Migrating to Shopify feels like a massive project, and if you have been running a store on another platform, the thought of moving everything without breaking it is enough to keep you stuck. But staying on a platform that limits your growth costs more than the short-term effort of migrating.
Here’s the good news: switching platforms doesn’t have to feel like moving abroad. First, clear instructions can turn the migration into a step-by-step process instead of a guessing game. And second, technology is here to help. For instance, BuildYourStore generates a store from scratch using AI, so you can skip the overall setup process and focus entirely on migrating your data.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to migrate to Shopify step by step, from backing up your product and customer information to setting up your new account, protecting your SEO, and launching your new store with confidence.
Why Migrate To Shopify?
Today, Shopify offers one of the most powerful platforms in the e-commerce landscape, with 5+ million active sellers worldwide and 28% market share in the US. Surprise? Not really. In general terms, Shopify offers a deeper app ecosystem, faster page loads, stronger analytics, and more flexibility than most platforms you might be leaving.
So, if you have been dealing with limited customization or sluggish store performance and want to switch, you are not alone. In fact, replatforming is not just a Shopify trend, as it reflects a broader shift in e-commerce. 40% of B2B organizations are actively considering switching platforms to improve business performance and capabilities, and 74% believe falling behind on modern commerce technology could actively harm their business outcomes.
So, why migrate to Shopify, specifically? Here are a few common reasons:
- You’ve hit a growth ceiling. Many starter platforms charge extra for things like product variants, staff accounts, or catalog size, limits that don’t matter on day one but become a real problem once you scale. Shopify raised its variant limit to 2,000 per product in 2025, giving growing catalogs a lot more room before hitting a wall.
- Checkout conversion directly impacts revenue. For small sellers and Shopify dropshippers, every abandoned cart matters more because there’s less traffic to work with. According to an independent study commissioned by Shopify and conducted by one of the ‘Big Three’ global consulting firms, Shopify’s conversion rate outperforms competitors by as much as 36%, with a typical improvement of around 15%, all thanks to its high-performing checkout flow.
- Shopify is the most common destination when sellers switch platforms. This is a well-worn path, not a niche move. Among businesses that migrated platforms in the first half of 2024, almost 70% moved to Shopify, far ahead of the next closest platform (WooCommerce) at around 13%, according to Statista.
- The app ecosystem replaces the need for a developer. Small sellers and dropshippers usually can’t afford custom development. 75% Shopify users rely on apps to run their business, installing six apps on average, covering things like supplier syncing, automated fulfillment, and inventory tracking without writing a line of code.
- Shopify is built for e-commerce first (not a website with a store added on). A lot of starter platforms are website builders at their core, with selling features layered in later. Shopify’s entire infrastructure (checkout, inventory, fulfillment, multi-channel selling) is built around running a store.
- AI and new sales channels are becoming standard, not premium add-ons. Sellers migrating now are also chasing access to newer discovery channels. Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts let merchants sell directly through ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, AI Mode in Google Search, and the Gemini app, all managed from the Shopify Admin, with products discoverable in ChatGPT by default and no extra fees beyond standard processing rates.
- Pricing is competitive, not a premium tier. Cost is often the biggest hesitation for a small seller considering a switch. Shopify’s entry-level plan starts at $39, a similar price point to most starter platforms’ e-commerce tiers, so sellers usually aren’t paying more to get significantly more infrastructure, support, and room to grow.
All in all, the case for Shopify is clear: it is the platform serious sellers choose, and BYS removes the biggest barrier to getting there.
Time to get hands-on. If you’re ready to migrate from your current e-commerce platform to Shopify, follow these steps, and you’ll be good to go.
Step 1: Plan Your Migration & Back Up Your Data
Now that you know why Shopify is the right destination, the first real step is preparation. A successful migration starts long before you import a single product.
Download your current data and inventory. That means products, customers, order history, blog posts, pages, gift cards, and discount codes. Open your current platform’s export tools and download everything into CSV or Excel files. If your platform does not offer easy exports, check for third-party migration apps that can pull the data for you.
Also, screenshot your current store design, navigation structure, and key pages. These references are invaluable when you are rebuilding the look and feel on Shopify.
Next, benchmark your SEO. Open Google Search Console and record your top-performing URLs, the keywords they rank for, and current organic traffic numbers. You will need this data later when setting up redirects.
