of entities you're migrating — expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $300+ depending on store size. For most small-to-medium stores, these are the sweet spot of convenience and reliability.

Matrixify is what I and most agencies use for complex migrations. It's more of a data management tool than a one-click migration service — you work with Excel and CSV files, which gives you complete control over exactly what's being imported and how fields are mapped. The learning curve is steeper, but the tradeoff is that you can see and adjust every piece of data before it hits your store. For stores with thousands of products, custom metafields, or complex data structures, Matrixify is the most reliable option. It's also excellent for bulk data management long after your migration is complete.

The SEO Checklist That Saves Your Rankings

This is the section most merchants skip, and it's the one that costs them the most.

When your store moves to Shopify, every URL changes. Your WooCommerce product at /product/blue-widget becomes /products/blue-widget on Shopify. Your category page at /product-category/widgets becomes /collections/widgets. Every one of these old URLs needs a 301 redirect pointing to the new location — otherwise Google sees a dead page, and your search rankings evaporate.

Here's the minimum SEO migration checklist. Before go-live, export a complete list of every URL on your current store — products, collections, pages, blog posts. Map each one to its new Shopify URL. Set up 301 redirects in Shopify (you can do this in bulk through the admin or using Matrixify). Verify that all your SEO titles and meta descriptions transferred correctly — don't assume they did, check them. Resubmit your sitemap to Google Search Console after launch. And monitor your search traffic closely for the first 30 days.

If you've built up any meaningful organic traffic, the redirect setup alone is worth hiring someone to handle. A single missed redirect on a high-traffic product page can cost more in lost sales than the cost of doing it properly.

If You're Based in Ireland or Europe

Most migration guides are written with US merchants in mind, so they skip over a few things that matter if you're selling from Ireland or anywhere in the EU.

VAT configuration is the big one. Shopify handles EU VAT well, but it needs to be set up correctly — especially if you're selling across multiple EU countries and need to deal with OSS (One-Stop Shop) reporting. Your old platform's tax settings won't migrate automatically, so budget time to configure Shopify's tax settings from scratch. Get this wrong and you'll either be overcharging customers or underreporting to Revenue.

GDPR and customer data is another consideration. When you migrate customer records — names, emails, addresses, purchase history — you're transferring personal data. Technically, your existing privacy policy and consent should cover this if you're moving to a new processor (Shopify), but it's worth reviewing your privacy policy and updating it to reflect the change. If you're migrating email marketing lists to a new platform at the same time, make sure the consent basis carries over properly.

Multi-currency and Shopify Payments work well in Ireland — Shopify Payments is fully available here, which means you can accept euro, sterling, and other currencies natively without needing a third-party payment gateway. If you were on a platform where multi-currency was bolted on through plugins, you'll find Shopify's built-in approach much cleaner. Just make sure you enable Shopify Markets and configure your currency settings during migration, not as an afterthought.

Shipping zones also need rethinking. If your old platform had shipping set up for Ireland, UK, and mainland Europe, those settings won't carry over. You'll need to rebuild your shipping zones in Shopify, and it's a good opportunity to review your rates — especially post-Brexit, if you're shipping to the UK from Ireland and need to account for customs thresholds.

Working with a Shopify partner who's actually based in Ireland and understands these specifics can save you from some expensive surprises. These aren't the kind of details a US-based freelancer or automated tool will flag for you.

Don't Try to Recreate Your Old Store

I mentioned this in my post about common Shopify mistakes, but it's worth repeating here because migrations are where it happens most: don't try to rebuild your old store feature-for-feature on Shopify.

Every platform has its own way of doing things. WooCommerce with 30 plugins handles product customisation differently than Shopify with its app ecosystem. BigCommerce's built-in features don't map one-to-one to Shopify's. If you spend your migration trying to make Shopify work exactly like your old platform, you'll end up with a worse version of both.

Instead, use the migration as an opportunity to rethink. What were you actually trying to achieve for your customers? Maybe there's a simpler, better way to do it on Shopify. Maybe some features you had weren't actually driving revenue and can be dropped. A migration is the best time to streamline — you're already doing the work, so you might as well come out the other side with a cleaner, faster store.

This is also a good time to evaluate your app choices carefully and pick the right theme rather than rushing to replicate what you had before.

When to DIY vs When to Get Help

For simple stores — under 100 products, no custom functionality, minimal SEO to preserve — a DIY migration using Shopify's Store Importer or an automated tool like LitExtension is perfectly reasonable. Budget a weekend to do it properly, including testing.

For medium stores — hundreds of products, established organic traffic, some custom features — the tools do the heavy lifting, but you'll want someone to handle the SEO redirect mapping and verify the data transfer. This is where a few hours of expert time can prevent expensive mistakes.

For complex stores — thousands of products, custom integrations, ERP connections, multi-location inventory, or anything involving Shopify Plus — hire someone who's done it before. The migration tools are just one piece of a much larger puzzle that includes data mapping, theme setup, app configuration, integration rebuilding, testing, and a coordinated go-live. Trying to manage all of that while also running your business is a recipe for missed details.

If you're looking for a Shopify migration service rather than the DIY route, the key thing to look for is someone who understands your specific platform and business context — not just someone who knows how to click buttons in a migration app. A good Shopify expert will audit your current store before touching any tools, plan your redirect strategy, and be there to troubleshoot the issues that inevitably come up in the first week after go-live.

The Migration Timeline Nobody Talks About

People underestimate how long a proper migration takes. Here's a realistic timeline for a medium-complexity store:

Planning and data audit — one to two weeks. This is where you map out what's moving, set up your Shopify store, choose and configure your theme, and plan your redirects.

Data migration and testing — one to two weeks. Run the migration, review every product and collection, test the checkout, verify customer data, check that images loaded correctly.

Soft launch and monitoring — one week minimum. Go live but monitor closely. Check for broken links, test orders from different countries, verify analytics tracking, watch for any SEO ranking changes.

That's three to five weeks for a store that isn't particularly complex. Rushing it to save time almost always costs more in the end.

Making It Count

A migration is disruptive, time-consuming, and occasionally stressful. But it's also an opportunity that most store owners don't fully take advantage of. You're already rebuilding — so rebuild better. Clean up your product data. Improve your site structure. Set up proper analytics from day one. Choose a theme that actually matches your business needs rather than one that just looks nice.

If you're planning a migration to Shopify — whether you're in Ireland or anywhere else — and you want to talk it through with a former Shopify employee who's handled dozens of these, book a free intro call. No hard sell, just practical advice on your specific situation.

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Daniel Perera is the founder of ShopiCraft, a boutique Shopify consultancy based in Ireland. He spent nearly 6 years at Shopify as a Product Launch Specialist and also worked at Google. ShopiCraft is a certified Shopify Partner specialising in consulting, store builds, custom app development, and theme customization.