Migrating from Magento to Shopify – A Definitive Guide

Introduction 

Migrating your eCommerce store, like moving house, is a big decision. If you’re currently running on Magento, you may already know the challenges that come with it: constant platform and security updates, high development costs, and complex hosting requirements.

And, like moving house, ensuring you don’t end up in another place with leaky windows, squeaky floors, and rising damp, re-platforming and making the switch from Magento to Shopify should be done with professional help!

Magento is an open source platform that offers unparalleled customisation, performance and scalability. But this functionality also makes it a complex beast that requires expert support and maintenance.

Shopify meanwhile, offers a user-friendly, cloud-based solution that’s easier to manage and faster to optimise.

But migrating- like moving- isn’t just about “moving data” it requires careful planning to protect your SEO rankings, customer data, and store functionality.

This guide walks you through the Magento to Shopify migration process, highlighting the benefits, pitfalls and how to use AI optimisation tools on Shopify to grow your store post-migration.

1. Why businesses switch from Magento to Shopify

Magento is a powerful, flexible platform, but its complexity often comes with hidden costs. As hosting, security patches, and custom development can quickly add up, many businesses find they spend more time maintaining their store than actually growing it.

Shopify, on the other hand, is a fully hosted SaaS platform. It removes the technical burden, offering:

• Lower total cost of ownership: With hosting, security, and updates all included in your Shopify plan, you eliminate the additional costs that typically come with Magento.
• Better performance and uptime: Shopify is optimised for speed straight out of the box, ensuring faster page loads and a smoother user experience. Its fully managed hosting means 99.99% uptime, automatic scaling during peak periods, and no manual server maintenance required.
• Access to thousands of apps: Shopify’s ever-growing App Store (with over 14,000 apps) lets you easily add functionality for subscriptions, upselling, customer service, inventory management, and more. With new apps released daily, you can stay ahead of eCommerce trends and continually enhance your store’s performance, so it is never left behind.
• Ease of use: Shopify’s intuitive interface makes it simpler to manage customers, products, orders, and marketing. The visual theme editor and robust content management system empower you- or your agency- to make updates instantly and generate detailed sales and performance reports in just a few clicks.
• Scalability: Whether you’re a startup or an established brand, Shopify scales effortlessly as your business grows. Add products, integrate new sales channels, and handle higher traffic volumes without worrying about technical limitations or infrastructure upgrades
• Secure and reliable: Shopify provides enterprise-grade security with SSL certification, PCI compliance, and continuous monitoring. Your data- and importantly-your customers’ data are protected by default, giving you complete peace of mind.
• Multi-channel selling: Reach more customers by selling across multiple platforms directly from your Shopify dashboard. Seamlessly connect to Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, and TikTok, and manage all sales and inventory in one place.
• Marketing & SEO tools: Shopify is built with SEO best practices at its core. Edit meta tags, alt text, and URLs, while built-in features automatically generate XML sitemaps and structured data. With the rise of AI tools, you can even automate SEO tasks like meta descriptions and product content, keeping your store visible in AI driven search results with less manual effort.
• Flexible discounting options: Shopify gives you complete control over discount strategies. Create discount codes for checkout or set automatic discounts triggered by specific products, order values, or customer behaviour. You can also stack discounts, allowing customers to combine offers — perfect for promotions and loyalty incentives.

The result? More time to focus on sales and customers, and less on technical headaches.

2. Pre-migration considerations

Before you dive into your Magento to Shopify migration, it’s worth pausing in order to plan properly. It’s important to understand your current setup, its limitations and challenges, your goals, and how Shopify can best support your future growth.

Preparing your account thoroughly at this stage ensures your migration runs efficiently, without the need to backtrack later down the line. This is also the point where staging environments, customisations, and collaboration tools are set up.

Working with an experienced migration partner can make a big difference. If you’re working with a Shopify partner (like SOZO), we can help you avoid costly mistakes, anticipate potential data or design challenges, and develop a clear roadmap that saves both time and budget in the long run.

