The Complete Shopify Migration Checklist: Before, During and After

E-COMMERCE SHOPIFY

Ayo is the founder of Why Matters, a Shopify agency based in Brighton. With over 20 years of experience in ecommerce, digital marketing, and ROI-driven growth, he has helped hundreds of Shopify brands build, launch, and scale their online stores. Why Matters is a certified Shopify, Klaviyo, and Recharge partner.

August 27, 2026

LAST UPDATED ON September 14 2026

Key Takeaways

A Shopify migration is a data, SEO, integration and testing project, not a product import. Treat it as one and most of the common failures disappear.
The work that determines success happens before you build anything. Audit the existing store, identify your highest-value pages, and build the redirect map first.
The URL redirect map is the single most important document in the project, and it is the one most often missing. Of the last 80 stores we migrated, 75 arrived with no redirect map at all.
Test the business process end to end, not just each integration in isolation. A green status indicator does not mean an order reaches your fulfilment system.
Establish a performance baseline before you switch. Without it you cannot tell whether the migration helped or hurt.
Launch when trading is quiet, never immediately before a promotional period or seasonal peak.
Monitor for at least 90 days. The first two weeks catch the breakages, the following ten catch the slower SEO effects.

Quick Answer

A Shopify migration runs in three phases. Before migration, define scope, audit your existing store, identify your highest-value pages, build a complete URL redirect map, set up the Shopify store as a development environment, choose a theme, configure apps, and migrate product, customer, order and content data. During migration, complete the final data transfer, configure shipping and payments, test every app and integration end to end, implement and verify the 301 redirects, and prepare a formal launch plan. After launch, switch the domain, remove any indexing blocks, submit the sitemap, then monitor rankings, traffic, revenue, 404s and Search Console daily for two weeks and regularly for 90 days. The checklist below covers all 30 steps in order.

Phase 1: Before Migration
Phase 2: During Migration
Phase 3: Launch and After
Why Matters Perspective
Frequently Asked Questions

Migrating an ecommerce store to Shopify involves far more than moving products from one platform to another. A successful migration requires careful planning around data, URLs, SEO, design, integrations, analytics, testing and launch.

This checklist takes you through every step, organised into three phases. It is based on our experience migrating stores from WooCommerce, Magento, Squarespace and BigCommerce. Not every item applies to every store, but working through it systematically ensures nothing is missed.

For the SEO layer in detail, see our guide on how to migrate to Shopify without losing your SEO rankings. For budgeting, see how much a Shopify migration costs.

Phase 1: Before Migration

Step 1: Define Your Migration Scope

Decide whether you are migrating your existing store as-is or migrating and redesigning simultaneously. These are fundamentally different projects. A migration as-is focuses on transferring data, recreating essential functionality and protecting SEO. A migration combined with a redesign adds UX, design, development, content and considerably more testing.

Establish which functionality needs recreating, which data needs migrating, and how much SEO work is required. The scope you define here directly determines your Shopify migration cost.

Step 2: Audit Your Existing Store

Before deciding what to migrate, understand exactly what you currently have. Crawl the existing website using Screaming Frog or Sitebulb and create a complete inventory. For each important URL, record the current URL, status code, page title, meta description, H1, canonical URL, internal links, organic traffic, organic revenue, backlinks and page type.

Export Google Search Console performance data for the previous 12 months and identify landing pages generating organic revenue in GA4. Document every app, plugin and extension currently installed and what each one does, plus every external integration covering ERP, CRM, fulfilment, payment, email marketing, subscriptions, accounting, loyalty and marketplaces. This audit becomes your migration blueprint and your post-launch verification baseline.

Step 3: Identify Your Highest-Value Pages

Not every page carries the same SEO value. Sort Search Console data by clicks and impressions to find your top organic pages. Sort Analytics by organic revenue to find the pages that drive sales. Use Ahrefs or Search Console's Links report to identify pages with valuable backlinks.

These priority pages need the most careful handling: accurate redirects, preserved content, verified metadata. Any page with meaningful traffic, revenue or backlinks should be flagged in your redirect map.

Step 4: Build Your URL Redirect Map

This is the single most important document in your migration, and it is the one merchants are least likely to arrive with. Of the last 80 stores we migrated to Shopify, 75 had no redirect map at all. In most cases nobody had yet listed the URLs the business depends on, which means the decision about what happens to them gets made by default rather than deliberately.

Every URL on the old site needs a destination on the new one. Create a spreadsheet with columns for old URL, new Shopify URL, page type, redirect type, priority level and verification status.

Key considerations: WooCommerce /product/ becomes Shopify /products/, categories become /collections/, and blog structures differ between platforms. Pages without an exact equivalent should redirect to the closest relevant page, never to the homepage by default. Shopify handles redirects through Settings, then Navigation, then URL Redirects for individual entries, or CSV bulk upload for large migrations.

Step 5: Choose Your Shopify Plan

The main considerations are transaction fees, reporting depth, staff accounts, international selling features and checkout customisation, which is Plus only. Your plan choice does not significantly affect the migration itself, but it determines what features are available afterwards. Check Shopify's current UK pricing for the latest plan details, and see our Why Shopify Plus page if you are considering the enterprise tier.

Step 6: Create Your Shopify Store

Create the new store and treat it as a development environment rather than something ready for customers. Your existing website stays live while the Shopify store is built, so the team can work without disrupting trading.

Configure the basic settings early rather than leaving them until launch week, since they affect how the store operates throughout testing. That means store details, primary and international currencies, the Markets you will sell to, tax settings and rates, shipping zones and delivery options, Shopify Payments and any additional providers, customer and staff notifications, and your development domain.

Do not point your primary domain at the new store simply because it is technically ready. The domain switch belongs in the launch process, after testing. Configure staff permissions too, since not everyone involved needs full administrative access.

Step 7: Choose and Configure Your Theme

Your theme is the foundation of the customer-facing experience. For a straightforward migration you may use an existing Shopify theme configured to match your brand. For a significant improvement in customer experience, a custom theme may be more appropriate. Base the decision on what the store needs rather than defaulting to the most expensive option.

Consider homepage structure, navigation, collection pages, product pages, search, filtering, cart, mobile experience, promotional content, customer accounts, subscriptions, internationalisation, accessibility and page speed.

One question worth settling early: are you trying to reproduce the existing site pixel for pixel? That is rarely the best approach, since a migration is a chance to fix what does not work. Equally, avoid changing everything at once, since each design change is another variable to test after launch. Our Shopify developers can help decide which approach fits.

Step 8: Install and Configure Required Apps

One of the biggest mistakes merchants make is assuming every existing plugin needs a Shopify equivalent. The purpose is to recreate the functionality the business actually needs, not to reproduce its existing technology stack.

Start with your audit. For each plugin, ask what it does, whether the functionality is still required, whether Shopify provides it natively or an app does, and whether the feature is genuinely being used. This usually reduces the number of apps installed, which matters because every app adds ongoing cost, potential performance impact and another dependency.

Typical migrations require apps for email marketing, reviews, subscriptions, loyalty, search and filtering, customer support, wholesale, analytics, international selling and back-in-stock notifications. Subscription businesses may be moving to Recharge or another Shopify-compatible platform. Document every app installed with its purpose, cost and key configuration, which gives the business a useful technology inventory after launch.

Step 9: Migrate Your Product Data

Product migration is not simply importing a spreadsheet. Account for product titles, descriptions, images, SKUs, barcodes, prices, compare-at prices, inventory, variants, product options, collections, tags, product types, vendor information, SEO titles and meta descriptions.

What transfers automatically depends on your source platform and migration method. Automated migration does not mean the resulting data is correct. Descriptions may contain formatting that does not transfer, images may need checking, variants can be structured differently between platforms, and collection relationships may need recreating.

Follow the import with thorough validation. Sample across categories, including simple products, products with many variants, large image sets, unusual options and your best sellers. Do not rely on sampling alone. Compare source and destination datasets programmatically where possible to identify missing or duplicated records.

Step 10: Migrate Customer and Order Data

Customer data requires particular care because it is commercially important and subject to data protection requirements. Depending on method and source platform, you may transfer names, email addresses, phone numbers, billing and shipping addresses, customer tags, customer groups, order history, order totals, order dates and purchase history.

Order history matters more than merchants expect. Customers look for previous purchases in their accounts, and the business may rely on it for customer service, reporting, segmentation and marketing. Establish before migration how much history needs transferring, and make it a deliberate decision rather than whatever the migration tool defaults to.

Test customer account behaviour after import. A technically successful import is not enough if customers cannot access their accounts. Where passwords cannot be transferred, which is usual, have a clear process for customers to activate or reset.

Step 11: Migrate Your Content

Your existing site may contain years of valuable content: blog posts, buying guides, landing pages, about pages, FAQ pages, contact pages, help documentation, campaign pages and educational content. Some generates significant organic traffic or backlinks. Some has little value.

For each piece, decide whether it should be migrated, updated, consolidated with similar pages, or retired. If a valuable page is removed, make sure the redirect strategy accounts for it.

Do not assume blog content matters less than ecommerce pages. A well-established post can carry significant traffic, backlinks and authority. A migration that preserves product pages but quietly drops a large proportion of the site's organic content still causes serious SEO damage.

Step 12: Configure Shopify SEO

SEO is not something you check after migration. It is built in from the beginning. Shopify has a different URL structure from many platforms, so understand how the new structure affects your existing pages.

Check page titles, meta descriptions, H1 headings, canonical tags, product URLs, collection URLs, blog URLs, image alt text, internal links, XML sitemap, robots.txt, structured data, pagination and indexation settings.

Your redirect map from Step 4 now needs implementing and testing. Review internal links throughout the site as well. If an old blog post links to an old product URL, update the link rather than relying on a redirect, which reduces unnecessary redirect chains. Pay particular attention to canonicalisation and indexation, since you do not want development URLs, duplicate pages or filtered URLs indexed.

Step 13: Recreate Your Integrations

Your Shopify store is rarely an isolated system. Every integration needs reviewing and either recreating, replacing or deliberately retiring. Typical integrations include ERP, CRM, email marketing, accounting, fulfilment, warehouse management, payment providers, customer service platforms, subscription systems, loyalty programmes and marketplaces.

Do not wait until the final week to discover that an important integration depends on functionality the new store does not have. Each needs its own migration and testing plan. If Shopify sends orders to an ERP, test the process from checkout through to the ERP receiving the order. If inventory syncs, test stock changes in both directions. The objective is to test the business process, not to confirm an integration is technically connected. A green status indicator does not mean the end-to-end journey works.

Step 14: Configure Analytics and Tracking

Before launch, make sure your measurement infrastructure is ready. Review Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel, Google Ads conversion tracking, Microsoft Advertising, Klaviyo, Shopify analytics and any other platform-specific tracking.

Establish a baseline before switching platforms. Record current organic traffic, organic conversions, ecommerce revenue, conversion rate, average order value, transactions, paid advertising conversions and email revenue. Without a baseline you cannot tell whether the migration improved or damaged performance.

Test tracking on the new store. Complete test transactions and confirm the appropriate events are recorded: a purchase appearing correctly in GA4, advertising platforms receiving the conversion, customer and order information reaching your email platform. Tracking failures are difficult to spot after launch because the site appears to work perfectly while reporting quietly stops.

Step 15: Test the New Store

Never launch simply because the development team says the store is finished. Testing should cover both functionality and customer experience.

Area	What to Test
Navigation	Main navigation, dropdowns, breadcrumbs and internal links
Search	Search results, filters, sorting and no-result states
Products	Product pages, variants, pricing, stock and images
Cart and checkout	Adding and updating products, customer details, shipping, payment, order completion
Discounts	Discount codes, automatic discounts and promotional rules
Mobile	Navigation, product pages, cart and checkout on real devices
Forms and emails	Contact and newsletter forms, order confirmations, shipping notifications
Integrations	ERP, CRM, fulfilment, marketing and analytics connections
Redirects and SEO	Old URLs resolving correctly, indexation, canonicals, metadata, structured data

Test across multiple devices and browsers using real-world scenarios rather than clicking through the site. Place test orders, use discount codes, create accounts, and test out-of-stock products, multiple variants, failed payments, shipping options and international orders. The more important the function, the more thoroughly it should be tested.

Step 16: Perform a Final SEO Audit

Before the domain switches, audit the new store technically. This is your chance to catch issues before search engines crawl the new site.