Finally, create a URL mapping spreadsheet. List every old URL in one column and its new Shopify equivalent in the next. This spreadsheet becomes your redirect blueprint in Step 4.
💡 Pro Tip: Focus your URL map on your top 50 pages by organic traffic first. These carry the most ranking value, and getting their redirects right protects the majority of your search visibility.
What Data Can You Migrate?
Not everything transfers perfectly, so set your expectations early:
- Products (titles, descriptions, images, variants, prices) ✅
- Customer lists (names, emails, addresses) ✅
- Order history (imported as read-only records) ✅
- Blog posts and pages ✅
- Gift cards and store credits (partial; depends on your source platform)
- Customer passwords ❌ Customers will need to reset on their first login
Planning and backups are the foundation of a clean migration. Skip this step, and you risk losing data or rankings.
Step 2: Set Up Your New Shopify Store With BuildYourStore
With your data backed up and your URL map ready, it is time to build the destination store. This is where most migrations stall, because setting up a Shopify store from scratch means choosing a theme, configuring pages, and spending hours on design before you can even start importing.
BuildYourStore skips all of that. You can build a Shopify store with AI and have it ready in minutes. Here is how it works:
- Choose your niche from BYS’s available categories (Pets, Electronics, Fashion & Beauty, Home & Garden, Sports).
- Let the AI build your store. In under two minutes, BYS generates a complete Shopify store with a high-converting theme, 10 pre-selected winning products, AI-optimized product pages, and a free premium .store domain.
- Connect to Shopify and start customizing.
The result is a professional, conversion-ready store that is immediately set up to receive your migrated data. Your new store arrives with a professional theme, ready-to-go product pages, and none of the amateur layouts that make customers bounce.
For anyone who has tried building a store before and ended up frustrated with the result, this is the shortcut. Your new Shopify store looks polished from day one, and you keep 100% of your profits. Give it a try now and build your store for free in minutes.
Step 3: Import Your Data Into Shopify
Your new store is live and ready. Now it is time to bring over the data you backed up in Step 1.
There are four main migration methods, ranked from simplest to most complex:
1. Copy and paste. For very small stores with a handful of products, you can manually recreate listings in Shopify. You can do this from Products > Add Product, and fill in with each product’s information.
2. CSV import. Export your products from the old platform, format the file to match Shopify’s CSV template, and upload through Products > Import in your Shopify admin. In just a few clicks, everything is ready to go live on your new Shopify store.
3. Migration app. Shopify’s free Store Migration app handles direct imports from WooCommerce, Wix, Square, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Clover, and Lightspeed. It transfers products, customers, and orders automatically, but it’s best suited to smaller catalogs (under 500 products).
Keep in mind that it doesn’t move blog content, redirects, or metafields, and it doesn’t support Magento or BigCommerce natively. Those need a third-party app like Matrixify or a migration partner.
4. Shopify API or Shopify Partner. For complex stores with custom data structures (large catalogs, custom fields, subscriptions, or multi-location inventory), hiring a Shopify Partner or building against the Shopify API gives you full control over the transfer. This route costs more, but it’s the safest option if you’re moving off a platform with no direct app support, like Magento or BigCommerce.
💡 Pro Tip: Start with products, then move to customers, then orders. After each import, verify that product images loaded correctly, variants are accurate, pricing matches, and collections are properly organized.
Platform-Specific Tips
Depending on where you are switching from, here are a few extra tips you might find helpful during the process:
- WooCommerce: Use Shopify’s Store Migration app directly. It handles products, customers, and orders without CSV formatting.
- Magento: Export via CSV or use a migration app like Matrixify for large catalogs with complex product structures.
- Wix or Squarespace: Export products as CSV files. Import customers separately through Shopify’s customer import tool.
Regardless of your source platform, Shopify has a transfer path, so pick the method that matches your store’s complexity.
Step 4: Protect Your SEO Rankings
Data is in your new store, but the migration is not done until your search rankings are protected.
Quick reality check: a recent analysis of 892 domain migrations found that it took 523 days on average for a new domain to match the old domain’s organic traffic, and 17% of sites never returned to their prior traffic levels even after 1,000 days.
To avoid that, meet your new best friend: 301 redirects. These forward your ranking signals to the new URL, so Google knows the page moved rather than disappeared.
Here’s how to set them up easily and quickly:
- Pull out the URL mapping spreadsheet you created in Step 1.
- In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Content > URL Redirects > Create URL Redirects.
