Moving from WooCommerce to Shopify and back: what comes along and what gets lost

Moving from WooCommerce to Shopify works, but only part of the shop moves on its own. Shopify's free Store Migration app takes over products and customers from CSV files. Past orders, coupons, reviews, blog posts and pages need an extra tool or manual work, and customer passwords do not move in either direction. Because Shopify uses fixed URL paths such as /products/, almost every URL changes as well: without a complete redirect list you lose rankings. In the other direction, from Shopify to WooCommerce, the built-in WooCommerce importer only brings in products, and customers and orders need a plugin.

Clients keep telling me they want to switch from WooCommerce to Shopify. For context: I am a WooCommerce developer, so I see this from the WooCommerce side. I have no contract with any of the vendors named here and receive no commission. Features and prices are as the vendors list them on their websites on 29 October 2026. The legal section refers to German law.

Is the move worth it?

A migration takes work, and rankings fluctuate for a few weeks afterwards, even when everything is done right. It only pays off if the new system solves a problem you actually have today.

Shopify fits better if …	WooCommerce stays the better choice if …
you sell standard products and nobody looks after updates, hosting and security.	the shop has custom features, such as a product configurator, customer-group pricing or a deep connection to an inventory system.
your current shop causes trouble mainly because of outdated plugins and missing upkeep, and you would rebuild it anyway.	guides, blog and shop rank together in one WordPress site and you want to decide the URLs yourself.
you would rather pay a fixed monthly fee and fees per payment than hours of upkeep.	the real reason for the switch is that nobody looks after the shop. That can be fixed without changing systems.

The last point is the most common one. When a shop is slow, keeps asking for updates and nobody looks after it, the cause is usually that nobody is responsible. Shopify takes hosting and updates off your hands, but someone still has to look after apps, theme, products and legal texts there too.

Custom features are the second test. For the thestars.de shop I built, as a WooCommerce developer, a custom plugin that lets customers design their night sky as a poster. Something like that does not move over; on Shopify it would have to be rebuilt as an app or in the theme. What both systems cost per month is worked out in the comparison Shopify or WooCommerce?, with Shopify's euro prices for Germany and a worked example.

What comes along when moving to Shopify, and what does not

Shopify describes the process in its guide to migrating from WooCommerce. The Store Migration app is free and reads the CSV files you export from WooCommerce. What it covers and what it does not:

Data	What happens in the move
Products and variants	Come along, first as drafts. Shopify allows at most three options per product: if a WooCommerce product uses four or more attributes for its variations, it arrives without variants.
Categories	Shopify has no separate field for them. They become tags, from which you build automated collections.
Product images	Shopify downloads them from the old URLs during the import. The WooCommerce shop has to stay online until the import is finished.
Customers	Come along. WooCommerce only exports customers with full address details through a plugin, though.
Customer passwords	Do not come along. With Shopify's new customer accounts, customers sign in with their email address and a one-time code. With legacy customer accounts you invite them to set a new password.
Past orders	Not via CSV, only with a migration app. Import products and customers first, then the orders.
Coupons	Not via CSV. Recreate them as discounts in Shopify or transfer them with an app.
Reviews	Are not in the WooCommerce export and need a reviews app.
Blog and pages	Are not in the export either. Recreate them or transfer them with an app.
Plugin data such as unit price and delivery time from Germanized	Shopify's column mapping has no field for them, and Shopify even advises removing such columns before the import. They have to be set up again in Shopify, as metafields or through an app.
Running sale prices	The end date does not come along. Note it down and reset the price manually after the sale.

If you want to take more than products and customers, you need a paid tool. Shopify itself names three: Matrixify pulls products, categories, customers, orders, coupons, blog posts and pages directly through the WooCommerce API and creates redirects from the old URLs along the way. According to its pricing page it starts at 20 US dollars for 30 days, with up to 5,000 products and 1,000 orders per import in the smallest plan. The Ablestar WooCommerce Importer takes the first 20 products for free, more from 4.99 US dollars, and orders and customers from 9.99 US dollars. LitExtension charges by the number of records and bills redirects and SEO URLs as extra options.

Step by step from WooCommerce to Shopify

The order follows Shopify's guide, with the points added where migrations get stuck in practice.

1. Take stock. Which plugins handle which job, such as legal texts, invoices, shipping, payment methods or the connection to your inventory system? Each of these jobs needs a setting or an app in Shopify. Also note in Search Console under “Performance” which pages bring the most visitors.
2. Save every URL. Export every product, category, page and blog URL, most easily from the sitemap. This list is the basis for the redirects.
3. Test import. Import products first, then customers and finally, with an app, the orders into a Shopify store that is not yet running on your domain. Check variants, prices, images and stock on a few products by hand.
4. Recreate what does not come along. Collections from the tags, discounts, pages, blog, legal texts and everything Germanized or other plugins have handled so far.
5. Set up shipping, taxes and payment providers and then place test orders with every payment method.
6. Import the redirects. Shopify advises creating them before you move the domain, so that bookmarks and external links do not lead nowhere. What the list looks like is in the next section.
7. Switch the domain. You can keep your domain. Move all URLs at once, not section by section.
8. Follow up. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console and check the pages with 404 errors over the following weeks.

URLs and rankings: the redirect list

By default WooCommerce places products under /product/ and categories under /product-category/, as the WooCommerce permalinks documentation explains. Shopify has fixed paths you cannot change. Every old URL therefore needs a redirect to the new one:

URL in WooCommerce	URL in Shopify
/product/hoodie/	/products/hoodie
/product-category/jumpers/	/collections/jumpers
/shipping/ (page)	/pages/shipping
/care-tips/ (blog post)	/blogs/news/care-tips

You create the redirects in the Shopify admin under the menus, in “URL redirects”, or import them as a CSV file. According to Shopify's help, up to 100,000 redirects are possible, up to 20 million on the Plus plan. Two rules from the same page surprise many shop owners:

• Shopify only redirects from URLs that no longer load a page. If the old URL still loads a page in Shopify, the redirect does not work.
• URLs that begin with /shop cannot be redirected. That affects WooCommerce shops with the permalink setting “Shop base”, whose products sit under /shop/product-name/. Check this with a test redirect on your domain before the move. If it fails, the redirect has to happen in front of Shopify, for example at your DNS or CDN provider.

Google explains what matters in its guide to site moves: permanent redirects (301 or 308) that stay in place for at least a year, every old URL to its matching new one rather than all of them to the home page, and the new sitemap submitted in Search Console. For small to medium-sized sites, Google says it takes a few weeks for most pages to move, and rankings fluctuate during that time. You only need the Change of Address tool in Search Console if the domain changes.

What has to be set up again for German shops

In a German WooCommerce shop, Germanized or German Market usually handle the duties of German law: the order button, unit prices, delivery times, invoices and, since June 2026, the withdrawal button. None of this comes along in a move; each of these jobs needs its own solution in Shopify.

• Order button: Under Section 312j of the German Civil Code (BGB), the button that completes the order must read “zahlungspflichtig bestellen” (order with obligation to pay) or an equally clear wording. Check how your button is labelled in the Shopify checkout.
• Withdrawal button: Since 19 June 2026, consumers must be able to withdraw via a button under Section 356a BGB, based on EU rules. In its help on the EU right of withdrawal, Shopify points to its return and cancellation rules plus a clearly visible link. In WooCommerce, Germanized handles this, for example, as described in the article on the withdrawal button in WooCommerce.
• Legal texts: Shopify can generate policies such as terms and privacy policy automatically, but its help itself says they might not reflect the most recent legal developments. Take over the reviewed texts from your lawyer or legal text service.
• Payment methods: Shopify Payments is available in Germany. With an external payment provider, Shopify charges an extra fee of 2 to 0.2 percent per payment depending on the plan, details in the cost comparison.

The other direction: from Shopify to WooCommerce

WooCommerce describes the process in its guide to migrating from Shopify, as of 19 October 2026. The key points:

• Products are exported from Shopify as a CSV file and imported with WooCommerce's built-in product importer, variations included. Columns the importer does not recognise are not imported. Images are not in the file; WooCommerce fetches them from the Shopify URLs. Keep the Shopify store running until the import is finished.
• Customers and orders are beyond the built-in importer. WooCommerce names third-party plugins for them. Passwords do not move in this direction either, so customers set a new one after the move. Payment details such as the transaction ID are not transferred, and according to WooCommerce shipping, tax and coupon data may not map accurately.
• Tools: WooCommerce recommends the extension Migrate & Import Shopify to WooCommerce by FmeAddons, which transfers products, customers, orders, pages, blog and coupons, listed on the marketplace at 71 euros a year. For free, the S2W plugin transfers products with images, variations and categories, everything else only in the paid version.
• URLs: By default /products/name becomes /product/name/ in WooCommerce. With a custom base in the permalink settings you can place products under /products/ as well, which keeps the product URLs almost the same. For all other URLs, set up 301 redirects, for example with the Redirection plugin, and then check the 404 errors in Search Console.

Frequently asked questions

Can I move from WooCommerce to Shopify without losing rankings?

Largely yes, if every old URL redirects with a 301 to its matching new one and the content stays the same. For small and medium-sized sites, Google expects a few weeks in which rankings fluctuate. Rankings are mainly lost where redirects are missing or everything points to the home page.

Do my customers' passwords come along?

No, in neither direction. On Shopify, customers with the new customer accounts sign in with an email code and do not need a password. On WooCommerce, migrated customers set a new password.

What do the migration tools cost?

Shopify's Store Migration app is free but only takes products and customers. For orders, coupons, blog and pages you add paid tools, Matrixify for example from 20 US dollars for 30 days (as of 29 October 2026). On top come the hours for taking stock, rework and redirects, and afterwards the monthly Shopify plan. What a WooCommerce shop costs to run by comparison is covered in What does a WooCommerce shop cost?

Can I keep my domain?

Yes. Shopify takes over your existing domain, only the URLs of the individual pages change. That is exactly what the redirect list is for.

Do I need a plugin to move from Shopify to WooCommerce?

Not for products; WooCommerce's product importer takes them from Shopify's CSV export. For customers and orders, yes: WooCommerce names third-party plugins or the FmeAddons extension.

Help with the move

Thinking about moving your shop and want to know beforehand what comes along? I check your WooCommerce shop, its plugins and the URLs that bring visitors from Google. A move from Shopify to WooCommerce can also be handed over completely: data, Germanized, redirects and test orders on a copy before the domain is switched. More about my shop work is on the WooCommerce freelancer page. Write to me via the contact form or call +49 89 3288 6771.