• Choose the right Shopify plan: Before anything else, decide which Shopify plan suits your business best. Most growing brands fit comfortably within the Shopify or Advanced Shopify tiers, while larger or high-volume enterprises may benefit from the additional flexibility and automation features of Shopify Plus. Consider factors like traffic, transaction volume, multi-store needs, and integration requirements when making your choice.
• Audit your current Magento store: Start by reviewing your entire Magento setup, from products and categories to customers, orders, and installed extensions. Identify which data you need to migrate and what can be archived or cleaned up. This is also the time to assess your current site’s structure and performance to see what’s working well (and what’s not) before rebuilding it in Shopify.
• Backup everything: Before touching anything, create a full backup of your Magento store. This includes databases, product images, theme files, and customer information. Even if you don’t end up needing it, a clean backup provides peace of mind and ensures nothing is lost if something goes wrong during migration.
• Review essential functionality: List out all the key features and extensions your Magento store relies on, for example, product filters, shipping calculators, or loyalty programs. Then, map those to Shopify equivalents using apps or built-in features. This exercise helps you identify gaps early and ensures your new Shopify store can deliver all the same functionality (and often, more) from day 1.
• Set a realistic budget and timeline: Migration timelines vary depending on store size and complexity. Factor in time for data transfer, design redevelopment, customisations, integrations, SEO redirects, and AI Optimisation and do some thorough testing before launch. Build in a buffer for unexpected issues, they happen, and remember that rushing this phase often leads to costly fixes later.

Taking the time to plan properly can be the difference between a smooth migration and a stressful one. With a solid pre-migration strategy, and the right expert guidance, you’ll reduce surprises, avoid downtime, and set your new Shopify store up for long-term success.

3. Magento to Shopify step by step migration process

Revisiting the house moving analogy, migrating from Magento to Shopify may seem daunting at first. Decluttering, packing, cleaning, delivering, decorating and unpacking again can feel insurmountable, but breaking the process down into clear, manageable steps makes it much more achievable, especially when you have help.

From preparing your existing site and exporting data, to customising your new Shopify store and testing everything thoroughly, each stage plays a critical role in ensuring a smooth transition.
In this section, we’ll walk you through a detailed, step-by-step approach to migrating your store.

a) Data migration and data hygiene

Migrating to Shopify isn’t just about moving data, it’s a chance to clean up, streamline, and optimise your store data to future proof your next growth phase.

The first step is identifying your critical data, then cleaning up your catalogue, standardising naming conventions, and setting your store up for scale from day one.

Some of the elements we focus on include:

• Products: Names, SKUs, descriptions, prices, images, inventory levels, variants, and SEO data. Ensuring all product information is accurate is essential for a smooth customer experience.
• Categories to Collections: Magento categories are converted into Shopify collections, which may require additional manual restructuring for subcategories to maintain logical navigation.
• Customers: Names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses can be migrated, but passwords cannot, so customers may need to reset their accounts.
• Coupons and discounts: All active codes, expiration dates, and usage limits are carefully transferred.
• Manufacturers and supplier brands: Imported as product tags or Shopify Metafields to retain brand organisation.
• Orders: Full order history, including statuses, taxes, and shipping/billing information, is migrated for continuity and customer service purposes.
• Pricing and taxes: Basic tax rules can be moved, but Shopify handles taxes differently, so a manual setup is often required.
• SEO data: Meta titles, descriptions, and URL redirects are reviewed and adjusted, as Shopify’s URL structure differs from Magento.
• CMS pages: Key pages like About Us, Contact, and FAQs may require URL updates or redirects to maintain SEO and usability.
• Custom fields: Migrated as Shopify Metafields, sometimes with the help of a third-party app for complex data.
• Blog content: Posts, images, and SEO settings are migrated, though Shopify structures blogs differently, which may require some adjustments.
• Reviews: Native reviews can be migrated; third-party review plugins may need a separate approach.

Migration can be handled using tools like Matrixify, or through a custom migration plan for more complex setups. Regardless of the method, validating all data afterward is essential to ensure nothing is missing, duplicated, or corrupted.

b) Design and theme migration

Your Magento theme won’t transfer directly. You’ll need to recreate your store design on Shopify. This is an opportunity to:

• Improve your site’s user experience
• Adopt a mobile-first design (Shopify themes are responsive)
• Choose between custom Shopify design or a theme template

For businesses serious about branding, a custom Shopify theme ensures your store stands out.

Read here How to Scale Your DTC Brand with a Custom Shopify Store

c) Functionality migration

Magento extensions often have equivalents in Shopify’s App Store. During migration:

• Map your existing Magento extensions to Shopify apps
• Set up payment gateways, shipping rules, and tax settings
• Reconfigure any third-party integrations (CRM, ERP, marketing tools)

d) SEO & URL redirects

One of the biggest risks during any ecommerce platform migration is losing hard-earned SEO performance. Preserving SEO rankings is therefore one of the most critical aspects of migration.

