WooCommerce to Shopify migration

The usual reasons are operational. On WooCommerce you own WordPress core, theme and plugin updates, hosting, caching, backups and server security. As the catalog and plugin stack grow, update conflicts and slow admin screens become a recurring cost in developer time. Shopify replaces that with a hosted platform, a managed checkout and an app ecosystem, in exchange for working inside its data model and URL rules.

It is not the right move for every store. If your business depends on heavy custom checkout logic, complex B2B pricing built in PHP, or WordPress content that behaves more like a publication than a shop, check what Shopify supports on your plan first. Sometimes the better answer is cleaning up the WooCommerce install, or running WordPress for content next to Shopify for commerce. We say so in the assessment.

WooCommerce stores products as WordPress posts, with attributes either global (taxonomies such as pa_color) or local to a single product, and variations as child posts. Shopify gives each product up to three option dimensions, each combination becoming a variant, plus metafields and metaobjects for everything else. The mapping decisions are specific to this route:

Attributes marked "used for variations" become Shopify options. A variable product that uses more than three such attributes has to be restructured: combine two attributes into one option, split the product, or move one dimension into a line-item customization app. We list every affected product before the trial run, not after.

Variations set to "Any" value for an attribute (for example "Any size") do not exist in Shopify. They are expanded into explicit variants, which changes variant counts, SKUs and inventory rows, so we reconcile those numbers deliberately.

Attributes that are not used for variations (material, fit, compatibility) become metafields with definitions, so they can be shown in the theme and used for storefront filtering. Advanced Custom Fields data is mapped the same way, field by field.

Grouped and external/affiliate products have no native Shopify equivalent and are rebuilt as bundles or with a theme customization.

WooCommerce product categories form a nested WordPress taxonomy, and a product can sit in several branches; product tags add a flat second taxonomy. Shopify has no category tree. It uses collections, either manual or automated from rules such as tag, vendor, type or price, plus navigation menus built separately.

We map each category with traffic or a commercial role to a collection, carry the hierarchy into the menus, and use tags where automated collections can maintain themselves. Category descriptions, images and Yoast or Rank Math titles move with the collection. Removing empty or duplicate categories is agreed with you, because each one needs a redirect target.

Customer accounts, addresses, marketing consent and tags can be imported into Shopify. Customer passwords cannot. WordPress stores password hashes (phpass or bcrypt depending on the WordPress version), and Shopify does not accept hashes from another platform, so every customer needs to set a new password through an account invitation or activation email, or sign in with Shopify's email code login if you use its newer customer accounts. We plan when and how customers are told, because a badly timed mass invite looks like phishing.

Order history is migrated as historical orders so customers see past purchases and your team keeps the reference. These are records, not live transactions: refunds for pre-migration orders stay with the original payment gateway. We keep the WooCommerce order number as a reference, map order statuses to Shopify's financial and fulfillment states, and reconcile order counts and totals after the trial run. Saved cards are never moved silently; they depend on your gateway.

WordPress permalinks are configurable, so a WooCommerce store might use /product/{slug}/, /product-category/{slug}/ or a custom structure, usually with a trailing slash. Shopify uses fixed paths: /products/{handle}, /collections/{handle}, /pages/{handle} and /blogs/{blog}/{handle}. On this route almost every URL changes, so the redirect map is a core deliverable.

We crawl the live store and combine the crawl with Search Console, analytics and backlink data to list the URLs that matter: products, categories, product tags, blog posts, pages and indexed archives. Each gets a 301 to the closest relevant Shopify URL, not a blanket redirect to the homepage. Shopify redirects are managed in the admin and only apply when the old path no longer exists on Shopify. Filter URLs from WooCommerce layered navigation need a separate decision.

SEO titles and meta descriptions from Yoast or Rank Math and image alt text move with the content, and we check structured data in the new theme. After launch we recrawl the old URL list, check chains and 404s, and submit the new sitemap in Search Console. Redirects protect URL continuity; nobody can promise unchanged rankings.

WordPress is a full CMS, and many WooCommerce stores rely on it for guides, page-builder landing pages and custom post types. Shopify has pages and blogs with a simpler editor, plus metaobjects for structured content. Blog posts, authors, featured images and tags can move into a Shopify blog; comments need an app or are archived. Elementor, Divi or WPBakery layouts do not migrate as layouts: text and images move, and the design is rebuilt as theme sections.

If content drives a large share of organic traffic, WordPress can stay for content while Shopify runs commerce. That adds a second system to maintain, so we decide it from traffic data.

Every active WooCommerce plugin gets an explicit decision: Shopify native feature, App Store app, custom app, or dropped. Plugins that hold data need the most care.

Product reviews live in WordPress comments or a review plugin's tables. Shopify says reviews cannot be migrated directly, so we export them and import them into the review app you choose, keeping ratings, dates and product links where the app supports it.

WooCommerce Subscriptions depend on the gateway that holds each customer's payment method. They move into a Shopify subscription app only where the gateway and app support token migration; otherwise customers re-subscribe. We check this per gateway before committing to a plan.

Memberships, wholesale pricing, points and gift cards come from plugins with their own tables. Each is rebuilt with an app or custom logic, and balances migrate only where the target app supports import.

Checkout customization is narrower than in a PHP checkout; custom logic moves to checkout extensions on Plus or is redesigned. Payments, shipping, tax, ERP, email marketing and product feeds are reconnected and tested during the trial migration.

We start with an audit of the WordPress database and plugin list, not only the WooCommerce CSV export, because plugin data often sits in postmeta and custom tables the export skips. From that we produce a field-level mapping document you approve.

Then we run a trial migration into a development Shopify store and reconcile it: product, variant and order counts, prices and stock, products checked by a person, and redirects tested against the crawl list. Automation compares source and target data; a person signs off every decision that reaches production.

At launch we agree a short content freeze, run a delta migration of new orders, customers and stock, switch DNS and activate redirects. Post-launch QA covers test orders, emails, tracking, feeds, Search Console coverage and 404 monitoring.

Customer passwords do not transfer. Active subscriptions depend on your gateway and may require customers to re-subscribe. Products with more than three variation attributes need restructuring. Page-builder layouts are rebuilt, not migrated. Shopify URL paths are fixed, so redirects cannot be avoided, and redirects only fire for paths that no longer exist on Shopify. Some plugin behavior, especially custom checkout logic, has no one-to-one Shopify equivalent.