Migrating to Shopify from WooCommerce, Magento or BigCommerce

Moving a store to Shopify is rarely hard because of Shopify. It's hard because years of products, URLs, customer records and workarounds have to land somewhere new without breaking search traffic or confusing loyal customers. This guide is for founders and ecommerce managers planning a move from WooCommerce, Magento (Adobe Commerce) or BigCommerce who want a plan that protects revenue and rankings.

Key takeaways

Import in the order Shopify recommends: products, then customers, then historical orders, and turn off order notifications before importing orders.
Shopify's URL structure is fixed (/products/, /collections/, /pages/, /blogs/), so almost every old URL changes. A complete 301 redirect map is the most important SEO task.
Shopify allows 100,000 URL redirects on most plans and 20,000,000 on Shopify Plus, and redirects only work for URLs that no longer load a page.
Customer passwords can't be migrated, but Shopify's current customer accounts sign in with a one-time email code, which removes most of the pain.
Expect temporary ranking fluctuation. Google says it can take "a few weeks or more" for new URLs to show, and to keep redirects for at least a year.

Before you start: decide what not to move

A migration is the cheapest moment you'll ever have to clean house. Shopify's own migration checklist suggests using it to drop "old, low-performing content." Before mapping anything, decide:

Which discontinued products to retire (and redirect to a relevant collection).
Which customer records to keep, based on your privacy policy and marketing consent.
Which plugins or extensions were workarounds for limits Shopify doesn't have, and which were real business logic you'll need to rebuild.

Step 1: Audit and map your data

Data	How it moves to Shopify	Watch out for
Products and variants	Product CSV, Shopify's Store Migration app, or third-party migration apps	Shopify allows up to 3 options and 2,048 variants per product; extra options need metafields or an app
Product images	CSV (image URLs) or migration apps	Up to 250 media items per product; check alt text
Customers	Customer CSV, migration apps, or the Customer API	CSV must match Shopify's headings exactly; passwords can't move
Historical orders	Migration apps or the Order API	Not available through the product or customer CSVs; disable notifications first
Gift cards and store credit	Migration apps or the GiftCard API	Balances must reconcile to the cent
Reviews	Your new reviews app's importer	Shopify's WooCommerce guide says reviews can't be exported through its native path
Blog posts and pages	Migration apps, Blog/Page APIs, or copy and paste	URLs change; internal links need updating
Custom attributes	Metafields and metaobjects	Plan the structure before importing

Shopify's guide lists migration methods from least to most technical: copy and paste, CSV import, a migration app, hiring a Shopify Partner, or a custom solution using Shopify's APIs. Most stores with years of order history end up using an app or custom scripts for orders.

Platform-specific notes

WooCommerce. Shopify's guide walks through exporting the product CSV and renaming columns (Name to Title, Regular price to Variant Price, and so on). Customer and order exports need an export plugin. Watch for products with more than three attributes and weights stored in pounds, which need converting to grams for the Variant Grams column.
Magento / Adobe Commerce. Expect configurable products, custom attributes and multi-store setups. Map attribute sets to Shopify product categories and metafields, and decide early how store views translate to Shopify Markets.
BigCommerce. Product options and modifiers don't map one-to-one to Shopify variants. Modifiers that don't change inventory (gift messages, engraving) usually become line item properties or app-driven fields rather than variants.

Step 2: Build the redirect map

This is where migrations lose traffic. Google's site move guidance says mapping old URLs to new URLs is a core step.

Crawl your current site and export every indexable URL: products, categories, CMS pages, blog posts, images that get search traffic.
Pull your top landing pages from Google Search Console and your analytics. These get mapped and tested first.
Map every old URL to the most relevant new URL. Product to product, category to collection, post to post. Don't send everything to the homepage.
Format the map as a CSV and import it under Content > Menus > URL redirects in Shopify.
Know the limits. Shopify allows 100,000 redirects unless you're on Shopify Plus (20,000,000). You can't redirect a URL that still loads a page, the fixed paths /products, /collections and /collections/all, or URLs beginning with prefixes like /cart, /apps and /orders.

