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To migrate to Shopify without losing rankings, every old product URL gets a 301 redirect to its new /products/ address. That single step separates a migration that keeps its Google traffic from one that loses it. Shopify uses fixed paths: products always live under /products/, categories under /collections/, plain pages under /pages/. Your current store almost certainly uses different ones, and without redirects every old URL returns a 404 the day you switch.
The rest of a Shopify migration is a known sequence. Products, customers and orders move by CSV or a migration app, in a fixed order. What does not move is known in advance: customer passwords never, reviews only through an app, and the design is rebuilt in a Shopify theme.
This guide sets out, per source platform, what moves and what does not, which URL pattern you translate, what the cut-over week looks like and when a DIY migration is realistic. What Shopify costs per month and per order is in Shopify cost. Still choosing the platform? Read Shopify or WooCommerce or Shopify or Lightspeed.
Your Shopify migration checklist, per source platform
Shopify sets the import order itself: products first, then customers, then historical orders, so every order links to the right product and customer. Per source:
| Source | Products | Customers | Orders | Manual work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce or WordPress | CSV or migration app | CSV or migration app | migration app or API | reviews, blog, formatting of product copy |
| Magento or Adobe Commerce | CSV or migration app | CSV or migration app | migration app or API | configurable products, replacing extensions |
| Lightspeed eCom | CSV export, then import or app | CSV | migration app or API | rebuilding filters and variants; the POS separately |
| Wix Stores | CSV, images as links | CSV | migration app | blog, pages, design |
| Squarespace | CSV export of products | CSV | migration app | pages and design |
Shopify publishes its own migration guides for a range of sources, Lightspeed, Wix, WooCommerce and Squarespace among them, and its own Store Migration app. If you are leaving WooCommerce specifically, compare the two platforms first in Shopify or WooCommerce.
What never moves
- Customer passwordsThey are encrypted on your old platform and cannot move, not even by CSV. After the import you invite customers to set a new password, or you switch on Shopify's passwordless customer accounts: customers sign in with a one-time six-digit code sent by email.
- Design and themeYou pick a Shopify theme and rebuild the look.
- Plugins and extensionsEach function is replaced by a built-in feature or an app.
What moves, what half moves, what does not
✓moves~with rework×rebuilt or never
Every old product URL, one 301
/product/oak-table/WooCommerce/oak-table.htmlLightspeed eCom/product-page/oak-tableWix Stores/oak-table.htmlMagento
/products/oak-tableKeeping your Google rankings through the move
Google knows your store as a list of URLs, and the valuable ones are usually product and category pages. After the move they live on new paths. One 301 redirect per old URL tells Google the page has moved for good and passes its value on.
| Old URL | New URL on Shopify | Note |
|---|---|---|
| /product/oak-table/ (WooCommerce) | /products/oak-table | you can usually keep the slug |
| /product-category/tables/ (WooCommerce) | /collections/tables | one collection per old category |
| /oak-table.html (Magento, Lightspeed eCom) | /products/oak-table | check which pattern your own store uses |
| /product-page/oak-table (Wix) | /products/oak-table | the same for every product |
| /delivery or /shipping-info | /pages/delivery or /policies/shipping-policy | information pages get a redirect too |
| /blog/caring-for-oak | /blogs/news/caring-for-oak | Shopify puts posts under /blogs/ |
Shopify has its own redirect module. In your Shopify admin go to Content, then Menus, then URL redirects. Create redirects one by one, or import them as a CSV with two columns, old path and new path. Four Shopify rules to know before you start:
- A redirect only fires from a URL that returns a 404. If the page still exists on Shopify, the page wins.
- You cannot redirect from the fixed paths /products, /collections and /collections/all. Redirecting your old /product/ to /products/ works, because /product/ is not a Shopify path.
- A URL ending in .html cannot be redirected to the same URL without .html. Shopify treats them as one. For Magento and Lightspeed products that is no issue, as long as the new URL sits under /products/.
- Up to 100,000 redirects per store, up to 20 million on Shopify Plus. Plenty for most stores, variants and filter pages included.
After the switch, submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and watch the Pages report for three weeks. A rising count of 404s means a missing redirect. The wider technical checklist, from canonicals to internal links, is in website migration SEO.
