WooCommerce and Shopify both run serious stores, but they ask very different things of you. WooCommerce gives you full control and a hosting bill, a plugin stack, and update chores to match. Shopify gives you a hosted platform where checkout, security, and hosting are handled for you, and you pay a monthly plan instead of managing a server.
Moving between them is mostly a data job: export your products, customers, and orders, import them into Shopify, rebuild the theme, and point every old URL at its new home. The part that breaks stores is not the data move. It is the five things that do not transfer automatically, and the redirects nobody sets up. This guide walks through the whole move in order, so you keep your products, your customers, and your Google rankings.
The short answer
Set up Shopify, export your WooCommerce products and customers as CSV files, import them with Shopify's free Store Migration app, rebuild your theme on Shopify, set up a 301 redirect for every old URL, then switch your domain and test. Order history, blog posts, coupons, and customer passwords need extra steps or a third-party migration app, and they are covered below.
A small store with a few dozen products can move in a weekend. A large catalog with custom features, reviews, and SEO to protect takes 2 to 6 weeks. Either way, do the import on a development copy first and keep WooCommerce live until the Shopify store is tested and ready. Shopify's own WooCommerce migration guide covers the same steps and is worth keeping open while you work.
What moves, and what does not
What moves cleanly: products with titles, descriptions, prices, images, and variants; customer names and email addresses; and your product and customer CSV data through Shopify's free Store Migration app. What needs a third-party app: order history, blog posts and pages, coupons, and product reviews. What does not move at all: your WordPress theme, your customer passwords, your plugin features, and your URL structure.
Customer passwords deserve a line of their own. WooCommerce and Shopify encrypt passwords differently, so no migration tool can carry them over. On Shopify, imported customers sign in with their email address and a one-time verification code instead of a password, so plan a launch-day email that tells customers how to sign in.
Your theme does not move either. Shopify themes are built in Liquid, WooCommerce themes are built in PHP, and nothing converts between them. You rebuild the design on a Shopify theme. That is also an opportunity: most stores use the move to clean up years of theme changes.
Before you start: back up and record your baseline
Take a full backup of your WordPress site, database included, and download a copy of it somewhere safe. Export your product, customer, and order data and keep the files even if you plan to use a migration app, because a backup you can re-import is your fallback if an import goes wrong.
Then record your SEO baseline before anything changes. Export your top pages from Google Search Console, note your organic traffic for the last 28 days, and crawl your site to get a full list of URLs. That list becomes your redirect map in Step 5, and the Search Console numbers are how you prove the migration did not cost you traffic.
Finally, pick a quiet week. Do not migrate during a sale, a product launch, or your busiest season. A migration done in a rush is the one that loses rankings.
Step 1: Set up your Shopify store
Create your Shopify store and pick a plan. Shopify offers a 3-day free trial on its paid plans, so you can start the build before you pay, but choose your plan early if you are serious about the move, because the trial is short.
Set the basics first: store name, currency, taxes, and your contact details. Then set up your store structure: collections that match your WooCommerce categories, and the pages you need, such as About, Contact, shipping, and returns. Do this before the import, so products land in a store that is ready for them.
If you picked WooCommerce as your previous platform when you signed up, Shopify may offer the Store Migration app as an import option on the Products or Customers page. If not, install it from the Shopify App Store. It is free and made by Shopify.
Step 2: Export your WooCommerce data
Export products from WooCommerce, then Products, then Export, and download the CSV. Do the same for customers. WooCommerce has a built-in product CSV exporter, and the export includes titles, descriptions, prices, images, SKUs, and stock levels.
Check the export before you import it. Look for products with more than three options, because Shopify allows a maximum of three options per product, and a WooCommerce product that uses four or more attributes for its variations is imported without variants. Decide now whether to split those products or simplify the options.
Also check for duplicate SKUs, missing images, and products with no price. An import will not fix dirty data, it will just move the mess to a new platform. Clean it in the spreadsheet while it is still cheap to fix.