Confirm the correct domain is configured, the development store is not unintentionally indexable, important pages return 200 status codes, redirects are implemented, canonicals are correct, titles, meta descriptions and H1 headings are present, the XML sitemap is available, robots.txt is configured correctly, internal links point to new URLs, structured data works, important images have alt text, and no important pages are blocked while no unnecessary ones are indexed.

Crawl the new store and compare it with the original. This reveals missing pages, unexpected status codes, broken links and structural differences that would otherwise go unnoticed. The objective is not technical perfection before launch. It is ensuring there are no known critical issues.

Phase 2: During Migration

Once planning is complete, the migration itself begins. Treat it as a controlled process rather than a single data import followed by a domain change.

Step 17: Complete the Data Migration

Transfer your approved data in full: products, variants, images, collections, customers, orders, blog content, pages, redirects, navigation, discounts and customer tags.

For larger stores, perform a test migration first. This identifies problems with data mapping, formatting or relationships without putting the live business at risk. You might discover variants imported incorrectly, missing collection assignments, or customer data appearing differently than expected. Finding these during a test is considerably better than after launch.

Plan the final migration around the trading activity of the existing store. If customers keep ordering on the old platform during migration, decide how those orders will be handled, usually by setting a cut-off point and running a final incremental migration shortly before launch. You need a clear moment at which the old store's data becomes final and Shopify becomes the source of truth.

Step 18: Configure Shipping, Payments and Checkout

Configure and test every part of the purchasing process: payment providers, shipping zones, shipping rates, delivery methods, taxes, discount codes, gift cards, checkout settings, customer accounts, order notifications and refund processes.

Payment configuration deserves particular attention, since a store can look finished while having a broken checkout. Test the entire journey from product selection to completed order using different payment methods and customer scenarios. If you operate internationally, test the relevant markets rather than assuming a checkout that works in one country works everywhere.

Test shipping with real product combinations. If costs vary by weight, location or order value, test those rules with several baskets. If you offer free shipping above a threshold, verify the threshold works. If subscriptions are involved, test the subscription checkout separately. The checkout should be reviewed from a customer's perspective, not just the development team's.

Step 19: Test Apps and Integrations End to End

Every important app and integration should be tested as part of the complete customer journey, particularly where one event triggers action in another system. A customer placing an order might need to trigger Shopify creating the order, the order reaching fulfilment, inventory updating, the customer receiving confirmation, your email platform receiving the event, the customer entering or exiting marketing segments, and revenue recording in analytics.

Test each component individually and they may all appear to work. The problem only becomes visible when the complete chain runs. That is why end-to-end testing matters.

Subscription businesses need particular care, since one order may involve a subscription platform, Shopify, a payment provider, fulfilment, notifications and email marketing. Test creating a subscription, skipping, pausing, resuming, changing frequency, swapping a product, updating payment details, cancelling and processing a renewal. A migration that preserves the website but breaks the customer lifecycle creates problems that are not obvious from the storefront.

Step 20: Implement and Test 301 Redirects

Once the new URLs are final, implement the redirect map. Every important old URL needs an appropriate destination. Do not wait until launch day to start checking.

Test redirects before the domain switch wherever possible by crawling your old URL list against the staging environment. Confirm that the old URL redirects, that it goes to the correct new URL, that it uses a 301 status, that there are no redirect chains or loops, that the destination is relevant, and that it returns a 200.

Pay particular attention to pages with high organic traffic and valuable backlinks, since these are where a failure has the greatest commercial impact. Also check URLs that may not have made your original list. Old campaign pages, discontinued products and previously used landing pages can all still receive traffic or backlinks, which is another reason the initial crawl matters so much.

Step 21: Complete User Acceptance Testing

Before launch, someone who understands the business should carry out a final review. Not just checking whether buttons work, but using the store as a customer would: finding a product through navigation, using search and filters, choosing a variant, adding to cart, applying a discount, completing checkout and reviewing previous orders in an account. Then repeat the important parts on mobile.

Then consider it operationally. Can staff find orders, update products and manage inventory? Can customer service access what they need? Can the business process refunds and routine tasks? A migration is not complete simply because customers can place orders.

