WooCommerce is a good place to start an online store. It is free, it runs on WordPress and you can bend it into almost anything. The trouble starts later: a stack of plugins that each need updating, hosting that slows down on sale days, checkout tweaks that break after an update, and a team that spends more time maintaining the store than growing it. That is usually when brands start looking at Shopify.
We have moved stores off WooCommerce before, including BroBasket, which we took from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus with a new UX and a PIM for its product data. This guide is the plan we follow: what moves over natively, what needs an app, how to map your data and URLs, and the order of steps that keeps sales and search rankings intact. It is based on Shopify's own Migrate from WooCommerce guide, checked in October 2026, plus what we have learned on real projects.
Why brands move from WooCommerce to Shopify
The reasons we hear most are operational, not cosmetic:
- Maintenance: WordPress core, WooCommerce, the theme and every plugin have their own update cycles. On Shopify, hosting, security and checkout are managed for you.
- Speed and stability: self-hosted stores are only as fast as their hosting and plugins. Image-heavy WooCommerce sites with many plugins are often slow, which hurts conversion and SEO.
- Checkout: Shopify's checkout, Shop Pay and payment setup work out of the box, and you can extend them with apps instead of custom PHP.
- Growth features: markets for selling internationally, B2B on every plan, Shopify Flow automation and a large app ecosystem.
WooCommerce still makes sense for some businesses, for example content-heavy sites where the store is a small part of a large WordPress publication. If your store is the business, the maintenance burden is usually what tips the decision.
What moves over, and how
Shopify gives you four routes: copy content by hand, use Shopify's free Store Migration app, import CSV files, or use a third-party migration app. Most migrations use a mix. This table summarizes Shopify's guidance by data type:
| Data | Store Migration app | Shopify CSV import | Otherwise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Products and variants | Yes | Yes, after reformatting | Migration apps |
| Customers | Yes | Yes, after reformatting | Full addresses need a WooCommerce export plugin |
| Historical orders | No | No | LitExtension, Matrixify, Ablestar |
| Product reviews | No | No | Judge.me, Ablestar |
| Coupons | No | No | Recreate as discounts, or Matrixify |
| Blog posts and pages | No | No | Recreate, or Matrixify |
| Customer passwords | No | No | Cannot be migrated |
| URL redirects | No | Yes, redirect CSV | Build the map yourself |
Two of these matter more than they look. Passwords cannot be moved, but with Shopify's customer accounts imported customers sign in with their email and a one-time code, so they never need one. If you use legacy customer accounts, invite customers to set a new password. And historical orders need a third-party app that connects to your WooCommerce store; import products and customers first, then orders, so they link up.
Product data: the mapping that trips people up
The Store Migration app takes your WooCommerce CSV files unchanged. If you use Shopify's product CSV instead, you reformat the WooCommerce export to Shopify's template. Either way, these are the differences to plan for:
- Three options per product. A Shopify product can have up to 3 options. A WooCommerce product with 4 or more variation attributes is imported without variants, so you rebuild it or restructure it, for example by splitting it into separate products or moving an attribute to metafields.
- Categories become collections. There is no category column on Shopify. Add WooCommerce category names to the Tags column, then create automated collections with conditions based on those tags.
- Variable products. WooCommerce exports one parent row plus one row per variation. In Shopify, the first row holds the product and its first variant, and each extra variant gets its own row with the same handle.
- Images. WooCommerce puts all image URLs in one cell; Shopify wants one image URL per row. Images are downloaded from those URLs during import, so keep the WooCommerce site online until the import is done.
- Weights and prices. Convert weights to grams. Only products on sale right now should get the sale price in Price and the regular price in Compare-at price; WooCommerce exports scheduled sale prices too, and sale dates are not imported.
- Drafts. Products from the Store Migration app arrive as drafts. With CSV import, untick "Publish new products to all sales channels" so nothing goes live before you review it.
Map every URL before you switch the domain
Search rankings belong to URLs, and WooCommerce and Shopify structure them differently. Shopify uses fixed paths for products and collections, so almost every URL on your store will change:
| Page type | WooCommerce (default) | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| Product | /product/blue-hoodie/ | /products/blue-hoodie |
| Category | /product-category/hoodies/ | /collections/hoodies |
| Product tag | /product-tag/casual/ | A collection, or the closest category |
| Page | /about/ | /pages/about |
| Blog post | /my-post/ (depends on permalink setting) | /blogs/news/my-post |
A few Shopify rules shape the map:
- Redirects are imported as a CSV under Content › Menus › URL redirects. Standard plans allow up to 100,000 redirects; Plus allows up to 20,000,000.
- A redirect only works when the old URL is broken on Shopify. If a page still loads at that path, the redirect is ignored.
- Shopify does not allow redirects from paths that start with certain reserved prefixes, including
/shop,/cartand/orders. If your WooCommerce products use the "Shop base" permalink (/shop/blue-hoodie/), plan for this early and test it on a development store before launch day. - One redirect covers all your market subfolders, such as
/en-ca/, unless you set separate ones.
Our Shopify migration SEO checklist covers the full SEO side: benchmarking, metadata, structured data and post-launch monitoring.
The migration plan, step by step
- Audit and benchmark. Export 12 to 16 months of Search Console and analytics data, crawl every URL, and list the plugins your store depends on (subscriptions, bundles, product options, B2B pricing, reviews, loyalty).
- Find a Shopify equivalent for each plugin. Native features cover a lot; the rest is an app or custom work. Decide this before design, not after.
- Set up the Shopify store and theme. Build on a theme, or headless if your content and brand need it. Use the migration to fix UX, not to copy the old site.
- Import products. Clean the catalog first: remove dead products, fix titles and descriptions, decide options and collections. Import as drafts and review.
- Import customers, then orders and reviews. Customers through the Store Migration app or CSV, then historical orders and reviews through third-party apps.
- Recreate the rest. Coupons as discounts, pages and blog posts (or import them with an app), navigation, policies and email notifications.
- Set up shipping, taxes and payments. Shipping zones and rates, tax settings for each province, state or country you sell to, and Shopify Payments or another provider.
- Import redirects and test everything. Place test orders: successful, failed, refunded and partly fulfilled. Check redirects for your top pages on the development store where possible.
- Switch the domain. Disconnect the domain from your old setup as Shopify advises to avoid SSL errors, then connect it to Shopify. Keep WooCommerce running somewhere private until you are sure nothing is missing.
- Monitor. Submit the Shopify sitemap in Google Search Console, watch 404s and rankings, and fix gaps quickly.
Timelines depend on catalog size, plugins and integrations. A simple store with a clean catalog can move in a few weeks; stores with subscriptions, custom pricing or ERP integrations take longer.
Shopify or Shopify Plus?
Most WooCommerce stores land on a standard Shopify plan. Plus becomes worth it when you need checkout extensibility, very high redirect volume, separate expansion stores, more B2B catalogs or higher API limits for integrations. BroBasket moved straight to Plus because of its catalog and UX needs. Our Shopify vs Shopify Plus guide walks through the decision, including pricing.
Common WooCommerce to Shopify mistakes
- Turning off WooCommerce too early. Product images import from your old URLs, and order and review apps connect to the live store.
- Ignoring products with 4 or more attributes. They import without variants. Find them in the export before you start.
- Redirecting everything to the home page. Map each important URL to its closest match; mass home page redirects throw away relevance.
- Forgetting the blog. WordPress posts often bring in a large share of organic traffic and are not in the WooCommerce export.
- Not telling customers about sign-in. Send a short email explaining how to sign in on the new store, especially if you use legacy accounts with passwords.
- Rebuilding every plugin. Some plugins solved problems Shopify handles natively. Rebuild what drives revenue, not everything you had.
How Startup Slang helps
We are an AI-first agency with offices in Toronto and Montreal, and we have built on Shopify since 2017. Our Shopify migration team handles WooCommerce moves end to end: the audit, plugin replacement, catalog clean-up, design, data and order migration, redirects and post-launch monitoring. After launch, our Shopify agency team can keep going with CRO, SEO and AI automation. Tell us about your WooCommerce store and we will give you a plan and timeline after a short audit.
Frequently asked questions
Can I migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify for free?
Yes, for the basics. Shopify's Store Migration app is free and imports WooCommerce products and customers from CSV files, and Shopify's product and customer CSV imports are free too. Historical orders, reviews, coupons and blog posts need third-party apps or manual work, and some of those apps are paid.
Can I move my WooCommerce orders to Shopify?
Not with a CSV file. Shopify says historical orders need a third-party migration app that connects to your WooCommerce store, such as LitExtension, Matrixify or Ablestar. Import products and customers first, then orders.
Will my customers need to reset their passwords?
Passwords cannot be migrated. With Shopify's customer accounts, imported customers sign in with their email address and a one-time code, so they do not need a password. If your store uses legacy customer accounts, you invite customers to create a new password.
Will I lose my Google rankings when I move from WooCommerce to Shopify?
Some fluctuation is normal while search engines re-crawl, but lasting losses usually come from missing redirects or lost content. Map every important WooCommerce URL to its new Shopify URL, import the redirects before you switch the domain, and monitor Search Console after launch.
What happens to WooCommerce products with more than 3 attributes?
A Shopify product can have up to 3 options. If a WooCommerce product uses 4 or more attributes for its variations, the Store Migration app imports it without variants. You can rebuild the variants afterwards, split the product, or use apps or metafields.
How long does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration take?
It depends on catalog size, plugins and integrations. A simple store with a clean catalog can move in a few weeks. Stores with subscriptions, custom pricing, B2B or ERP integrations take longer. We give a timeline after a short audit.