Do not skip the order export. You cannot import orders with a CSV file, so your order history will need a third-party migration app, but export the orders anyway: the file is your backup and your reference for the order import in the next step.
Step 3: Import products, customers, and orders
Import in this order: products first, then customers, then historical orders. Each step depends on the one before it, and Shopify's own guide recommends the same sequence.
For products and customers, use the Store Migration app: install it, choose WooCommerce as your source platform, upload your exported CSV files, and start the import. Imported products arrive as drafts, so review them before you publish: check titles, prices, images, variants, and stock counts against your WooCommerce store. The app tags everything it imports, so you can find all imported records quickly and check them in one place.
For order history, a CSV file will not work, so use a third-party migration app such as Matrixify, Cart2Cart, or LitExtension. These connect to your WooCommerce store and move orders with their status, dates, and customer details. Run a demo or a small test import first: most of these apps offer one, and it shows you exactly what will arrive before you pay for the full move.
For blog posts and pages, the same applies: WordPress posts and pages are not included in WooCommerce exports. Matrixify can import them as Shopify articles and pages, or you can copy them by hand if there are only a few. Coupons cannot be imported by CSV either: recreate them as Shopify discounts, or let a migration app carry them over.
Step 4: Rebuild your theme and storefront
Pick a Shopify theme that already looks close to what you want. A current Online Store 2.0 theme, such as one from Shopify's Horizon family, gives you sections you can rearrange without code. Rebuilding a theme from scratch costs weeks; starting close to your target design costs days.
Rebuild your homepage, collection pages, and product pages to match the old store's structure as closely as you can. Keep the same navigation labels where possible, because your customers have learned them, and keep the same collection names, because your redirect map in the next step depends on them.
If the old store had custom features, a product configurator, a quote form, a subscription option, check whether a Shopify app covers it before you pay for custom code. Most WooCommerce plugin features have a Shopify app equivalent. The ones that do not are the custom development part of the migration, and they are worth scoping early, not discovering on launch day.
For the full picture on what a rebuild costs and how long it takes, see how much it costs to build a Shopify website and how long it takes to build a Shopify website.
Step 5: Map every URL and set up 301 redirects
This is the step that protects your rankings, and it is the one most DIY migrations skip. WooCommerce and Shopify use different URL structures: a WooCommerce product lives at /product/item-name/ and the same product on Shopify lives at /products/item-name/. Collections, blog posts, and pages change too. Every old URL that Google knows about needs a 301 redirect to its new home, or it becomes a 404 and the ranking it carried is lost.
Build the redirect map from the URL list you crawled before the move. Match every old product URL to its new Shopify URL, every category to its new collection, and every blog post and page to its new address. Pages that no longer exist should redirect to the closest live page, not to the homepage.
Shopify supports up to 100,000 redirects, and you can import them as a CSV file in your Shopify admin under Content, then URL redirects. After launch, crawl the old URL list again and confirm each one returns a 301 to the right page. Google's own guidance for site moves is to map old URLs to new ones with permanent 301 redirects, and this is the step where that guidance becomes real work.
If you want this handled for you, our migration service maps every URL that has rankings or links, redirects each one correctly, and monitors Search Console until traffic is back where it was.
Step 6: Set up payments, shipping, and taxes
Set up your payment provider before launch. If you used WooPayments or Stripe on WooCommerce, you can usually keep the same provider on Shopify, but check the fees: Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee on top of your provider's fee when you do not use Shopify Payments, and the rate depends on your plan.
Rebuild your shipping zones and rates to match the old store, and test them with a real address in each zone. Tax settings need the same care: check that tax is collected the way it was on WooCommerce, especially if you sell across states or countries.
Do not forget the emails. Shopify sends order confirmation, shipping, and account emails from its own templates. Check the wording and the sender details, and test one of each before launch, because a customer who gets a confusing email on launch day will email you about it.
Step 7: Test everything before you switch the domain
Place test orders for your most common products, including one with a discount code and one with a variant, and check the whole flow: checkout, payment, confirmation email, and the order in your admin. Test on a phone, because that is how most of your customers will buy.