Step 22: Prepare the Launch Plan

The domain switch should not be an informal moment when someone changes a setting and hopes. Create a launch checklist covering what happens immediately before, during and after.

Launch Task	Purpose
Final data migration	Transfer any orders, customers or data created since the initial migration
Redirect verification	Confirm critical redirects are ready
Analytics verification	Confirm tracking is configured for the live domain
Payment testing	Confirm live payment configuration
Domain and DNS	Prepare the primary domain switch and confirm records are correct
Search Console	Confirm the correct property and sitemap are available
Robots.txt	Confirm the live store is configured correctly for crawling
Transactional emails	Confirm customer notifications are working
Internal team	Make sure everyone knows when launch is happening and what to monitor
Rollback plan	Establish what happens if a critical problem occurs

Choose a launch window when the business is relatively quiet. Launching immediately before a major campaign, seasonal event or busy trading period increases the risk considerably. You want time to identify and resolve unexpected issues before demand peaks.

Phase 3: Launch and After

Step 23: Switch the Domain to Shopify

Connect the live domain to the Shopify store. The switch itself may be straightforward, but do not assume everything works because the homepage loads.

As soon as the store is live, test the important journeys again: homepage, navigation, key collections, best sellers, cart, checkout, customer accounts, contact forms, search, mobile, payment, shipping and transactional emails. Also test several old URLs directly, since a working homepage tells you nothing about whether your redirects are firing.

Step 24: Remove Launch Blocks

During development you may have had settings preventing the store from being indexed or publicly accessible. Remove those restrictions where appropriate. Check robots.txt and confirm important pages can be crawled. Check the store is not still password protected.

Then submit or verify the sitemap through Google Search Console. Search engines now need to discover and crawl the new version of the site. Do not try to force indexing of every page manually. A well-structured site with appropriate internal links and a valid sitemap gives them what they need.

Step 25: Monitor the Migration Closely

The work does not stop at launch. The first few days and weeks are among the most important parts of the project.

Monitor organic traffic, rankings, organic conversions, revenue, conversion rate, Search Console errors, 404s, redirects, indexation, crawl activity, page speed, checkout conversion, payment failures, app errors and customer support issues.

Compare against the baseline from Step 14. Do not panic if metrics fluctuate immediately after launch, since search engines need time to process the new URL structure. What matters is identifying real problems quickly. If organic traffic drops sharply across many pages, if a group of URLs starts returning 404s, or if checkout conversion falls, investigate straight away rather than waiting for it to settle. If orders stop appearing in analytics, check tracking before assuming sales have declined.

Step 26: Crawl the Live Store

Once live, perform another full crawl and compare it with your pre-migration crawl. Look for broken links, missing pages, unexpected redirects, redirect chains, 404 errors, incorrect canonicals, duplicate titles, missing metadata, indexation problems, unexpected URL changes and internal links still pointing at old URLs.

Some issues only become identifiable once the site is live, which is why this crawl matters even after thorough pre-launch testing.

Step 27: Monitor Google Search Console

Search Console should be one of the first places you look after launch. Monitor indexing, page indexing errors, 404s, redirect errors, crawl activity, search performance, sitemap processing and Core Web Vitals.

Pay particular attention to the pages identified as high-value in Step 3. If an important page is not being indexed, investigate. If a previously successful URL disappears and its replacement does not appear, investigate. If errors increase significantly, investigate.

Monitor queries and pages too, not just total traffic. A migration can produce a relatively stable overall figure while hiding a major decline in an important category. Segment by page type, category and individual URL for a clearer picture.

Step 28: Monitor Rankings and Organic Revenue

Rankings are useful but should not be your only measure. A page moving from position four to position three is interesting from an SEO perspective but tells you little about commercial impact.

Look at organic sessions, transactions, revenue, conversion rate, average order value, top landing pages, top converting landing pages, search visibility and non-brand traffic. Compare with your baseline.

If organic traffic has fallen but conversion rate has risen significantly, the commercial impact may be smaller than the traffic figure suggests. If traffic is stable but organic revenue declines, investigate whether the pages attracting traffic have changed. Measure against business outcomes as well as technical metrics.

Step 29: Fix Problems Quickly

However carefully a migration is planned, some issues only appear after launch. What matters is how quickly you identify and resolve them. Prioritise by commercial impact.

