Four things move, and one protects you
- Products, with variants, images and specifications
- Customers, without passwords, which must be reset
- Orders, usually as history rather than live orders
- Content — pages, posts, policies
- URLs — every old address mapped to its new one
Stores that lose traffic after a migration lost it to unmapped URLs. Not to the platform, not to the design — to a few hundred product pages that now return nothing.
Build the URL map before you launch
- Export every existing URL from the old platform and from analytics
- Map each to its Shopify equivalent
- Where a product no longer exists, map it to the closest alternative or its collection
- Set the redirects before launch, not after
- Test your top fifty URLs manually on launch day
Customer passwords do not migrate
Password hashes cannot be moved between platforms. Every customer will need to reset, and they need telling in advance rather than discovering it at checkout.
Send a clear email before the switch explaining what will happen and why. Handled well it is a minor inconvenience; handled badly it is a wave of support tickets.
What usually breaks
| Item | Watch for |
|---|---|
| Variant structure | Platforms model variants differently |
| Product images | Order and alt text frequently lost |
| Discount codes | Rarely transfer — recreate them |
| Reviews | Need a specific migration path |
| Subscriptions | Almost always need rebuilding |
| Tax settings | Must be reconfigured and verified |
Watch the first month
Search visibility fluctuates for a fortnight after any migration. A sustained decline after three weeks means something is wrong — usually redirects.
Check coverage errors weekly, crawl for broken links, and confirm orders and emails are flowing correctly.