Migration

WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Checklist: Plan, Move, Launch

Moving from WooCommerce to Shopify is mostly a data, URL and testing exercise. Stores that treat it as a design project are the ones that lose rankings or orders. This checklist follows the order we work in.

By FlowCart Agency · · 8 min read

1. Audit what you have

  • Products, variants, categories and attributes, including any custom fields.
  • Customers, orders and reviews you need to keep.
  • Plugins and what each one does, so you can decide whether Shopify handles it natively, needs an app, or can be dropped.
  • Every indexable URL, top landing pages and pages with backlinks.
  • Integrations: shipping, tax, accounting, inventory and marketing tools.

2. Plan structure and URLs

Shopify uses fixed prefixes: /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/. Map each WooCommerce category and product to its Shopify collection and product, and build the redirect map now, not after launch. Our guide to migrating without losing SEO rankings covers the redirect and metadata work in depth.

3. Move the data

  1. Clean the source data first: fix duplicates, missing SKUs and broken images.
  2. Export products, customers and orders, and import them into Shopify using CSV import or a migration tool.
  3. Check variants, prices, inventory, images, SEO titles and descriptions on a sample of products.
  4. Recreate discounts, shipping rates, taxes and policies.

See what data you can migrate to Shopify for the items that need special handling.

4. Build the storefront and test

  • Set up the theme, navigation and key templates.
  • Test the full purchase flow: cart, discount codes, shipping, tax, each payment method and order emails.
  • Test on real mobile devices.
  • Check analytics, ad pixels and Search Console are installed correctly.

5. Launch and monitor

  1. Load and test redirects on the pre-launch store.
  2. Point the domain, then verify redirects, canonicals, robots.txt and the sitemap on the live site.
  3. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
  4. Watch orders, errors and 404s daily for the first weeks, and compare traffic against your pre-migration baseline.

Our WooCommerce to Shopify migration service covers all of the above.

Frequently asked questions

How do I migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify?
Audit your data and URLs, plan the Shopify structure, migrate products, customers and orders, build and test the storefront, then launch with redirects in place and monitor closely.
Will I lose my SEO when moving from WooCommerce to Shopify?
Not if you map old URLs to new ones with 301 redirects, carry over titles, descriptions and content, and monitor after launch. Losses usually come from missing redirects.
Can I keep my customers' passwords when moving to Shopify?
No. Passwords are stored as hashes and cannot be imported, so customers are usually invited to reset or activate their accounts after migration.

Keep reading