WooCommerce to Shopify Migration
Senior engineers replatforming WooCommerce and WordPress stores to Shopify — full data migration, a 301 redirect map that protects your hard-won WordPress SEO, and a parallel-run cutover so you leave the plugin-and-hosting treadmill without losing traffic or orders.
Our WooCommerce migration process
- Audit the WooCommerce store. We map what you actually run — product catalogue, the plugin stack, custom WordPress content, payment and shipping setup, and the permalink structure — into a written migration brief. On WooCommerce the risk is the dozen plugins doing critical work nobody documented, so we surface them first.
- Migrate data + build redirects. Products, variants, customers, and order history move across with verification at each step. In parallel we map every WordPress/WooCommerce URL — products, categories, and blog posts — to its Shopify equivalent with 301 redirects, because WordPress sites usually have years of content SEO worth protecting.
- Rebuild theme + content. Your storefront is rebuilt on Shopify (Online Store 2.0 or Hydrogen headless) to preserve the brand, and WordPress blog content migrates to the Shopify blog or a headless setup so you keep the content engine that drives your organic traffic.
- Parallel-run + cutover. We run Shopify alongside live WooCommerce, reconcile a sample of real orders end-to-end, then cut over DNS during low-traffic hours with the redirect map live from minute one. A monitoring window follows so any ranking or checkout issue is caught in hours.
What's included
- Full data migration — products, variants, customers, and order history moved from WooCommerce with verification at each stage
- A complete 301 redirect map covering products, categories, and WordPress blog URLs — the lever that preserves your organic rankings
- WordPress blog content migrated to Shopify so the content SEO that drives your traffic survives the move
- Storefront rebuilt on Shopify (Online Store 2.0 or Hydrogen headless) to keep your brand, not a generic template
- Integrations and payments re-pointed — Klaviyo, accounting, shipping, and gateways wired to Shopify
- A parallel-run cutover with reconciliation and a post-launch monitoring window — no big-bang switch, no lost orders
Migration timeline
Typically 6-12 weeks
A standard catalogue with clean data and a few plugins is the fast end — 6-8 weeks. A large store with heavy plugin logic, lots of WordPress content, and multiple integrations is 10-16 weeks. We confirm a window in writing once the audit surfaces the real shape — the variable is custom plugin logic and content volume, not the Shopify build, which is the predictable part.
FAQ
- Why migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify?
- WooCommerce is a self-hosted WordPress plugin, so you own the entire stack — hosting, security patching, plugin compatibility, and uptime. That's fine at low volume, but as a store scales the maintenance burden and the risk of a plugin conflict or security hole taking down checkout grows. Shopify is fully hosted and handles infrastructure, security, and PCI scope, so your team works on growth instead of keeping the site online. Merchants typically move when the cost and fragility of self-hosting outweighs the flexibility WordPress gives them.
- WooCommerce vs Shopify — which is actually better?
- It depends on where you are. WooCommerce wins on raw flexibility and content — it's a WordPress plugin, so if your business is content-led and you want total control of the stack, it's strong. Shopify wins on total cost of ownership at scale, checkout conversion, security, and not having to manage hosting or plugin updates. The honest test: if you're spending more time maintaining the platform than growing the store, that's the signal to move. We'll tell you if staying on WooCommerce is genuinely right for you.
- Will I lose my SEO when I move off WordPress?
- Not if it's done properly — and WordPress sites have more SEO at stake than most because of their content. WooCommerce and Shopify use different URL structures, so every product, category, and blog URL needs a 301 redirect to its new equivalent. Shopify supports URL redirects natively, and we build a complete redirect map — including your WordPress blog — as a core deliverable. Done right, Google transfers the ranking signals and the traffic dip is small and short. Skipped, it's how stores lose half their organic traffic overnight.
- Can you migrate my WordPress blog content too?
- Yes, and you should. The WordPress blog is often the single biggest source of a WooCommerce store's organic traffic, so leaving it behind throws away the SEO you've built. We migrate posts to the Shopify blog (or a headless content setup if you need more flexibility) and redirect the old WordPress URLs, so the content keeps ranking and keeps pulling traffic after the move.
- What data can you migrate from WooCommerce?
- Products with variants and images, categories, customer records, and full order history. WooCommerce stores data in the WordPress database and also exposes a REST API, so for standard catalogues we migrate through structured exports with verification, and for large or heavily customised stores we use the API so custom fields and metadata come across intact. We verify counts and spot-check records at each stage rather than trusting a one-shot import.
- How do you avoid downtime and lost orders during cutover?
- We never do a big-bang switch. Shopify is built and tested in parallel with your live WooCommerce store, we reconcile a sample of real orders end-to-end through the new stack, and only then cut over DNS during low-traffic hours with the 301 redirect map already live. A monitoring window follows the switch so anything — a checkout edge case, a redirect gap — is caught and fixed in hours.
- How much does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration cost?
- A standard catalogue migration with theme rebuild, blog migration, and core integrations typically runs £15K-£45K. A large store with heavy plugin logic, extensive WordPress content, and multiple integrations is usually £45K-£120K. We share firm pricing in writing after the audit — the cost driver is custom plugin logic and content volume, which we can only assess by looking at your actual store.