Shopify Migration & Replatforming
Shopify migration agency for teams that cannot afford to lose revenue at cutover.
When migration is the right move
Platform limits, a fragmented operating stack, unreliable data, B2B requirements, multi-market expansion or a storefront that cannot be improved safely can justify migration. A cosmetic redesign on top of those constraints usually postpones the work rather than removing it.
Migrating to Shopify from WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce or a custom platform
The origin platform changes the extraction method and the redirect strategy, not the acceptance standard. We plan each move from what the source system can actually export, rather than from what a connector claims.
- WooCommerce to Shopify. Variable products, plugin-held pricing and post-type URLs decide most of the mapping work.
- Magento and Adobe Commerce to Shopify. Attribute sets, multi-store scope and custom price rules have to be restated as Shopify concepts before anything moves.
- BigCommerce to Shopify. Option sets, customer groups and channel availability need a rule per field, not a default.
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify. Catalogue hierarchy, promotion logic and site scope come out as an export project of their own.
- Volusion and older hosted carts. Export limits usually set the pace, so the data profile comes first.
- Custom and in-house platforms. The business rules live in code, so the mapping starts with reading it.
- Shopify to Shopify Plus. No catalogue move, but checkout, discount and B2B logic are rebuilt against different primitives.
What a Shopify replatforming project costs and how long it takes
Most Shopify migrations run eight to sixteen weeks from kickoff to cutover. The sequence is fixed: data and URL mapping, a rehearsal migration, build and parity QA, then cutover and hypercare. The variable is how long it takes to establish the business rules nobody wrote down, which is usually the longest step in the schedule.
Cost tracks four things rather than a page count: catalogue complexity, how much order and customer history has to move, how many integrations need rebuilding, and whether B2B or multi-market rules apply. A single-market store with a clean catalogue and two integrations is a different project from a B2B store with tiered pricing and an ERP behind it.
We scope from a system map before quoting, so the number reflects the surface the migration actually has to cover. Discovery, source-system access and data profiling come first, and the scope is written down before delivery starts. A rehearsal happens in every case, so go-live is a verification rather than a discovery.
A migration can fail far beyond the theme.
Search equity disappears
Useful URLs change without a complete redirect and validation plan.Business data loses meaning
Products, variants, customers and order history arrive without the mappings teams depend on.Integrations break at cutover
ERP, 3PL, CRM, payment and tracking handoffs are treated as after-launch work.The team inherits an undocumented store
A launch date exists, but ownership, acceptance checks and recovery paths do not.
Every part moves with its own source, owner and acceptance test.
Catalogue and customer data
Products, variants, customers and agreed order history are mapped and validated before cutover.Content and URL equity
Pages, collections, metadata and redirects preserve the useful paths that already earn demand.Apps and integrations
System connections are rebuilt and tested around product, order and fulfilment state.Tracking and measurement
Analytics, tags and events are checked for parity so reporting remains interpretable after launch.Commercial rules
Pricing, discounting, account and market rules are documented and accepted before go-live.Operating runbooks
Your team receives the access, workflows and records needed to operate the new store.
A controlled sequence, not a big-bang swap.
- 01
Inventory and discovery
Map the current data, systems, URLs and operating knowledge. - 02
Data and URL mapping
Decide what moves, where it lands and how every important URL resolves. - 03
Test migration
Prove the migration on a copy before customer-facing systems change. - 04
Build and parity QA
Rebuild the experience and verify it against the agreed source state. - 05
Cutover and hypercare
Launch in an agreed window, monitor the live system and resolve verified issues.
Acceptance evidence replaces migration theatre.
We keep test orders, redirect maps, tracking checks and a written acceptance list so you can see what moved and what was verified. The worksheet we publish for readers, the Shopify migration acceptance checklist (CSV), sets out the checks a migration has to pass before cutover, with the pass condition left for your business to set. The acceptance matrix behind it is explained in the Shopify migration checklist guide.
Two migrations, named, with the case studies behind them
Each line below is taken from a published case study, so you can read the full account before you take our word for it. More named migrations are added here as clients approve their use.
SENE Studio
Read the SENE Studio case studySENE Studio's legacy PHP order code was retired piece by piece between February and April 2026, while both systems kept serving customers.
Container One
Read the Container One case studyContainer One's new Shopify pricing engine matched the old system on 41 of 41 products tested before any traffic moved.
What changes scope and cost
Two Shopify migrations with the same product count can be very different projects. These are the factors that move the scope, and the ones we ask about first.
- Catalogue size and variant complexity. Option structures, identifiers, media, metafields and channel availability decide how much mapping and clean-up the catalogue needs.
- Customer and order history depth. How much history moves into Shopify, what stays accessible elsewhere, and which privacy rules apply to the records that move.
- Custom logic and apps. Pricing rules, discounting, bundles, subscriptions and anything that was built rather than configured.
- Integrations. Every ERP, PIM, OMS, WMS, 3PL, CRM, tax and shipping connection that has to keep working through cutover.
- URL and redirect volume. How many useful URLs exist, how many change shape, and how much crawl validation the move needs afterwards.
- B2B rules. Company accounts, price lists, payment terms and approval flows behave differently from a DTC catalogue.
- Multiple stores or markets. Currencies, languages, tax treatment and market-specific catalogues expand the build and the testing behind it.
We do not estimate from a product count. Discovery, source-system access and data profiling come first, and the scope is written down before delivery starts.
Shopify Plus migrations and B2B catalogues
A Plus migration is rarely a catalogue problem. The work sits in the logic that used to live in checkout scripts, the discount rules the business depends on, and the account structure commercial buyers order through.
