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How to Migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide

Anurag Pandey
Last updated on October 1, 2026
eCommerce, Shopify, Woocommerce
17 minutes read

Table of Contents

A WooCommerce to Shopify migration moves your products, customers, orders, and content from a self-hosted WordPress store to Shopify’s hosted platform. Done properly, it takes 1 to 4 weeks for most stores, keeps your Google rankings, and causes zero downtime for customers.

I’m Anurag Pandey, founder of ControlF5. Our team has moved WooCommerce stores of every size to Shopify, from 50-product boutiques to catalogs with thousands of variants. Most problems we fix come from the same few mistakes: missing redirects, broken variants, and customers who can’t log in after launch.

This guide shows you how to migrate WooCommerce to Shopify step by step, including:

What data moves across, and what doesn’t
The 3 ways to migrate, with cost and time for each
A 10-step process from backup to launch
A 301 redirect mapping table to protect your SEO
A post-migration checklist for the first 30 days

Why Switch from WooCommerce to Shopify?

Most store owners switch from WooCommerce to Shopify for one reason: they want to spend time selling, not maintaining a website. WooCommerce is flexible, but you manage hosting, security, plugin updates, and speed yourself. Shopify handles all of that for a monthly fee.

Factor	WooCommerce	Shopify
Hosting	You buy and manage it	Included
Security and SSL	Your responsibility	Included, PCI compliant
Updates	Core, theme and plugin updates, often conflicting	Automatic
Speed	Depends on host and plugins	Fast global CDN included
Checkout	Plugin-based	Shopify Checkout, Shop Pay
Apps and features	Plugins, variable quality	Shopify App Store
Support	Forums, host, developers	24/7 Shopify support
Best for	Stores needing deep custom code	Stores that want to grow with less maintenance

Still deciding? Read our full Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison before you start.

What Data Can You Migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify?

Most of your store data can move from WooCommerce to Shopify, but a few items need extra work or can’t be transferred at all. Knowing this upfront prevents surprises after launch.

Data	Can it migrate?	How
Products, variants, images, SKUs, prices, inventory	Yes	CSV import, Shopify’s migration app or a migration app
Product categories	Yes	Become Shopify collections
Product attributes and custom fields	Yes, with mapping	Shopify options (max 3 per product) and metafields
Customers and addresses	Yes	CSV import or migration app
Order history	Yes	Migration app (Matrixify, LitExtension, Cart2Cart)
Product reviews	Yes	Review app import (Judge.me, Loox, Yotpo)
Blog posts and pages	Yes	Migration app or manual copy
Coupons and gift cards	Partly	Recreate discounts in Shopify; gift cards depend on the app
Customer passwords	No	Encrypted; customers reactivate their accounts
Plugin features (subscriptions, bookings, product add-ons)	No	Replace with a Shopify app
Theme design	No	Rebuild in a Shopify theme

Two Shopify limits matter most for WooCommerce stores:

Options: Shopify allows up to 3 options per product (for example size, colour, material). WooCommerce products with more attributes need some attributes moved to metafields or split into separate products.
Variants: Shopify allows up to 2,048 variants per product (raised from 100 in October 2025), so large variable products usually fit.

3 Ways to Migrate WooCommerce to Shopify

There are three ways to migrate WooCommerce to Shopify. The right one depends on your catalog size, your budget and how much of the technical work you want to do yourself.

1. Manual CSV Export and Import

Export CSV files from WooCommerce and import them into Shopify, either through Shopify’s own migration app or Shopify’s product CSV template. It’s free, but customer and order files need reformatting to match Shopify’s templates, and orders usually need an app anyway. Best for small catalogs with simple products.

2. WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Apps

Apps like Matrixify, LitExtension and Cart2Cart connect to your WooCommerce store and move products, customers, orders and often blog posts automatically. They’re paid, usually priced by the number of records, and most offer a free demo migration so you can check the results first. Best for stores with order history or a few thousand products.

