Shopify Migration Services. Move Without Losing SEO.
Devvista is a software development and growth agency that migrates WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce and custom stores to Shopify. Your products, customers, orders and content move over, and every old URL gets a redirect before launch so the traffic you earned keeps finding you. This page covers what moves, what breaks if it is skipped, the steps we follow, and a worked cost example.
Why Stores Lose Sales After a Migration
Moving to Shopify changes the address of almost every page. Shopify's own migration guide warns that its link structure is likely different from your old store, so old links "likely won't load for customers." A product page that used to rank, a category page that brought in buyers, and a blog post with links from other sites all stop working unless each one points somewhere new.
That is the first cause. The second is data that arrives incomplete: variants that no longer match, customers without their order history, and product descriptions that lost their headings. The third is tracking. If purchase events stop firing, you cannot tell whether the migration hurt or helped.
All three are preventable before launch. The fix is a plan with a URL map, a fixed import order, and a short list of checks you can measure. The rest of this page walks through it.
Not sure how many URLs your store has or which ones earn traffic? We can pull that list from your analytics before you decide anything.
Request a Migration ReviewWhat a Shopify Migration Covers
A migration is more than a product export. These are the six pieces we plan, move and check one by one.
Products, Variants and Collections
Titles, descriptions, images, SKUs, prices, inventory and variants, plus the categories that become Shopify collections. We clean the source data first, because an import repeats whatever mistakes are in the export. Descriptions keep their headings so the pages that already rank keep their structure.
CatalogCustomers
Names, addresses, tags and marketing consent move across, so repeat buyers do not start from zero.
PeopleOrder History
Fulfilled orders are imported after products and customers, so each order attaches to the right record.
OrdersURLs and Redirects
Every old product, collection, page and post URL is listed, matched to its new address, and loaded into Shopify's redirect tool. We test a sample from each group and the highest-traffic pages one by one. Redirects stay in place for at least a year.
301Pages, Blog and Metadata
Content pages, blog posts, page titles and meta descriptions are moved so the text search engines already know stays intact.
ContentTracking and Integrations
Google Analytics purchase events, ad pixels, payment gateways, shipping rates, email marketing and accounting links are rebuilt and tested with a real order before launch.
ConnectHow We Migrate a Store to Shopify, Step by Step
Six steps, in this order. The URL map comes before the import because it decides how the new store is organized.
Audit and Baseline
We export your sitemap, your top pages by organic traffic and sales, and your current tracking setup. This becomes the before picture, so after launch we compare against real numbers instead of memory.
Map Every URL
Google advises mapping each old URL to its new one and keeping that map for redirects, internal links and sitemaps. We build it in a spreadsheet you can read, and flag pages that have no equivalent so you decide what happens to them.
Clean and Import Data
We fix the source data, then import products first, customers second and historical orders last, the order Shopify's guide recommends. After each pass we compare counts between the old and new store.
Build and Match the Theme
We set up the theme, navigation and checkout, and replace plugin features with Shopify apps or a custom app. Page titles, descriptions and headings are carried across for every page that ranks.
Test Before Launch
We place real test orders through each payment method, check emails, tax and shipping, and open the redirect list in bulk to catch chains and loops. The checklist is signed off with you before DNS changes.
Launch and Measure
After launch we submit the new sitemap in Search Console and inspect the top URLs. Over the following weeks we watch crawl errors, indexed pages, organic clicks and purchase events against the baseline from step one.