To do this:

• Create a comprehensive 301 redirect plan with redirects for all URLs
• Ensure your new Shopify store has a clean URL structure
• Transfer metadata (titles, descriptions, alt tags)
• Test for broken links and crawl errors pre and and post launch

Search engines need time to understand your new site structure, so some short-term fluctuations in visibility are completely normal after launch. However, with a well-planned SEO strategy,  including accurate redirects, consistent metadata, and thorough post-launch monitoring, your rankings should recover quickly and often improve over time.

By maintaining a clear redirect map and ensuring all key pages are properly indexed, you can minimise disruption and protect the authority your site has already built on Magento.

e) Testing and launch

Before you make your new Shopify store live, thorough testing is critical to ensure a smooth UX transition for your customers and to avoid disruptions in sales. Here are the key steps to consider:

• Test the full purchase journey:

Walk through the entire shopping experience as a customer would. This includes:

1. Product discovery: Make sure search, filters, and categories are working properly.
2. Product pages: Check images, descriptions, variants, and pricing.
3. Shopping cart and checkout: Ensure items can be added, removed, or updated correctly.
4. Payment methods: Verify all payment gateways (credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, etc.) are functioning.
5. Shipping and taxes: Confirm that shipping rates, tax calculations, and delivery options are accurate.

Testing each step ensures that customers can complete purchases without errors or confusion.

• Verify customer data and order history

Migrating from Magento to Shopify often involves moving large amounts of data. Check that:

1. Customer profiles, including login credentials and account information, are intact.
2. Order history is accurately imported so that returning customers and customer service inquiries can be properly handled.
3. Any saved wish lists or loyalty points (if applicable) are correctly transferred.

Accurate data migration is essential for maintaining trust and continuity with your existing customers.

• Leveraging AI Optimisation on Shopify

One of Shopify’s biggest advantages over Magento is how easily it integrates with AI optimisation tools. From automated product recommendations to AI-driven email campaigns, Shopify merchants can unlock growth faster.

With AI, you can:

1. Personalise product recommendations for each customer
2. Automate email and SMS campaigns based on behaviour
3. Optimise site search and merchandising with AI tools
4. Analyse customer data to improve retention

At SOZO, we offer a dedicated AI Search Optimisation (AIO) service to help Shopify merchants maximise their store’s performance with cutting-edge AI solutions. This gives you a competitive edge in today’s crowded eCommerce landscape.

• Test performance across devices

We build custom themes on Shopify that are completely responsive, but it’s still important to test:

1. Desktop, mobile, and tablet views: to ensure layouts, images, and text display correctly across all devices.
2. Page load speed: Use tools like GTMetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights to identify performance bottlenecks. Slow loading pages can increase bounce rates and hurt SEO
3. Consider a soft launch before opening your new Shopify store to the public. This should include

1. 1. Internal testing: Invite your team to use the site as if they were customers, looking for bugs or confusing navigation.
   2. Small user group: Share the site with a select group of loyal customers or beta testers to gather feedback.

A soft launch allows you to identify and fix issues before the full public launch, minimising disruptions and ensuring a smooth customer experience.

• Final launch checklist

When you are at T minus 10 to lift off, it is STILL worth performing a few final launch checks. You will probably have become blind to many of the alterations, so fresh eyes, in a short time, can be invaluable. We recommend:

1. Confirming that all redirects from your Magento store are in place to prevent broken links and SEO loss.
2. Ensuring analytics and tracking codes are properly implemented.
3. Having launch plan comms created, scheduled and checked across email or social media to generate excitement.
4. Reviews: Requires a Shopify app for migration.

Taking the time to thoroughly test and stage your launch helps you migrate confidently and sets your Shopify store up for long-term success.

5. Post-Migration Steps

Migrating from Magento to Shopify is a major milestone, but the work doesn’t stop at launch. The post-migration phase is critical to ensure your new store runs smoothly, performs well, and continues to grow. Here’s what to focus on:

1. Monitor site performance: After launch, keep a close eye on site speed, uptime, and overall performance. Slow loading pages or errors can hurt user experience and conversion rates. Tools like GTMetrix, Google PageSpeed Insights, or Shopify’s own analytics can help you identify and address performance issues quickly.
2. Track conversions and customer behavior: Monitor key metrics such as conversion rates, cart abandonment, and sales trends. Comparing pre- and post-migration performance helps you identify areas for improvement and ensures that the migration hasn’t negatively impacted your revenue.
3. SEO Auditing and Fixes: Shopify handles URLs, redirects, and meta data differently than Magento. While most of this work should be done pre-migration, post launch it is always worth conducting a regular SEO review to:

• Check that all redirects are working correctly
• Update any broken links
• Review meta titles, descriptions, and structured data
• Ensure that blog posts, product pages, and collections are indexed properly

This protects your on-going search engine rankings and ensures organic traffic continues to grow.