3. Hire a Shopify Migration Expert

An agency plans the data mapping, runs the migration, rebuilds your theme, sets up redirects and tests everything before launch. It costs the most, but it’s the safest option for stores with custom plugins, large catalogs, subscriptions or strong Google rankings to protect. See our Shopify migration services.

Method	Cost	Time	Skill needed	Best for
Manual CSV	Free	2–5 days	Medium (spreadsheets)	Under ~100 simple products
Migration app	Paid, by record count	1–3 days for data	Low to medium	Stores with order history and standard setup
Shopify expert	Project-based	2–6 weeks including design and QA	None	Large, custom or SEO-critical stores

Step 1: WooCommerce to Shopify Pre-Migration Checklist

Good preparation prevents almost every migration problem. Complete these tasks before you move any data.

Back Up Your WooCommerce Store

Create a full backup of your database and files with a plugin like UpdraftPlus or your hosting control panel. Keep it until at least a month after launch.

Export a List of Every URL

Crawl your site with Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit, or export your XML sitemaps, and save every product, category, page and blog URL in a spreadsheet. You’ll need this list to build 301 redirects in Step 8. Also export your top landing pages from Google Search Console so you know which URLs matter most.

Audit Pages, Plugins and Integrations

List every page you need to keep, every active plugin and every third-party tool (email, payments, shipping, reviews, subscriptions, accounting). For each plugin, find the Shopify app that replaces it.

Clean Up Your Data

Delete old test products, duplicate customers and discontinued items before you export. Migrating clean data is faster and cheaper, since most migration apps charge by the number of records.

Plan the Timing

Schedule your launch for a quiet sales period. Avoid Black Friday, Cyber Monday and your own peak season.

Step 2: Set Up Your Shopify Store

Your new Shopify store needs to be ready before it can receive data.

Sign up at shopify.com and start a free trial. Compare plans in our Shopify pricing guide.
Go to Settings → General and add your store name, contact email and address.
Go to Settings → Markets and set your primary market and currency.
Go to Online Store → Themes and choose a theme. Our list of free Shopify Horizon themes is a good starting point.
Install the Shopify apps that replace your WooCommerce plugins, such as Judge.me for reviews and Klaviyo for email. See our list of the best Shopify apps.

New to Shopify? Our guide to starting your first Shopify store covers setup in more detail.

Step 3: Export Data from WooCommerce

Next, export WooCommerce data into files that Shopify or a migration app can read. If you use a migration app, you can skip most of this step, since the app pulls data directly from WooCommerce.

Export Products

In WordPress, go to Products → All Products → Export. Choose the columns and categories to include, then click Generate CSV. Shopify’s migration app can read this file without changes.

Export Customers and Orders

WooCommerce’s built-in exporter only handles products. To export customers and orders, use a plugin such as WP All Export, then reformat the columns to match Shopify’s customer CSV template.

Export Blog Posts, Pages and Reviews

WordPress content and reviews don’t export in a Shopify-ready format. Use a migration app, copy key pages manually, and import reviews through your Shopify review app.

Step 4: Import WooCommerce Products to Shopify

Now move your data into Shopify. Always run a test import first, check the results, then run the full import.

Using Shopify’s Migration App

Shopify offers a first-party migration app that imports your WooCommerce product CSV with a few clicks. It handles products well, but customers and orders need separate work.

Using Matrixify

Matrixify imports products, customers, orders, redirects, blog posts and metafields from spreadsheets, and can read WooCommerce exports. It’s our choice for large catalogs because every field can be checked in a spreadsheet before import.

Using LitExtension or Cart2Cart

LitExtension and Cart2Cart connect to WooCommerce directly and move data automatically, with no spreadsheets. Run their free demo migration first. Compare more tools in our list of Shopify migration apps.

After the import, compare record counts: the number of products, variants, customers and orders in Shopify should match WooCommerce.

Step 5: Organize Products into Shopify Collections

WooCommerce categories become Shopify collections, but the structure rarely transfers perfectly.

