A Shopify migration checklist should prove that customers can buy, orders reach the right systems, migrated records reconcile, and important old URLs lead to the right new pages. A successful import is one checkpoint in that process.
This checklist is for an ecommerce lead moving an existing store to Shopify, especially when fulfilment, accounting or business-to-business sales add complexity. Use Shopify’s official migration checklist for platform setup. Use the acceptance tests below to decide whether your particular business is ready to switch.
Download the migration acceptance worksheet. It is a free, editable CSV with proposed checks, evidence fields and space to assign owners. It contains no client data or claims about completed migrations.
Define what must keep working
Start with the journeys that bring money into the business and the handoffs that complete an order. A catalogue of apps helps, but it does not explain what happens when a wholesale buyer pays on terms or a warehouse ships only part of an order.
Write down the conditions that must survive the move. Include the responsible person and the evidence they will accept.
| Area | Decision to make | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|---|
| Buying | Which customer, payment and delivery journeys are essential? | Completed test orders for each agreed journey |
| Data | Which records move, remain accessible elsewhere or get retired? | Source-to-target mapping and reconciliation report |
| Search | Which existing URLs must retain their destination or redirect? | URL map and redirect response checks |
| Operations | Which system owns stock, order edits and fulfilment? | End-to-end records and an exception-handling test |
| Launch | Who can stop cutover, and how are new orders protected? | Rehearsed runbook and named decision owner |
Agree the meaning of a blocking defect before testing. A typo and an order sent twice to a warehouse should not have the same release consequence. There is no universal acceptable error percentage for every store.
Start with the acceptance condition. Write down what the business must be able to do after migration, who will verify it, and which evidence will count as a pass.
Plan your Shopify data migration
For products, inspect variants, identifiers, media, collections, metafields and channel availability. For customers, inspect account structure, addresses, consent records and the way people will access their accounts after launch. For orders, decide how much history belongs in Shopify and where the rest will remain accessible.
Record the source field, target field, transformation rule and exception treatment. Confirm the chosen import method supports the required record types. Preserve source exports so a failed transformation can be investigated without guessing what the original value was.
Shopify’s migration guidance identifies missing variant information and imported products that remain unpublished as examples of import problems. Its checklist also explains that customer passwords do not transfer with customer records. Treat account access as a customer communication and testing task, with the details checked against your chosen account setup.
Use three kinds of reconciliation:
- Counts: compare the number of in-scope source and target records, accounting for deliberate exclusions.
- Values: compare important identifiers, amounts, options and statuses.
- Behaviour: verify that the migrated record works in the intended customer or operational journey.
A matching product count does not prove the correct variant is purchasable. A matching order count does not prove finance can find the historical record it needs. For invoice-specific decisions, read the existing Shopify B2B invoice migration guide and verify the intended accounting treatment with the responsible owner.
Create and test Shopify URL redirects
Your Shopify SEO migration starts with a map of the pages people already use. It needs its own checks alongside the data import.
Collect old URLs from the site’s crawl, sitemap, analytics, Search Console and known external references. Include important product, collection, content and asset URLs. These sources have different coverage, so a single export may miss destinations people still use.
Map each retained URL to its equivalent destination. Where a page has genuinely disappeared, record the intended treatment. Avoid routing unrelated pages to the homepage simply to remove a 404 from a report.
Google’s site-move guidance recommends permanent server-side redirects for moved URLs, updated internal links and sitemaps, and continued monitoring. It also advises keeping redirects for at least a year. A URL map reduces avoidable errors; it cannot guarantee unchanged rankings.
Test the redirect response and its final destination. Then check that the destination is indexable where intended, uses the correct canonical URL, and appears in internal navigation or relevant content. Include a mobile check for landing pages that receive valuable search traffic.
Keep relevance in the redirect map. Send a moved page to its equivalent destination. Sending unrelated URLs to the homepage can hide a migration mistake without solving the reader’s problem.
Trace an order across connected systems
List the systems that receive or change product, customer, stock, payment, order and fulfilment records. Establish which system is authoritative for each field and how the other systems learn about changes.
An illustrative test might start with a two-item order, continue with one item shipping, and end with the other item being cancelled. Check the records in Shopify, the warehouse system and the accounting destination. The exact expected quantities and amounts come from your business rules.
Ask what happens when a message arrives twice, an integration is unavailable, or someone edits the order after export. Agree who sees the exception and who can safely retry it. If ownership is unclear, review the integration service scope before treating the connection as complete.
Rehearse the Shopify migration process
Run a rehearsal using representative data and the intended sequence. Record how long export, transformation, import, verification and any final changes actually take. Use that evidence to estimate the cutover window.
Separate the initial bulk transfer from the final changes made while the old store remains active. Decide when writes stop, which changes need a final transfer, and when the new store becomes authoritative. Include queued orders and scheduled integration jobs in that decision.
Test successful and failed purchases, cancellations, refunds and partial fulfilments where they apply. Also verify shipping rules, customer notifications, analytics events and access for the team that will operate the store. Use an appropriate test environment or agreed payment test method so rehearsals do not become accidental customer transactions.
Make the go or no-go decision explicit
The launch owner needs a short decision record: required checks passed, known exceptions, accountable owners and a monitoring plan. A verbal assurance that the import finished is insufficient.
Define a fallback before switching. If the new store has accepted orders, changing the domain back alone does not restore the business to its earlier state. New orders, payments and stock changes must be accounted for. Agree which conditions trigger a pause, a targeted repair or a rollback, and who protects the transaction record during that process.
In the first operating period, reconcile orders, stock and downstream records against the agreed checks. Monitor search errors and customer support issues separately from transaction failures. Keep the relevant specialists available for the launch risks you identified, with a clear handover into routine support.
A domain switch is not a complete rollback. If the new store has accepted orders, the fallback must account for those orders, payments and stock changes before traffic moves again.
How long does a Shopify migration take?
Estimate the schedule from the data cleanup, integrations, customer journeys and launch checks your store requires. Time a representative rehearsal before committing to the cutover window. Product count alone does not capture the work, and the final switch is only one part of the project.
Can the old store keep taking orders during migration?
It can remain active during an initial transfer if your migration plan accounts for subsequent changes. Define when edits and orders stop, how final changes are transferred, and which system becomes authoritative. Reconcile orders placed near the switch so they are neither lost nor processed twice.
Will customers keep their passwords when moving to Shopify?
Customer passwords do not transfer with customer records, according to Shopify’s migration checklist. Confirm the sign-in journey for your chosen Shopify customer-account setup, test it and prepare the appropriate customer communication.
Does a redirect map guarantee that search traffic stays the same?
No. Redirects help people and search engines reach replacement pages, but they do not guarantee unchanged rankings or traffic. Verify relevant destinations, indexability, internal links and sitemaps, then monitor the move in Search Console. Follow Google’s site-move guidance.
Use the checklist to scope the work
Assign an owner to each worksheet row, replace the suggested acceptance condition with one your business can verify, and link the evidence. Mark irrelevant checks as not applicable with a reason. An empty evidence field remains an open check.
The work that remains determines the migration scope: data preparation, search continuity, integration changes, testing and launch support. That is a more useful basis for a delivery conversation than product count alone.
Autonomous helps plan and implement Shopify migrations and replatforming. Bring the current platform, material integrations and the journeys that must keep working. We can use those details to discuss the scope and the evidence needed before launch.