- For every old URL, create a 301 redirect pointing to its new Shopify equivalent.
- After your redirects are in place, resubmit your sitemap to Google Search Console. This tells Google to recrawl and reindex your site on its new URLs.
- Monitor rankings for 30 to 60 days after you’ve created your redirects.
💡 Pro Tip: Avoid redirect chains. If an old URL redirects to an intermediate URL that then redirects to the final Shopify URL, you lose ranking power at each hop. Keep every redirect a single step: old URL directly to new URL.
Step 5: Customize Your Store & Configure Settings
With your data imported and SEO protected, it is time to make the store fully operational.
Start with your theme. If you used BuildYourStore, your store already has a high-converting theme in place. Adjust the colors, upload your logo, tweak fonts, and organize your navigation to match your brand identity. If you are migrating from another platform, use those screenshots from Step 1 as a reference.
Next, set up your payments. Enable Shopify Payments for the fastest setup, or connect a third-party payment gateway if you prefer. Make sure your checkout flow supports the payment methods your customers expect.
Configure shipping zones and rates to match your fulfillment setup. If you are dropshipping, connect your supplier through your preferred fulfillment app.
Set up automatic tax calculation for your selling regions. Shopify handles most tax rules natively, but double-check the settings for your specific markets.
Finally, install essential apps: email marketing, customer reviews, and analytics at a minimum. Your BYS store already comes with premium apps and sales badges pre-installed, which gives you a head start.
Bottom line, customization is where your store becomes yours; configure payments, shipping, and apps before you go live.
Step 6: Test & Launch Your New Store
Everything is set up, but do not flip the switch until you have tested every detail.
Here’s a quick checklist before going live:
- Place a test order using a real payment method. Walk through the entire flow: add to cart, enter shipping details, complete payment, and confirm you receive the order confirmation email. This catches issues that a visual check will miss.
- Check mobile responsiveness. Most e-commerce traffic comes from mobile devices, so your store needs to look and function perfectly on smaller screens.
- Verify your redirects are working. Use a crawl tool or manually spot-check your top 20 URLs from the mapping spreadsheet. Every old URL should land on the correct new page with no errors.
- When everything checks out, point your domain to Shopify. If you are using the free .store domain from BYS, you can go live immediately. Otherwise, update your DNS settings with your domain registrar.
- Notify your customers about the move. Send a launch email, update your social media profiles, and if your old site is still accessible, add a redirect to the new store.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to migrate to Shopify?
Most small-to-medium stores can complete the full migration in one to three days. Larger stores with thousands of products and complex data may take one to two weeks. Using BuildYourStore.ai for the store setup cuts the process significantly since your destination store is ready in minutes instead of hours.
Can I migrate customer passwords to Shopify?
No, customer passwords cannot be transferred between platforms for security reasons. After migration, your customers will need to use the “Reset Password” link on their first login. Send a proactive email before the switch explaining the change and including a direct password reset link.
Will I lose my SEO rankings when migrating to Shopify?
No, you will not lose your SEO rankings if you set up 301 redirects correctly. Permanent redirects forward your ranking signals to the new URLs, so Google recognizes the move rather than treating it as lost content. The biggest risks are incomplete redirect maps and redirect chains. Plan carefully using the URL mapping method in this guide, and your rankings should stabilize within weeks.
What is the easiest way to migrate to Shopify?
The easiest way to migrate to Shopify from another e-commerce platform is to generate an AI Shopify store with BuildYourStore in under two minutes, then transfer your data via a CSV file or a migration tool. Combining both tools gives you the fastest path from the old platform to a live Shopify store.
How much does it cost to migrate to Shopify?
The migration itself can be free if you handle it yourself using CSV imports or Shopify’s Store Migration app. BuildYourStore creates your new store at no cost, with no credit card required. Your only ongoing expense is Shopify’s monthly plan.
Your Migration To Shopify Starts Here
You now have every step you need to migrate to Shopify confidently: back up your data, build your new store, import everything, protect your SEO with redirects, and test before launch. The process is straightforward when you follow it in order.
The part that takes up the most time is setting up your new store from scratch. The good news? BuildYourStore generates a ready-to-sell Shopify store, including winning products, a high-converting theme, product pages, and a free .store domain. No design skills needed. No hours spent configuring themes. Just a conversion-ready store. Give it a try and get your free store in minutes.
In the meantime, you can continue learning with some of our blog articles for Shopify:
