How do you migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify?
A WooCommerce to Shopify migration runs in five stages: deciding what to move, importing products, importing customers and order history, setting up URL redirects, and testing tracking and payments before moving the domain. Shopify recommends importing products first, customers second and historical orders last, so orders link to the right records.
The technical part is usually easier than expected. What brands actually lose in a migration is rarely data. It's organic traffic, ad tracking and the sales from the first two weeks. This guide puts most of its weight on those three.
Is moving from WooCommerce to Shopify worth it?
Not for every brand. On WooCommerce, hosting, plugin updates, security and speed are your job. Shopify takes those on as a platform, and in return limits some flexibility. We tend to find the move makes sense when plugin conflicts slow the site down during busy periods, when there's no developer on the team full time, or when the brand plans to sell internationally.
If you haven't decided yet, start with our Shopify vs WooCommerce vs ikas comparison. This guide is for brands that already have.
What data moves, and what doesn't?
According to Shopify's WooCommerce migration guide, different data moves in different ways:
| Data | How it moves | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Products | CSV import or Shopify's Store Migration app | Shopify allows up to 3 product options; extra options don't import |
| Customers | Export with a WooCommerce plugin, reformat to Shopify's customer CSV | Column headers must match exactly; the template has no password field |
| Order history | Third-party migration apps | Import after products and customers |
| Product reviews | Manual import through a review app | Can't be moved directly from WooCommerce |
| Blog posts and pages | Manually or with an app | URL structure changes, so redirects are needed |
Because passwords don't carry over, registered customers will need to reactivate their accounts on the new store. Announcing this by email ahead of time cuts down the "I can't log in" tickets in week one.
A step-by-step migration plan
We recommend this order. The old store stays live and selling until the last step.
- Build an inventory. List every product, category, page and blog URL in a sheet. Mark the pages that get traffic in Search Console.
- Decide what to leave behind. Don't move products that haven't sold in years or pages that serve no purpose, but redirect them if they get traffic.
- Import products. Use CSV or a migration app, then spot-check price, weight, stock and variants.
- Import customers and orders. Turn off new order notifications during the order import, or staff get an email for every historical order.
- Set up theme, shipping, taxes and payments. Test every payment method with real test orders.
- Prepare URL redirects. Map old URLs to new ones and import the list into Shopify by CSV.
- Set up tracking. Connect GA4, the Meta Pixel and Conversions API, the Google Ads conversion tag and your Merchant Center feed to the new store.
- Move the domain. Pick your lowest-traffic day and stay a few weeks clear of big sale periods.
- Watch the first 72 hours. Track 404 errors, order counts and tracking events hour by hour.
How do you keep your SEO traffic?
Shopify's URL structure differs from WooCommerce: products live under /products/, categories under /collections/ and pages under /pages/. So almost every URL changes. Google's site move documentation recommends permanent (301 or 308) redirects from old URLs to new ones, short redirect chains and keeping redirects in place for at least a year. Sending many old pages to the homepage in bulk is not recommended.
In Shopify you can add redirects one by one or in bulk via CSV. One detail matters: Shopify says a redirect only works when the old URL no longer loads a page. If you're keeping the same domain, you don't need the Change of Address tool in Search Console; it's only for moves between domains. Our post on keeping SEO traffic during a site migration has a more detailed checklist.
A mistake we see often is redirecting product URLs and forgetting category and blog URLs. On many ecommerce sites, category pages bring in a large share of organic traffic.
How do payments and invoicing work when moving to Shopify from Turkey?
Shopify Payments doesn't include Turkey in its list of supported countries, and Shopify says stores in unlisted countries need a third-party payment provider. In practice that means choosing a local payment company with a Shopify integration. When you compare them, test installment support, the 3D Secure flow and refunds with real test orders.
For e-invoices and e-archive invoices, check before the move whether the integrator you use on WooCommerce has a Shopify app. The same goes for your shipping integration. If one of these three links is missing, the store goes live but order operations stall.
Why does ad tracking break during a migration?
When the theme changes, the Pixel code, GA4 tag and Google Ads conversion tag from WooCommerce stay behind. On Shopify you usually rebuild them through the official apps. The problem is that ads keep running on migration day while sales stop reaching the ad platforms for a few days. Automated bidding reads that as a performance drop and steers spend in the wrong direction.
To avoid this, place a test order on the new store and confirm that the Purchase event reaches Meta, Google Ads and GA4 with the same value. Connect the Merchant Center feed to the new store as well; product URLs change, so earlier feed approvals can stop applying.
How long does a migration take?
For a store with a few hundred products and a standard setup, a few weeks including planning is realistic. It takes longer with many variants, features built on custom plugins or a multilingual site. Google notes that on small to medium sites it can take a few weeks for most pages to move to their new addresses, and rankings may fluctuate in the meantime.
If you'd like to plan the move with a Shopify Partner team, our Shopify agency service covers data import, the redirect map and tracking setup together. To see how ready your current store is for a migration, you can ask Performetic for a free growth audit.
Key takeaways
- Shopify's recommended order: products first, then customers, then order history.
- Customer passwords don't transfer; plan an account activation email for registered customers.
- Almost every URL changes; build a 301 redirect map for products, categories and blog posts and keep it for at least a year.
- Shopify Payments isn't available in Turkey; test the local payment, e-invoice and shipping integrations before the move.
- Set up the Pixel, GA4, Google Ads tag and Merchant Center feed before moving the domain, and confirm them with a test order.