Moving onto Shopify Plus means restating Scripts as Functions, rebuilding checkout extensibility against the supported surfaces, and confirming that discount stacking behaves the way finance expects after the change. Each of those is a testing problem more than a build problem, because the old behaviour is the acceptance standard.
B2B catalogues add company accounts, price lists, payment terms, approval flows and location-level ordering. Those rules usually exist in several places at once: an ERP, a spreadsheet and somebody's memory. We document where each rule originates before the move, then verify it per account type after cutover, so a wholesale buyer is not the person who finds the gap.
Shopify migration for Canadian and US merchants
Autonomous Technologies is a Vancouver, BC agency, and most migrations we run are for merchants selling into Canada, the United States or both. That shapes the parts of a replatform that are easiest to under-scope.
Cross-border selling brings its own acceptance list: GST, HST and PST treatment by province, US state-level sales tax registration and nexus, duties and de minimis handling at the border, dual-currency presentment, and shipping rules that differ by carrier on each side. Each one is a business rule with an owner, so each one gets a test before cutover rather than a discovery after it.
Delivery is remote and scheduled against your working hours, from Vancouver across Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern time. Cutover windows are agreed against the quietest trading period for your markets, not ours, and hypercare is staffed for the hours immediately after the switch.
How to assess any Shopify migration partner, including us
Six questions that separate a documented migration from a hopeful one. Ask every vendor on your shortlist the same six.
A written data plan before cutover
Ask for a document that names every source system and every record type that moves, with the fields, transformations and exceptions set out. Ask to see it before work starts, not at handover.
Redirects tested after cutover
Ask how redirects are validated after cutover: response checks across the URL map, then crawl and indexation monitoring. Ask to see the results of both.
One order traced across every system
Ask whether a single order is traced end to end through ERP, 3PL and CRM before go-live, or only inside Shopify. The handoffs between systems are the part a Shopify-only test never covers.
A rehearsal, not a big-bang swap
Ask whether the migration is rehearsed on a copy and what the rehearsal is timed against. A single live attempt with no measured rehearsal is a plan with no fallback position.
Acceptance evidence you can read
Ask what you are handed at sign-off: test orders, a redirect map, tracking checks and a written acceptance list. Ask what counts as the pass condition, and who signs it.
A named decision owner and a go or no-go gate
Ask who can stop cutover and on what conditions. If the migration proceeds by default once it has started, the go or no-go gate does not exist.
The migration method, published
The way we run a migration is published. Read it before you shortlist anyone.
- Shopify migration checklist: the acceptance tests that decide go or no-go sets out the acceptance matrix, the data and redirect plan and the launch decision record, with the acceptance worksheet (CSV).
- Porting Shopify Plus Scripts to Functions applies when discounting or checkout logic moves with you, which changes the testing more than the build.
Protect the work around the storefront
We plan redirects, tracking parity, test orders, access ownership, SEO handover and ERP, 3PL and CRM workflows alongside the new customer experience. The goal is a launch that the business can operate on day one.
Common questions
What does a Shopify migration agency do?
A Shopify migration agency moves an existing store from another ecommerce platform onto Shopify or Shopify Plus without losing the parts of the business that already work. That means catalogue, customer and order history, URL structure and search equity, payment and tax rules, and every integration the operation depends on. The work is data mapping and acceptance testing, not a theme swap. Design is the smallest part of it.
How much does a Shopify migration cost?
Cost tracks four things: catalogue complexity, how much order and customer history has to move, how many integrations need rebuilding, and whether B2B or multi-market rules apply. A single-market store with a clean catalogue and two integrations is a different project from a B2B store with tiered pricing and an ERP. We scope from a system map before quoting, so the number reflects the actual surface rather than a page count.
How long does a Shopify migration take?
Most migrations run eight to sixteen weeks from kickoff to cutover. The sequence is fixed: data and URL mapping, a test migration, build and parity QA, then cutover and hypercare. The variable is how long it takes to establish the business rules nobody wrote down, which is usually the longest step. A rehearsal migration happens before cutover in every case, so go-live is a verification, not a discovery.
Will we lose SEO rankings when we migrate to Shopify?
Not if redirects are treated as a deliverable rather than a launch-day task. Every indexed URL gets mapped to its destination before cutover, redirects are tested against the live map after cutover, and the rankings that matter are tracked through the transition. Losses happen when the URL inventory is taken from a sitemap instead of from crawl, analytics and referring-link data together. No migration can guarantee unchanged rankings or traffic.
Which platforms do you migrate to Shopify from?
WooCommerce, Magento and Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Volusion, custom in-house platforms, and Shopify to Shopify Plus upgrades. The origin platform changes the data extraction method and the redirect strategy, not the acceptance standard. Each migration is scoped from the source system's actual export capability rather than from a generic connector's claims.
Can historical customer and order data move with us?
Usually, within the limits of the source platform, your privacy obligations and the history your team genuinely needs. We agree the mapping, the reconciliation rule and what stays accessible elsewhere before any data moves. Customer passwords do not transfer with customer records, so the sign-in journey has to be confirmed against your chosen Shopify customer-account setup, tested, and communicated to customers as its own task.
What do you need from our team before starting?
A decision owner who can stop cutover, access to the source systems, named data owners for the records that move, an agreed approval cadence, and a clear statement of what cannot be interrupted during the cutover window.
Shopify Development & Design
Tell us what is changing, what must be preserved and where the current platform is getting in the way.
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