Review a sample of products: titles, descriptions, images, prices, variants and inventory.
Go to Products → Collections and rebuild your categories. Use automated collections, based on tags or product type, wherever possible so new products sort themselves.
Add consistent product tags and set up filters in your theme so customers can narrow results by size, colour or price.
Check products with more than 3 attributes. Move extra attributes into metafields and show them on the product page.

Step 6: Design and Customize Your Shopify Theme

Your WooCommerce theme can’t be moved, so the design is rebuilt in Shopify.

Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize and build your homepage sections: banner, featured collections, reviews and brand story.
Go to Online Store → Navigation and recreate your header and footer menus.
Go to Online Store → Pages and recreate About, Contact, FAQ, Shipping, Returns and Privacy pages.
Upload your logo, favicon and brand colours, and check every template in mobile view.

This is also the right time to improve the design. Most of our clients use the migration to fix the conversion problems they had on WooCommerce. See our top Shopify themes for ideas.

Step 7: Set Up Payments, Shipping and Taxes

Make your store ready to take orders.

Payments

Go to Settings → Payments. Activate Shopify Payments where available, and add PayPal. Indian stores can use Razorpay, PayU or other Shopify payment gateways for India. You can also add Buy Now Pay Later apps.

Shipping

Go to Settings → Shipping and delivery. Create shipping zones and recreate your WooCommerce rates: flat rate, free shipping above a minimum order, weight-based or carrier-calculated. See our list of Shopify shipping apps.

Taxes

Go to Settings → Taxes and duties. Turn on automatic tax calculation where Shopify supports it, and add your tax registration details (for example, GST for Indian sellers).

Step 8: Keep Your SEO: 301 Redirects and Metadata

This is the step that protects your Google rankings. Shopify uses fixed URL structures, so almost every WooCommerce URL changes. Without 301 redirects, Google and returning customers land on 404 pages, and the rankings you’ve built can drop within days.

WooCommerce to Shopify URL Redirect Mapping

Use this table to map your old WooCommerce URLs to their new Shopify paths. Your exact WooCommerce URLs depend on your permalink settings, so check them against the URL list from Step 1.

Page type	Typical WooCommerce URL	Shopify URL
Product	/product/blue-cotton-shirt/	/products/blue-cotton-shirt
Product category	/product-category/shirts/	/collections/shirts
Sub-category	/product-category/men/shirts/	/collections/mens-shirts
Product tag	/product-tag/summer/	/collections/all/summer
Shop page	/shop/	/collections/all
Page	/about-us/	/pages/about-us
Blog post	/how-to-style-shirts/	/blogs/news/how-to-style-shirts
Blog category	/category/style-tips/	/blogs/news/tagged/style-tips
Cart	/cart/	/cart
My account	/my-account/	/account

Set Up 301 Redirects in Shopify

Build a spreadsheet with two columns: old path and new path.
Import it in bulk under Online Store → Navigation → URL Redirects → Import, or with Matrixify for large lists.
Redirect every old URL that had traffic or backlinks. Point deleted products to the closest matching collection, not the homepage.

Shopify only applies a redirect when the old path returns a 404. If a live Shopify page already exists at that path, the redirect is ignored.

Keep Titles, Meta Descriptions and Alt Text

Move your SEO titles, meta descriptions and image alt text across with the products. Most migration apps can map Yoast or Rank Math fields to Shopify’s SEO fields. Check that nothing is truncated or duplicated after import.

Fix Internal Links in Blog Posts

Old blog posts still link to WooCommerce URLs. Crawl the new store with Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit, filter for redirects and 404s, and update each link to its new Shopify URL.

Submit Your New Sitemap

After launch, submit yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml in Google Search Console. Shopify generates and updates the sitemap automatically.

Want this handled for you? Every ControlF5 migration includes SEO-safe Shopify migration with full redirect mapping and 30 days of Search Console monitoring.

Step 9: Test Your Shopify Store Before Launch

Test everything while the store is still password-protected. Your WooCommerce store keeps selling in the meantime.

