ShopifyWhat moves, what changes, what we rebuild
We sort every item into one of these three columns before we quote.
Moves acrossscripted
Exported, mapped and imported by script.
Changes shapemapped
Same data, a different home on Shopify.
We rebuildnew build
Built fresh, because it cannot be copied.
Should you move from WooCommerce to Shopify?
Most WooCommerce stores that call us are tired of the upkeep around WooCommerce more than the platform itself: a plugin update that breaks the checkout on a Friday, a host that slows down every time a newsletter goes out, three people who each know a third of how the site works. Shopify takes the servers, security patches and checkout off your plate.
It suits you if your team spends more time maintaining the store than selling through it, if you sell mostly standard products with sizes and colours, and if you’d happily pay a monthly plan and a few apps to stop worrying about hosting.
When we’d tell you to stay
If your store leans on heavy custom PHP, such as a product builder that prices by the millimetre or a checkout that talks to a warehouse in real time, Shopify can still do it, but often as a custom app you’ll pay to maintain. If your blog brings in most of your traffic and your editors love the block editor, moving it all to Shopify’s simpler blog can cost you more than it saves. In those cases we’ll say so on the audit call, and sometimes the better project is speeding up WooCommerce or tidying its plugins rather than leaving.
Want to see both platforms side by side first? Our WooCommerce and Shopify pages cover what we build on each.
Every old URL, sent somewhere useful
WooCommerce and Shopify structure URLs differently. Each old address gets a 301 redirect in Shopify’s URL redirects, checked against a crawl of the old site before the domain moves.
Illustrative rows from a redirect map.
What replaces your plugins on Shopify?
Every plugin gets a line in the audit. These are the ones we see on almost every WooCommerce store, and where each one usually lands.
Titles, meta and sitemaps
Shopify writes the sitemap and robots.txt for you, and every product, collection and page has its own title and description fields. We copy Yoast or Rank Math titles and meta descriptions across by script, so the snippets Google already shows don’t change on launch day.
What doesn’t carry over is the plugin’s schema settings. Shopify themes output product structured data, and we check it against what you had before.
Recurring orders
Subscriptions are the most delicate part of this route. Shopify runs them through a subscription app, either Shopify’s own or a third-party one, and each subscriber needs a valid payment method on the new side.
If your WooCommerce store charges cards through Stripe, the saved cards can often move with the subscriber, because the card stays with Stripe. If not, subscribers are asked to confirm their card once. We work out which before quoting, because it changes the customer emails and the cutover date.
Extra fields and bundles
Shopify products carry up to a fixed number of options, like size, colour and material, and a cap on variants per product. A WooCommerce product with a long tail of attribute combinations sometimes needs splitting, or the rarely-used extras become line-item properties instead of variants.
Engraving text, gift messages and paid add-ons become an options app or a small theme customisation. Bundles go to Shopify’s bundles feature or an app, depending on whether stock has to come off each part.
Trade customers
Role-based pricing plugins don’t have a direct match on standard Shopify plans. Small wholesale lists usually run on a wholesale app with tagged customers. If trade is a big part of your revenue, Shopify Plus has B2B built in, with company accounts, price lists and payment terms, and that changes the route, so we’d price it as a Plus project.
Quote requests can run on TackQuote, our own quoting app, if your trade buyers expect to ask before they buy.
Cutover night, rehearsed first
Rehearsal
Full test migration on a staging store, signed off.
Freeze
Checkout paused on WooCommerce at your quietest hour.
Final delta
Orders and customers since the rehearsal moved across.
Domain
DNS pointed at Shopify, SSL issued, redirects live.
Checks
Test orders, payments, emails and the crawl compared.
A WooCommerce to Shopify move, in order
A composite of the stores we see most rather than a real client. It shows where the weeks go.
Picture a homeware store: about 1,800 products, half of them variable, 30-odd plugins, a blog of 200 posts that ranks for care guides, and WooCommerce Subscriptions for a monthly candle box. The owner’s worry is simple: “Will the care guides still rank and will the candle subscribers still get charged?”
Illustrative example- Week 1
Inventory everything
We crawl the live site, export the database and list every plugin, every custom field and every URL Google has indexed. The care guides turn out to bring a third of organic sessions, so they get their own line in the redirect plan.
- Weeks 2–3
Decide the hard bits first
Subscriptions: cards are on Stripe, so tokens can move with the subscription app. Variable products: two lines have too many colour and size combinations and get split. Blog: moved to Shopify, because the posts are short and the editors are happy with a simpler editor.
- Weeks 3–6
Build and rehearse
Theme built, apps installed, full data import on a staging store. The owner places test orders, checks a few customer accounts and reads three care guides on mobile. Every fix goes back into the scripts, so the real migration repeats it.
- Week 7
Cut over and watch
A two-hour freeze on a Tuesday night, delta sync, DNS switch. The next morning we compare crawls, check the first subscription renewals in the app, and watch Search Console for the care guides through the following weeks.
Timings are illustrative. Yours depend on catalogue size, plugins and how fast decisions come back.
Three things that never copy across cleanly
No migration tool moves these as they are. We plan each one before cutover night, so customers hear about it from you before they meet a failed login.
WooCommerce to Shopify, answered
Anything else, ask on the audit call.
Ask an engineer
Not answered here? Ask on the free 30-minute audit call. An engineer replies within one business day.
Quick facts
- Based in Delhi, India Working across time zones, with written weekly updates.
- Fixed quote first Nothing is billed before you agree it.
- You own it The code, workflows and accounts are yours.
- Stores and ERPs Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and Adobe Commerce, with NetSuite, SAP Business One, Odoo and Dynamics 365.
Can we keep our WordPress blog?
Yes. Intelligize Digital can move posts into Shopify’s blog, or keep a large blog on WordPress at a subdomain and link the two, depending on how much the content earns.
What happens to our WooCommerce plugins?
We list every plugin in the audit and replace each with a Shopify app, a Shopify feature or custom code. Some plugins are no longer needed because Shopify does the job natively.
Will customers need to reset passwords?
Yes. Password hashes cannot move between platforms, so customers receive a branded account invite and set a new password in one step.
Do product reviews come across?
Usually. Most review apps on Shopify import a CSV of WooCommerce reviews with ratings, dates and reviewer names.
How long is the order freeze?
Typically one to two hours at your quietest time. Orders placed after the final export are moved by a delta sync straight after.
Can we keep the same product URLs?
Not exactly. Shopify always puts products under /products/ and categories under /collections/, so WooCommerce paths like /product/blue-mug/ change. Every old path gets a 301 redirect to its new home, and the handles after the prefix usually stay the same.
Will our Google Shopping feed break?
It needs reconnecting. Product IDs change on Shopify, so we set up the Google and YouTube channel or your feed app, then watch Merchant Center for disapprovals in the first days after launch.
Do we need Shopify Plus?
Most WooCommerce stores don’t. Plus makes sense for high order volumes, checkout customisation or proper B2B. The audit compares the two plans for your store before you commit.
What happens to WooCommerce order numbers?
Historical orders keep their original numbers as archived orders on Shopify. New orders continue from a starting number we set, so the two ranges don’t clash in your accounting.
Going the other way, or somewhere else?
WooCommerce
Magento → 
BigCommerce → Which plugin would you
miss least?
Tell us about your WooCommerce store. An engineer replies within one business day with the risks and a rough plan.
What happens next
- An engineer replies Within one business day, by email.
- A free 30-minute audit On a call with an engineer.
- A fixed quote It follows the audit. Nothing is billed before you agree it.