The cut-over week
Pick a week outside your peak: not November, not before a sale.
- Monday: final exportProducts, customers and orders from the old store as CSV. Freeze stock changes from here.
- Tuesday: import and checkProducts, then customers, then orders. Spot-check prices, weights, stock and variants.
- Wednesday: test ordersWith every payment method you offer and every shipping option. Refund them afterwards.
- Thursday: domain and redirectsDomain pointed to Shopify, the redirect CSV loaded, twenty old URLs tested.
- Friday: customers and GoogleAccount invitations sent, sitemap submitted, the old store in maintenance mode.
What a Shopify migration costs
Three things set the price: how many products and variants, how many URLs need a redirect, and which integrations have to keep working, such as accounting, stock or a POS. A price per product says little: ten products with fifty variants each take more work than a hundred simple ones. What a store costs in general, platform aside, is in ecommerce website cost; if you would rather keep your store with a European provider, see Shopify alternatives in Europe.
| Size | How products move | Where the work is |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 50 products, no variants | CSV, an evening to fill in and check | theme, copy, redirects |
| 50 to 1,000 products | migration app or CSV, checked per category | variants, filters, redirects, test orders |
| More than 1,000 products or many variants | a script on the Shopify API | data quality, integrations, a redirect map generated by script |
| With a physical store | plus Shopify POS or an integration with your till | one stock record, hardware |
When you compare Shopify migration services, ask each agency the same five questions: who builds the redirect map and how, how they check variants after import, what happens to customer accounts on day one, which payment methods they test, and how long they watch Search Console after the switch. Answers to those tell you more than the headline price. On top of the agency comes the plan: in the eurozone Basic is 24 euro a month billed yearly and Grow 69 euro, with payment fees per order; see Shopify cost.
Do it yourself or hire a Shopify migration agency
A DIY migration works for a small, simple store: fewer than fifty products, few variants, one language, and little Google traffic at stake. Then it is an evening of CSV work, a theme and a short redirect list. Moving the domain itself is covered in how to transfer a domain name, and why every product page needs its own canonical tag after the switch in that glossary entry.
Hire help if any of these is true:
- Google drives a large share of your revenue. A missed redirect on a well-ranked product page costs that sale every day until someone notices.
- You have hundreds of products with variants, or products built differently on the old platform than Shopify expects.
- You also sell in a physical store, and stock has to be right in one system.
- Accounting or logistics hang off the store through an integration that has to keep working.
The DIY mistakes we see most: every old URL redirected to the homepage, variants arriving as separate products, customers unable to sign in on day one because nobody sent the invitation, and tax settings that only surface on the first invoice.
What we bring, and what we do not
To be straight with you: we have not yet moved a client store to Shopify that we can show here. What we can show is the work around a migration. Business Centrum moved from business-office.be to business-centrum.be with a single 301 per URL, and in the first five weeks after we fixed the technical basics it went from 220 to 10,200 impressions a day in Google; see the Business Centrum case. SN Group moved from a site that builds itself in the browser to a static site with real 404s, redirects and a canonical on every page; see the SN Group case. And on the transport platform we run, every release goes live in two to six seconds with a backup and a way back: that is how we plan a store switch too.
We work from Ghent, Belgium, for businesses across Europe. How we build stores is on webshop development.
Questions store owners ask before the move
How do I migrate to Shopify?
Export products, customers and orders as CSV and import them into Shopify in that order, or use the Store Migration app. Build the theme, add a 301 for every old URL under URL redirects, then point your domain to Shopify.
Can I migrate customer passwords to Shopify?
No. Passwords are encrypted and do not move. Invite customers to set a new password, or let them sign in with a one-time code by email.
Will I lose my Google rankings when I move to Shopify?
Not if every old URL gets a 301 to its new /products/, /collections/ or /pages/ address and you submit the new sitemap. Without redirects, the old URLs return 404s.
Do my product reviews move to Shopify?
Only through a review app that supports importing, usually from a CSV of your old review tool. Expect some work to attach them to the right products.
How long does a Shopify migration take?
The switch itself fits in a week. Preparation, with theme, copy, import checks and the redirect map, usually takes a few weeks for a small or mid-sized store.