ServicesShopify Migration
Shopify migration without losing rankings or revenue.
Shopwell handles Shopify migration for brands replatforming from Magento, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce — where the URL map, redirects, and data integrity are planned before a single template gets built.
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Where brands come from
Every platform leaves a different mess.
Magento
Deep customization and complex catalogs that have outgrown their maintenance cost. The rebuild is an opportunity to drop what nobody uses.
Watch for: Custom checkout logic and extension behaviour that has to be rebuilt as Shopify Functions, not ported.
WooCommerce
Fast to start, brittle at scale — plugin stacks, hosting limits, and performance that erodes as the catalog grows.
Watch for: Plugin-generated URLs and category structures that need careful one-to-one redirect mapping.
BigCommerce
Similar shape to Shopify, so data moves cleanly — the value is in the front end and the app ecosystem you gain.
Watch for: Faceted and filter URLs that were indexed and now need consolidation instead of blind redirects.
Reviews
What it's like to work with us.
“The team at Shopwell takes the time to understand our business goals and constraints so they can best solve the needs of our ecommerce site, in a way that we can effectively operationalize. Combining expertise in project management, back end solutions engineering, and front end development, Shopwell serves as an external agency that feels like a fully fleshed out extension of our internal team.”
Why migrations go wrong
The traffic drop is almost always avoidable.
URLs change silently
Platform URL patterns differ. Without a mapped redirect for every indexed page, years of accumulated authority points at 404s.
Metadata gets dropped
Titles, descriptions, canonical tags, and structured data live in platform-specific fields. Exports rarely carry them across intact.
Content gets thinned
Collection copy, buying guides, and product detail get trimmed "for the new design" — and rankings follow the content out the door.
Data quietly goes missing
Variant options, order history, customer accounts, and reviews are where migrations lose fidelity. Nobody notices until support tickets arrive.
Integrations are an afterthought
ERP, 3PL, and subscription systems get scoped last and become the reason launch slips — or worse, launches broken.
Launch day is improvised
No runbook, no rollback, no monitoring. The first hours after DNS changes are when problems are cheapest to fix — if someone is watching.
What we help with
A migration is a revenue project, not an IT project.
Discovery & URL mapping
Full crawl of the existing store, every indexed URL inventoried and mapped, integrations and data model documented before design begins.
Data migration & QA
Products, variants, customers, orders, content, and reviews moved with reconciliation counts — verified against the source, not assumed.
Design & build on Shopify
A storefront built on Shopify's current theme architecture — faster, cleaner, and editable by your team once we hand over.
Launch & monitoring
Cutover runbook, rollback plan, redirect verification, sitemap submission, and close monitoring of crawl and revenue for the weeks after.
What's included
Everything a safe replatform requires.
Scoped to your stack and catalog — and usually paired with ecommerce design, Shopify Plus development, or SEO once the store is live.
Our process
Mapped before built. Verified before launched.
01
Discovery
Crawl, data model, integration inventory, and search baseline — so we know what has to survive.
02
Mapping
Redirect map and content model signed off before any template gets built.
03
Build
Theme, data migration, and integrations developed in parallel on a staged environment.
04
Verify
Redirect testing, data reconciliation, tracking parity, and performance checks against the old store.
05
Launch & watch
Low-traffic cutover, live verification, then weeks of monitoring indexation and revenue.
SEO preservation
Your rankings are an asset. We treat them like one.
Because we do Shopify SEO as a discipline, search requirements enter the project at discovery — not as a checklist someone runs the week before launch.
The difference
Not a data transfer. A relaunch.
Typical migration projects
Shopwell
App-based data dump
Migration plan built from a full crawl
Redirects added after launch
Redirect map signed off before build
Design rebuilt from scratch, content lost
Ranking content preserved by design
SEO handled by "the SEO person" later
Search requirements in the scope from day one
Handoff at launch
Monitoring and iteration after launch
FAQ
Deciding questions, straight answers.
Will we lose our search rankings when we migrate to Shopify?
Not if the migration is planned around them. Rankings are lost when URLs change without redirects, metadata is dropped, or content is thinned during the rebuild. We map every indexed URL before development starts, redirect one-to-one wherever a match exists, carry over metadata and structured data, and monitor indexation daily through launch.
How long does a Shopify migration take?
For most mid-market catalogs, 8 to 16 weeks from discovery to launch — driven by catalog complexity, integrations, and how much of the design is being rebuilt rather than data volume alone. We scope it against your specific stack, not an average.
What data comes across?
Products and variants, collections and categories, customers, order history, blog and content pages, reviews, and subscription or loyalty records where the platforms allow it. We reconcile counts and spot-check records before launch, so nothing quietly goes missing.
Can we keep our custom checkout logic from Magento?
Usually the intent, not the implementation. Shopify's checkout is closed but extensible on Plus — discount, shipping, and payment logic get rebuilt as Functions and UI extensions. We identify anything that genuinely can't be reproduced during discovery, not after you've committed.
What happens to our integrations?
We map every system touching the store — ERP, PIM, 3PL, CRM, email, subscriptions — and decide per system: native Shopify app, custom API integration, or middleware. That inventory drives the timeline, because integrations are what usually delay a launch.
How do you handle launch day?
A staged environment, a written cutover runbook, and a rollback plan. We launch during a low-traffic window, verify redirects and analytics live, submit updated sitemaps, and monitor crawl and revenue closely for the following weeks.
Related services
Work that compounds together.
A replatform touches everything. These are the services that usually run before, during, and after the cutover.
Not sure where to start? Tell us what's stalling and we'll point you at the work that matters first.