Migrating to Shopify From WooCommerce, Magento or BigCommerce
Each source platform stores data differently, so the risks differ. Export options vary, so we check what your platform lets you export before we quote.
| Coming from | What needs the most care |
|---|---|
| WooCommerce | Product variations and attributes, features added by WordPress plugins (subscriptions, memberships, custom fields), blog posts that sit in the same WordPress site, and URL paths that all change. |
| Magento | Custom attributes, multiple store views, price rules and customer groups, and extensions that have no direct Shopify match. |
| BigCommerce | Structure is closer to Shopify, so most of the effort goes into the theme, app replacements and redirects. |
| Squarespace, Wix and others | Limited exports, so some product data may need manual entry, and content that has to be rebuilt page by page. |
| Custom or older platforms | Pulling data straight from the database or an API, and documenting business rules that were never written down. |
If your current store runs on WordPress and you are weighing whether to move at all, our guide to ecommerce platforms for small business compares the options. If you are staying on WordPress, see our WordPress development page instead.
What a Shopify Migration Costs
Devvista quotes either a fixed price from $500 to $100,000 depending on complexity, or hourly work from $10 to $100 an hour depending on the developer. Where the work sits in that range depends on the factors below.
Four things move the price most: the number of products and variants, whether order history comes across, the number of features that need a replacement app or custom build, and how many integrations must be rebuilt. Languages, currencies and B2B pricing add to it.
Worked example (an estimate, not a quote). Assume a WooCommerce store with about 500 products, 3,000 customers, two years of orders and 40 content pages, with no custom features. Using one illustrative rate of $40 an hour:
| Work | Hours |
|---|---|
| Audit, baseline and URL map | 15 |
| Product data cleanup and import | 25 |
| Theme setup, navigation and checkout | 20 |
| Customer and order import, with count checks | 20 |
| Redirects, metadata and SEO checks | 15 |
| Testing, launch and the first weeks of monitoring | 15 |
| Total | 110 hours, about $4,400 at $40 an hour |
A single developer working on that scope would, as an estimate, need three to four weeks of calendar time, because customers, owners and payment providers each take review time. A store with custom features or a large catalog will cost more and run longer. We confirm both after the audit.
How to Tell Whether the Migration Worked
A migration is done when the numbers say so, not when the store goes live. These are the checks we run, and you can run them yourself.
In Search Console: the page indexing report for new errors, the sitemap status for the new sitemap, and URL Inspection on your ten most valuable pages. Compare clicks and impressions with the baseline from step one, week over week.
In Shopify: the URL redirects list for gaps, and Analytics for pages returning errors. Shopify notes that a redirect only works from a broken URL, so any old page that still loads something unexpected needs a manual look.
In Google Analytics: purchase events firing on real orders, and revenue per channel against the previous month. Keep the redirects in place for at least a year, which is Google's own recommendation, and longer if the old URLs still earn links.
Expect some movement in rankings for a few weeks. What should not happen is a sustained drop on pages that were redirected correctly. If one appears, the first suspects are a missing redirect, a changed title, or content that did not carry over.
Sources: Shopify's migration guide, Shopify URL redirects and Google's site move guidance.
Who Should Hire a Shopify Migration Company, and Who Should Not
A migration is worth paying for when the store already makes money and the old platform is holding it back. It is not worth it in every case.
If search sends you customers today, the URL map and the post-launch checks protect them. This is where a careful migration pays for itself.
Slow admin, plugin conflicts, hosting you have to manage, or a developer who is the only person who understands the store. Shopify takes much of that off your plate.
We write down what moves, what is replaced and what is dropped, with hours against each line, before any work starts.
If you sell a handful of products and nothing ranks, Shopify's own import tools may be enough, and we will say so after a short look.
If sales are flat because of pricing, offers or ads, a new platform will not fix it. We would rather tell you than migrate a store that needs something else.
Straight
Answers.
The questions store owners ask before they move to Shopify.
Tell Us About Your Store.
Share your platform, your catalog size and the pages that bring you sales. We will come back with a migration plan and an hours estimate.
- URL map before launch
- Fixed-price or hourly estimates
- Reply within 24 hours
- Book a call30 minutes, no pitch. Tell us what you want to build.
- Get a straight answerHonest feedback on fit, scope and timeline.
- Decide with no pressureMove ahead only if it feels right. No commitment required.