4. Team Training
   Your team will need time to adjust to the Shopify admin dashboard. Provide training on:

• Managing products and inventory
• Processing orders and handling customer accounts
• Setting up promotions, discounts, and campaigns
• Using Shopify analytics to track performance

A well-trained team helps your store run efficiently and reduces errors.

5. Explore Shopify Apps and Features: Shopify’s app ecosystem is vast. Post-migration is a great time to explore apps and features, as part of a development roadmap, that can enhance:

• Marketing automation (email campaigns, abandoned cart recovery)
• Customer experience (reviews, live chat, loyalty programs)
• Inventory management and fulfillment
• Analytics and reporting

Choosing the right tools can save time, increase sales, and help your store scale effectively.

6. Continuous Optimisation: Migration is the starting point, not the finish line. Regularly review site performance, customer feedback, and analytics data to make ongoing improvements. This ensures your Shopify store continues to deliver the best experience for both your team and your customers.

Ready to launch, see what our AI Search Optimisation service can do for your new Shopify Store

6. Avoiding migration pitfalls

Returning once more to our house moving/ platform migration analogy, even with the best planning, scoping and testing there are still things that can go wrong. Things can always get lost, broken, or end up in the wrong place.

Here are some of the more common pitfalls to look out for when you are migrating from one platform to another.

1. Data Loss or Corruption: Just like you wouldn’t throw fragile items into a box without protection, your product data, customer accounts, and order history need careful handling. Mistakes can lead to lost or corrupted information.
2. SEO and URL Issues: When you move house, you update your address to make sure forwarded mail still finds you. Without proper redirects and metadata updates, your Shopify store risks losing search traffic.
3. Poor Site Performance: A rushed move can leave things unfinished or previously well-loved furnishings being crammed into awkward spaces, slowing down your day-to-day. Similarly, unoptimised images, scripts, or apps can slow your site and reduce performance.
4. Incomplete feature migration: Imagine moving in only to find your fridge or washing machine didn’t make the move. Some Magento features may not transfer directly to Shopify and so need a more manual update.
5. Inadequate Staff Training: Moving into a new, modernised home can be really frustrating if your team doesn’t know how to use the voice activated lights! The same will be said of your new Shopify store, if you don’t offer suitable training.
6. Missed Optimisation Opportunities: One of the benefits of buying ‘off-plot’ is the chance to design your new place just how you want it. Moving platform is a chance to renovate; streamline your layout, improve flow, and make the space work better. Many businesses miss this when migrating.

7. Costs of migrating Magento to Shopify

Of course, the cost of migrating from Magento to Shopify varies depending on the size and complexity of your store, as well as the level of customisation and ongoing support you require. Other key factors that influence costs include:

• Migration tools or developer support: Simple stores may use automated tools, while complex setups often need expert development and data validation to ensure a smooth, error-free migration.
• Theme design (template vs custom): Choosing a pre-built Shopify template is cost-effective, but customised design allows your store to fully reflect your brand, optimise the user experience, and integrate sustainable web design principles that reduce load times and energy usage. We only offer customised designs. We don’t do templates, ever.
• Functionality replacement: Many Magento extensions need to be replaced with Shopify apps or custom solutions. It’s important to ensure that your store retains all essential functionality while optimising for Shopify’s ecosystem.
• Ongoing subscription fees: Shopify plans and app subscriptions vary depending on your store’s needs, so it’s important to budget for both upfront migration costs and ongoing operational expenses.
• Ongoing optimisations: eCommerce stores are never one-and-done. As customer behaviour continues to evolve, ensuring your site is optimised for SEO, AI and conversions is essential to ensure it continues to attract, engage and convert user traffic.

While there are upfront and ongoing costs, many businesses find that Shopify’s lower maintenance burden and faster time-to-market deliver strong ROI long-term.

SOZO x Shopify migrations

Migrating from Magento to Shopify can seem daunting but with the right plan and the right support, it’s an opportunity to simplify your store, cut costs, and unlock growth.

From data migration and SEO preservation to AI-powered optimisation, Shopify provides a platform built for future-proof eCommerce.

If you’re considering a migration, the SOZO team can help you plan and execute a seamless transition while ensuring your SEO and customer data are protected. A migration is a an opportunity to enhance your store’s design, performance, and sustainability, setting you up for long-term eCommerce success.

Ready to grow? Explore our Shopify eCommerce Web Development & Solutions and discover how we can help you seamlessly migrate to a new Shopify store.