Replatforming
Migrate from Magento or WooCommerce to Shopify
Most of what goes wrong in a replatform is not the build; it is the URLs. A migration that moves every product cleanly and forgets the redirect map loses the organic traffic that paid for the old store, and it takes months to notice and longer to recover. We do the URL inventory first, before anyone touches a theme, and treat the storefront as the part that follows.
Book a callWhy these migrations go wrong
The failure is almost never dramatic. The new store launches, it looks better, the team is pleased, and then over six to eight weeks organic sessions drift down by a third and nobody can point at the day it started. What happened is that a few thousand old URLs now return 404 or redirect to the homepage, and every link and every ranking attached to them has quietly stopped counting.
It happens because URL structure is the last thing anyone thinks about and the first thing that changes. Magento and WooCommerce both build category paths differently from Shopify, which insists on /products/ and /collections/ prefixes. Every product, every category, every CMS page and every filtered URL that ever ranked needs somewhere specific to land. That URL mapping is a spreadsheet problem, not a coding problem, and it has to exist before the build starts or it gets done in a hurry the night before launch.
We have spent years on the Magento side of this, which is the part most Shopify agencies are guessing at. Knowing where the data actually lives, attribute sets, EAV tables, the URL rewrite table that Magento maintains and nobody looks at, is what makes the export trustworthy.
The migration checklist
What a replatform actually consists of. Ask anyone quoting you for this to walk through the same list.
- URL inventory. Every indexed URL pulled from the live site, Search Console and analytics, not just what the CMS thinks exists. Historic URLs that still hold links count.
- SEO redirects. A redirect map with one row per old URL and its new destination, reviewed before the build. Anything without a sensible target gets decided deliberately rather than defaulting to the homepage.
- Product data transfer. SKUs, options, pricing, inventory, media and metafields, exported and reconciled against a count you agree upfront so nothing silently drops.
- Customer and order history. Accounts migrated without forcing a password reset where the platform allows it, and enough order history to keep support and lifecycle email working.
- Content and metadata. Titles, meta descriptions, canonical tags, structured data and image alt text carried over rather than regenerated from a template.
- Integrations. ERP, PIM, fulfilment, reviews, subscriptions and email, each one confirmed working on staging before launch, because each one is a separate failure.
- Launch and verification. DNS cutover rehearsed, then a crawl of the old URL set against the live site to prove every redirect resolves in one hop. Chains and loops cost you more than the redirect saved.
How a migration runs
Audit
We inventory the current store: URLs, catalogue size, custom functionality, integrations, and whatever has been bolted on over the years that nobody documented. You get a written scope and a fixed estimate from this, and it is useful even if you stop here.
Map
The redirect map is built and reviewed before development starts. This is the step that gets skipped, and it is the one that decides whether the migration costs you traffic.
Build and import
The storefront is built on Shopify while data import runs in parallel against a staging store. You get a real environment to check your own products in, not a sample of ten.
Cut over
Launch is rehearsed on staging first. On the day: DNS, redirects live, analytics and email verified, then a full crawl to confirm the map holds. We stay on the store through the first weeks while Google reprocesses the redirects.
When you should not migrate
If your Magento store works, your team knows it, and the only complaint is the hosting bill, replatforming is an expensive way to solve a hosting problem. We still do Magento development, and saying so has cost us migration work more than once.
The honest cases for moving are: you cannot hire for Magento at a price you want to pay, your team cannot ship a landing page without a developer, or your extension stack has reached the point where upgrades are a project in themselves. Those are real and they compound. A slow admin panel on its own is not.
Working with us
We are a small engineering team in Atlanta and we work with brands across the US on this, replatforming is a national, remote-friendly piece of work and most of our migration clients are nowhere near Georgia. What you get either way is direct contact with the people doing the migration, and a scope written down before anything starts.
If you want to talk it through before committing to anything, the audit stands on its own: you end up with a URL inventory and a written assessment of your current store that is yours regardless of who does the build.
Questions
Replatforming: common questions
Can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our team for a personalized consultation.
Will we lose search rankings when we migrate?
Some short-term movement is normal while Google reprocesses the redirects, typically a few weeks. Sustained loss is not normal and is almost always a redirect problem: missing rows, chains, or everything pointed at the homepage. That is why the map is built and reviewed before development starts rather than during launch week.
How long does a Magento to Shopify migration take?
For a typical catalogue, 8 to 14 weeks from kickoff to cutover. Catalogue size matters less than custom functionality and integrations, a 40,000-SKU store with a clean setup is faster than a 2,000-SKU store with six years of bespoke extensions.
Can you migrate customer accounts and order history?
Yes. Accounts migrate without forcing a password reset where the source platform allows it, and order history comes across in enough depth to keep support and lifecycle email working. Payment credentials never migrate; that is a limitation of how card storage works, not of the tooling.
What about WooCommerce?
Same process. WooCommerce exports are usually simpler than Magento but the URL structure is more varied, because permalink settings differ from site to site and often changed at some point. The inventory step matters just as much.
Do you offer a migration audit on its own?
Yes, and it is the right way to start. You get the URL inventory, a data assessment and a written scope with a fixed estimate. If you take that to another agency, it still works; it is a description of your store, not a sales document.
Related services
Shopify Development & Support for DTC Brands
Themes, migrations, integrations and ongoing support for DTC brands on Shopify and Shopify Plus.
Shopify Speed Optimization That Moves Rankings and Revenue
Core Web Vitals diagnosed from field data, fixed at the source, and monitored so the store does not quietly slow down again.
Product Information Management, Implemented Right
Pimcore, Salsify and BlueStone PIM implementations, integrated with the storefront and the systems that feed it.
Tell us what your store needs to do.
Send a short note about the platform you're on and what's in the way. You'll get a reply from an engineer, usually within one business day, not a sales sequence.