Checkout: place test orders with each payment method, including a discount code and free-shipping threshold.
Emails: check order confirmation, shipping and account emails.
Products: spot-check prices, variants, inventory and images across categories.
Data counts: compare products, variants, customers and orders against WooCommerce.
Redirects: test a sample of old URLs from your Step 1 list, including your top 20 landing pages.
Mobile: go through the full journey on a phone, from homepage to checkout.
Speed: run your homepage, a collection and a product page through PageSpeed Insights. Read our guide to improving Core Web Vitals if scores are low.

Step 10: Connect Your Domain and Launch

When testing is complete, point your domain to Shopify.

Run a final delta migration to bring across orders and customers created since your main import.
In Shopify, go to Settings → Domains → Connect existing domain.
At your domain registrar, such as GoDaddy or Namecheap, point the A record to Shopify’s IP address (23.227.38.65) and the www CNAME to shops.myshopify.com. Check Shopify’s domain settings for the current values.
Wait for DNS to update. It’s often under an hour, but can take up to 48 hours.
Remove the store password and set your domain as primary.
Keep your WooCommerce site and hosting for a few weeks as a backup, but block it from search engines.

Tell Customers About Their Accounts

Customer passwords can’t be migrated, because WooCommerce stores them encrypted. With Shopify’s customer accounts, customers sign in with a one-time code sent to their email. If you use legacy accounts instead, send an account activation email. Either way, email customers at launch so they aren’t confused at login.

WooCommerce to Shopify Post-Migration Checklist

The first 30 days after launch decide whether your migration keeps its traffic. Work through this list:

Launch day

Place a live order with a real payment and refund it
Confirm Google Analytics, Meta Pixel and other tracking are firing
Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console
Email customers about the new store and how to sign in

First week

Check Search Console daily for 404 errors and add missing redirects
Compare daily sales and conversion rate against your WooCommerce baseline
Confirm your Google Merchant Center feed is approved and products are live
Reconnect email flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase)

First 30 days

Track rankings for your top 20 keywords and landing pages
Update backlinks you control, such as social profiles and directory listings, to new URLs
Collect new reviews and check that imported reviews display correctly
Cancel WooCommerce hosting and plugin subscriptions once everything is stable

How Much Does WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Cost?

WooCommerce to Shopify migration costs range from free, if you do it yourself with CSV files, to a few thousand dollars for an agency-led migration with a new design. The biggest cost drivers are catalog size, order history, custom features and design work.

Cost item	DIY (CSV)	Migration app	Shopify expert
Data migration	Free	Paid, by number of records	Included
Shopify plan	Monthly subscription	Monthly subscription	Monthly subscription
Theme	Free or paid theme	Free or paid theme	Custom or customized theme
Apps replacing plugins	Monthly app fees	Monthly app fees	Monthly app fees
Redirects and SEO	Your time	Your time (some apps help)	Included
Typical total	Your time + subscriptions	App fee + subscriptions	[From $X, set by ControlF5]

For an exact figure, ask ControlF5 for a free migration quote.

How Long Does WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Take?

Store size	Products	Typical timeline
Small	Under 500	1–2 weeks
Medium	500–5,000	2–4 weeks
Large or Shopify Plus	5,000+ or complex integrations	4–8 weeks

Data transfer itself usually takes hours to a few days. Most of the time goes into theme design, app setup, redirect mapping and testing.

7 Common WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Mistakes

These are the mistakes we fix most often when stores come to us after a DIY migration.

Launching without 301 redirects. Traffic drops sharply because every old product and category URL returns a 404.
Skipping the test import. A full import with mapping errors leaves thousands of products to fix by hand.
Ignoring the 3-option limit. Products with 4 or more attributes lose variants on import unless extra attributes move to metafields.
Not warning customers about accounts. Returning customers can’t log in, contact support or abandon their order.
Forgetting non-product pages. About, shipping, returns and blog posts often carry backlinks and rankings too.
Migrating during peak season. Any issue costs far more during sales events. Migrate at least 6–8 weeks before Black Friday.
Deleting WooCommerce too soon. Keep a backup and the old site (hidden from search) until the new store is stable.

WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Case Studies

The Alpine Apothecary: WooCommerce to Shopify Migration and Redesign

We migrated The Alpine Apothecary’s full WooCommerce store to Shopify, redesigned it, and improved site speed and the shopping experience for their wellness community. Products migrated: 250+ · Timeline: 6 weeks · Result: 45% faster load time. Read the full case study.

A Furst Gear D2C Brand: WooCommerce to Shopify for Better Performance and Sales

This Furst Gear brand struggled with slow performance and backend issues on WooCommerce. After the move to Shopify, they gained easier store management, stronger SEO, and higher conversions. Conversion rate went up by 28% within 3 months of launch. Read the case study.

Need Help With Your WooCommerce to Shopify Migration?

A DIY migration works well for small, simple stores. If your store has thousands of products, order history, custom plugins or Google rankings you can’t afford to lose, a specialist migration is the safer path.

ControlF5’s Shopify migration experts handle the full move: data mapping, product and customer migration, theme rebuild, 301 redirects, testing and launch, with zero downtime and SEO protection included.

Get a free WooCommerce to Shopify migration quote →

WooCommerce to Shopify Migration FAQs

Question: How long does it take to migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify?

Answer: Most small stores migrate in 1–2 weeks, medium stores in 2–4 weeks and large or Shopify Plus stores in 4–8 weeks. The data transfer takes hours to days; design, redirects and testing take the rest.

Question: How much does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration cost?

Answer: A DIY migration with CSV files is free apart from your Shopify plan and apps. Migration apps charge by the number of products, customers and orders. Agency migrations are priced per project based on catalog size, design and integrations.

Question: Will I lose my SEO rankings when I move from WooCommerce to Shopify?

Answer: Not if you set up 301 redirects from every old URL to its new Shopify URL and keep your titles, meta descriptions and content. Small ranking changes for a few weeks are normal while Google recrawls the site.

Question: Can I migrate customer passwords from WooCommerce to Shopify?

Answer: No. Passwords are stored encrypted and can’t be transferred by any tool. Customer accounts, addresses and order history do migrate. Customers sign in on Shopify with an email code or activate their account.

Question: Can I migrate orders and order history?

Answer: Yes. Apps like Matrixify, LitExtension and Cart2Cart migrate past orders with their line items, totals and statuses, so customers keep their history and your reports stay complete.

Question: What is the best WooCommerce to Shopify migration app?

Answer: Matrixify is best for large catalogs and full control through spreadsheets. LitExtension and Cart2Cart are easier for non-technical users because they connect to WooCommerce directly. Shopify’s own migration app is a free option for products.

Question: Can I move my WordPress blog to Shopify?

Answer: Yes. Blog posts can move to Shopify’s built-in blog with a migration app or manually. Redirect each old post URL to its new /blogs/news/ URL to keep its rankings.

Question: Is it worth switching from WooCommerce to Shopify?

Answer: For most growing stores, yes. Shopify removes hosting, security and plugin maintenance, and gives you a fast, reliable checkout. WooCommerce can still suit stores that depend on heavy custom code or WordPress-specific features.

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Anurag Pandey

I lead ControlF5, a Top Rated Plus agency specializing in WordPress, Shopify, and GoHighLevel development. With over 4,000+ successful projects on Upwork, 150+ verified reviews on Clutch, and 300+ completed projects on Freelancer, my team and I help global brands grow through strategic design, automation, and SEO excellence. Holding a B.E. in Computer Science, I’m passionate about combining AI-driven workflows and GoHighLevel automations to simplify marketing, boost organic SEO, and scale customer engagement. I actively share insights across web development and AI communities to help others navigate the evolving digital landscape. For me, web design isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s about building SEO-optimized, conversion-ready experiences that create measurable business growth in the AI-powered era.