Pro tip: If your old platform used query-string URLs or has hundreds of thousands of legacy URLs, plan the redirect approach early. Prioritize URLs with traffic or backlinks rather than trying to map every variation.

Step 3: Rebuild the storefront

Choose a theme and customize it, or plan a custom theme build. Don't try to reproduce your old site pixel for pixel. Use the move to fix known UX problems.
Rebuild key functionality with native features first, then apps. Our app stack audit guide covers how to choose.
Recreate SEO elements: title tags, meta descriptions, image alt text and canonical structure. Shopify generates the sitemap and canonical tags for you.
Check structured data on product pages. See our product structured data guide.

Step 4: Configure operations

Shopify's checklist covers these, and each one deserves a real test:

Shipping zones, rates and fulfillment locations.
Taxes for every region you sell to.
Payment providers and checkout settings.
Staff accounts with individual logins and permissions.
Integrations: ERP, 3PL, email platform, accounting.
Test orders, including refunds and fulfillments, through every payment method.

Step 5: Handle customer accounts

Passwords are encrypted on your old platform, so Shopify's documentation says you can't migrate them by CSV. In the past, that meant sending account invitations and hoping customers clicked them.

Shopify's current customer accounts sign in with email and a one-time code, with no passwords to reset. Legacy customer accounts are deprecated. In practice, that means imported customers sign in with the email address you imported, without needing a password reset. Test this with a few imported customer records before launch. Tell them before launch, explain the new sign-in, and make sure your store's sender email address is set up correctly so codes arrive.

If you import historical orders linked to those customers, check with a test account that past purchases appear as you expect, since that helps with reorders and support.

Step 6: Launch

Freeze changes on the old platform: no new products or URL changes during the final sync.
Run a final data sync for orders, customers and inventory since your first import.
Remove the store password on Shopify. Search engines can't index a password-protected store.
Disconnect the domain from the old platform, then connect it to Shopify. Shopify warns that skipping the disconnect step can cause SSL certificate errors.
Test redirects by visiting your top 50 old URLs in a browser, then spot-check the rest from your map.
Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Use Google's Change of Address tool only if your domain is changing.
Re-enable order notifications if you turned them off for the import.

Step 7: Monitor for 90 days

Watch Search Console coverage and 404 reports weekly, and add redirects for anything you missed.
Compare organic traffic and conversion by landing page with your pre-migration baseline.
Expect temporary ranking fluctuation. Google says new URLs can take a few weeks or more to show.
Keep redirects in place. Google recommends at least a year; I recommend keeping them indefinitely.
Update internal links that still point to old URLs, since redirects add load and slow crawling.

How long does a migration take?

It depends on catalog size, order history, integrations and how much of the design you're changing. A small catalog on a ready-made theme with few integrations moves much faster than a multi-store Magento build with an ERP. The steps that usually take longest are rebuilding custom functionality, integrations and the redirect map, not the product import.

FAQ

Will I lose my Google rankings when I move to Shopify?

Some fluctuation is normal, and Google says to expect it. Rankings generally hold when every important URL has a relevant 301 redirect, content and metadata are carried over, and you keep the same domain.

Can I migrate customer passwords to Shopify?

No. Passwords can't be migrated. Shopify's current customer accounts use a one-time email code instead of a password, so imported customers can sign in with their email.

Can I import order history into Shopify?

Yes, through migration apps or the Order API. Import products and customers first, and turn off new order notifications so staff don't receive an email for every imported order.

Do I need Shopify Plus to migrate a large store?

Not necessarily. Plus raises the redirect limit to 20,000,000 and adds features for larger businesses. Our Shopify vs Shopify Plus guide covers when it's worth it.

Next steps

Start with two documents: a data inventory (what moves, what retires, where it lands) and a redirect map built from your crawl and top landing pages. Those two files shape everything else. If you're planning a replatform and want a migration plan reviewed, book a Shopify consultation.