Priority	Example	Response
Critical	Checkout failure, payment failure or major site outage	Investigate immediately
High	Major redirect failure, widespread 404s or serious indexation problem	Resolve as quickly as possible
Medium	Broken internal links or isolated page issues	Resolve during post-launch remediation
Low	Minor formatting or non-critical metadata issues	Add to the optimisation backlog

This prevents the team becoming overwhelmed by small issues while more important problems remain unresolved.

Step 30: Continue Monitoring for at Least 90 Days

A migration is not complete after the first week. The first 90 days provide valuable information about how the new store performs. Continue monitoring SEO, analytics, conversion and technical performance throughout, watching for longer-term changes in rankings, traffic, revenue, conversion rate, site speed, customer behaviour, search visibility, crawl errors, indexation and redirect performance.

The 90-day period is also when you address improvements that did not belong in the migration itself: conversion rate optimisation, navigation, refining collection and product pages, testing new features, and reducing unnecessary app dependencies. Treat the migration as the beginning of the store's next stage rather than the end of a project.

Why Matters Perspective

The migrations that go wrong are almost never the ones where something technical failed. They are the ones where something was never planned. A missing redirect nobody mapped. An integration nobody tested end to end. A content page nobody realised was generating organic traffic.

The redirect map is the clearest example, and almost nobody arrives with one. That is not a criticism, because nothing in a platform migration prompts you to produce it and no migration tool asks for it. But it does mean the single document that determines how much organic revenue survives the move is usually created late, under time pressure, or not at all.

That is why this checklist front-loads so heavily into Phase 1. Sixteen of the thirty steps happen before you migrate anything, and that ratio is deliberate. The build is the easy part. Knowing what needs to survive the build is the hard part, and it is where the commercial risk actually sits.

The other pattern worth naming: merchants consistently underestimate testing and overestimate data import. Importing products is largely automated. Confirming that an order placed on a mobile phone with a discount code reaches your fulfilment system, triggers the right email, and records correctly in analytics is not, and that is where problems hide.

If you would like this handled rather than managed in-house, our ecommerce agency services cover migrations end to end, and we offer a 3-month guarantee on development projects. Email us to talk it through.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a Shopify migration take from start to finish?

A simple migration takes 2 to 5 weeks. A custom theme migration takes 5 to 10 weeks. Complex enterprise migrations can take 10 to 20 weeks or more. Timelines depend on scope, catalogue size, integrations, and whether you are redesigning simultaneously.

Do I need a URL redirect map to migrate to Shopify?

Yes, if you want to keep your organic traffic. Every valuable old URL needs a deliberate destination on the new store. Of the last 80 stores we migrated, 75 arrived without one, which is the most common reason rankings fall after a migration.

Can I keep my domain name when migrating to Shopify?

Yes. Most merchants keep their existing domain. You simply point your DNS to Shopify. Keeping the same domain preserves your domain authority, which is important for SEO.

Will my customers need to create new accounts after migration?

Customer records can be imported into Shopify, but passwords cannot be transferred from most platforms. Shopify can send account activation emails to imported customers prompting them to set a new password.

Do I need to close my old store before launching on Shopify?

No. You can build and test your Shopify store while the old store remains live. The switch happens when you point your domain to Shopify, which can be done with minimal downtime.

What if I find problems after launch?

Monitor Search Console, analytics and customer feedback closely during the first two weeks. Most post-launch issues relate to redirects, analytics tracking or integration configuration, all of which can be resolved quickly if identified early.

Can I migrate in stages or does everything need to move at once?

Some merchants migrate in stages, particularly with multiple storefronts or when testing the platform before fully committing. However, a clean cutover is usually simpler for SEO because it avoids running two versions of the site simultaneously.

Final Thoughts

Thirty steps looks daunting written out, but most of them are decisions rather than work, and the majority happen before anything is built. That is the point. A migration that fails does so because something was never considered, not because a step was performed badly.

Work through Phase 1 properly and the rest becomes execution. Skip it and you will spend the ninety days after launch discovering what you missed, usually through Search Console and more expensively than the planning would have cost.

If you are planning a migration and want a second pair of eyes on the scope before you commit, email us.

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