WooCommerce to Shopify migration
The most common migration we run, and the one most often botched. The data moves easily. What decides whether it goes well is the redirect plan, because every product and category URL changes.
Brands we build and scale
The redirect map is written before any data moves.
Every URL changes when you leave WooCommerce. That is not a detail to handle at the end β it is the single thing that decides whether the organic traffic you have spent years earning arrives on the new store or disappears.
So the URL map comes first: every old path matched to its new equivalent, reviewed against Search Console and your top landing pages, and shipped as 301s with the launch rather than patched in afterwards. Titles and meta descriptions carry across, internal linking is rebuilt, and we watch Search Console closely for the weeks that follow.
Done that way, rankings dip briefly and recover. Done without a map, they do not come back on their own β and by the time it is obvious, the old store is gone and the evidence with it.
What sends brands off WooCommerce
Maintenance never ends
Hosting, plugin updates, security patches and the conflicts between them. On WooCommerce that work is yours forever, and it is the cost nobody budgets for.
Speed depends on your host
A WooCommerce store is only as fast as the stack under it. Most brands discover this after a traffic spike rather than before.
Plugin sprawl
Six plugins doing what Shopify does natively, each with its own renewal and its own way of breaking on update.
Checkout is your problem
Every conversion improvement in the checkout is something you have to build and maintain. On Shopify it is the most tested checkout in ecommerce.
What actually breaks
Every migration page on the internet lists what moves across. These are the things that do not, and they are what decides whether the project goes well. We would rather you read them now than discover them at launch.
URL structure
WooCommerce uses /product/ and /product-category/. Shopify uses /products/ and /collections/. Every single URL changes, which is why the 301 map is written before anything moves.
Plugin functionality
Anything a plugin did needs a Shopify equivalent β an app, a theme change, or custom work. We list these explicitly during scoping rather than finding them at launch.
Custom fields
ACF and custom post meta map to Shopify metafields, but the mapping is a decision, not an export. Getting it wrong makes the catalogue hard to merchandise later.
Subscriptions
WooCommerce Subscriptions data does not transfer cleanly to any Shopify subscription app. Existing subscribers usually need a managed re-authorisation. Plan for it.
How the migration runs
Scope and audit
We go through the WooCommerce store properly β catalogue, customisation, integrations, and anything platform-specific that will need a Shopify equivalent. You get the list before you get a quote.
URL map and 301 plan
Written and reviewed before any data moves, against your actual traffic rather than a generic pattern.
Data migration
Products, variants, customers, orders and content, into a staging store you can check against the live one.
Build and rebuild
Theme, the Shopify equivalents of whatever the old platform did natively, and the integrations you actually use.
Launch
DNS, redirects live with it, and analytics and Search Console verified on the new property the same day.
Watch
Crawl and ranking monitoring for the weeks after, because that is when a missed redirect shows up and when it is still cheap to fix.
Questions we get every week
Will we lose our Google rankings?
Not if the redirect plan is done properly, and this is where careless migrations cause real damage. Every WooCommerce URL changes, so we build a complete URL map before any data moves, 301 each old URL to its new equivalent, carry over title tags and meta descriptions, rebuild internal linking and watch Search Console closely for the first several weeks. Done that way, rankings dip briefly and recover. Done without a map, they do not come back on their own.
How long does a WooCommerce migration take?
Two to three weeks for a typical catalogue is realistic β under a thousand products, standard variants, no unusual plugin logic. Larger catalogues, heavy customisation or subscription data push it out. We scope it before quoting rather than giving you an optimistic number and revising it later.
Can we keep our WordPress blog?
Yes, and for content-heavy brands it is often the right answer. Run the storefront on Shopify and keep WordPress for content on a subdirectory or subdomain. A subdirectory is better for SEO and harder to configure; a subdomain is simpler and slightly weaker. We will tell you which is worth it for your traffic rather than defaulting to one.
What happens to our subscription customers?
This is the part to plan for first. WooCommerce Subscriptions holds payment tokens that cannot be handed to a Shopify subscription app, so existing subscribers generally need to re-authorise. We sequence that as a managed campaign with the migration rather than letting it happen by accident, because done badly it is the fastest way to lose recurring revenue.
Should we migrate at all?
Not always. If you have in-house developer capacity, a content-led business already on WordPress, or margins where per-transaction fees genuinely matter, WooCommerce may still be the better fit. We will say so on the call β we would rather lose the project than move you onto the wrong platform.
Explore next
Thinking about leaving WooCommerce?
Send us your store URL. You will get a written assessment of what moves cleanly, what needs rebuilding, and whether the migration is worth it at all β we will tell you if it is not.