Check the product data against WooCommerce: prices, images, variants, stock counts, and descriptions, on a sample of products from each category. Check customer records too: names, emails, and order history for a few known customers.
Then check the SEO basics: every old URL from your redirect map returns a 301, the new pages have the right meta titles and descriptions, and your sitemap is submitted in Search Console. Run a speed check as well: a migration is a good moment to find out your new theme is slow, and our guide to speeding up a Shopify store shows what to fix first.
Step 8: Launch day and the week after
On launch day, point your domain at Shopify, remove the store password, and send the customer email: your store has moved, sign in with your email address and a one-time code, and your order history is there. Expect a few confused replies and answer them fast.
Watch Search Console daily for the first week. Expect a short dip in traffic while Google processes the redirects, then a recovery as the new URLs are indexed. What you are watching for is not the dip, it is pages that stay 404, redirects that point to the wrong place, and traffic that does not come back after two weeks.
Keep WooCommerce live, but closed to new orders, for at least a month after launch. It is your fallback if something breaks, and it holds the original data if you need to re-export anything. After a month of clean numbers, you can cancel the hosting.
How much does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration cost?
A DIY migration costs nothing beyond the tools you use. Shopify's Store Migration app is free. A third-party migration app charges by how much data you move: one popular app charges by volume with a maximum one-time charge of about $100 for products and about $150 for orders and customers, and most offer a free demo import so you can test before you pay. Add your Shopify plan on top, and any apps you keep afterwards.
Hiring help costs more and covers more. A freelancer or agency migration is quoted per job, because two migrations are never the same size: a small store with a clean catalog is a short job, while a large catalog with custom features, reviews, and SEO preservation is a project. For context on what store work costs in general, read how much it costs to build a Shopify website.
Whatever route you take, the expensive version of a migration is the one you do twice: once badly, and once to fix it. A redirect map and a test import cost a few hours. Rebuilding lost rankings costs months.
What Globe Skillz charges
Our migration service starts from $600 one time. It covers the data move, the theme rebuild, the URL mapping with 301 redirects for every old URL, and Search Console monitoring until traffic is back where it was. See the migration service page for what it includes, or the pricing page for the full list.
If the theme needs custom work beyond the migration, theme customization starts from $35 an hour. If Search Console is reporting problems after the move, an SEO audit starts from $200. A store build, if you would rather start fresh than migrate the old design, starts from $400.
Frequently asked questions
Can I migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify for free?
Yes, for the data move. Shopify's free Store Migration app imports your products and customers from WooCommerce CSV exports. Order history, blog posts, and coupons need a third-party migration app, which usually charges by data volume, and you still pay for your Shopify plan.
Will I lose my SEO rankings when I migrate to Shopify?
Not if the redirects are done right. Every old URL needs a 301 redirect to its new Shopify URL, and the redirect map should cover every product, category, blog post, and page Google knows about. A migration without redirects loses rankings fast; one with a complete map usually recovers within a few weeks.
Can customer passwords be migrated from WooCommerce to Shopify?
No. WooCommerce and Shopify encrypt passwords differently, so no tool can carry them over. Imported customers sign in with their email address and a one-time verification code instead. Send a launch-day email explaining the new sign-in.
How long does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration take?
A small store with a few dozen products can move in a weekend. A large catalog with custom features, reviews, and SEO to protect takes 2 to 6 weeks. The data import itself is the fast part; the theme rebuild, the redirect map, and testing take most of the time.
Do my product reviews migrate to Shopify?
Not automatically. Reviews need a third-party migration app or a reviews app that supports importing from WooCommerce. Check that your reviews app can import before you switch, because review history is hard to recover once the old store is gone.
What happens to my WooCommerce store after the migration?
Keep it live but closed to new orders for at least a month after launch, as a fallback and a data source. After a month of clean numbers on Shopify, you can cancel the WooCommerce hosting.
Saqib Ali runs Globe Skillz, a Shopify SEO studio with development built in. Since 2019 he has worked on 180+ projects for merchants in 42 countries. More about Saqib →