Migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce
How to move your online store from Shopify to WooCommerce — what transfers, what doesn't, timelines, and what to expect during the switch.
Shopify is a polished hosted platform, but it comes with monthly fees that grow with your store, limited customization, and transaction fees unless you use Shopify Payments. WooCommerce runs on WordPress and gives you full control over your store — and your costs.
Moving to WooCommerce is a larger project than a simple website migration. Your store has products, customers, orders, and settings that all need careful handling.
Quick summary
A Shopify to WooCommerce migration typically takes two to four weeks for a small-to-mid-sized store. Products migrate well via CSV export. Orders and customer data migrate with some cleanup work. Your theme and app integrations must be rebuilt in WooCommerce. Plan for a brief period of parallel running before switching your domain.
What you'll need
2–4 weeks Intermediate to advanced projectWhat transfers and what doesn't
What migrates reasonably well
- Product names, descriptions, prices, and SKUs
- Product images
- Product variants (sizes, colors)
- Customer names and email addresses
- Historical order data (with cleanup)
- Discount codes (recreated manually)
- Your domain name
What must be rebuilt or reconfigured
- Your Shopify theme and store design
- Navigation menus
- Shipping zones and rates
- Payment gateway settings
- All Shopify app integrations
- Subscription product setups
- Abandoned cart tools
- Checkout customizations
Payment processor accounts are separate
Your Shopify Payments, Stripe, or PayPal account is not tied to Shopify — you keep it. But you'll need to connect it fresh to WooCommerce. This is straightforward; just have your payment processor login credentials ready.
Realistic timeline
| Phase | What happens | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Audit | Document products, apps, custom features | 2–3 days |
| WooCommerce setup | Install WordPress, WooCommerce, theme | 2–3 days |
| Product migration | Export from Shopify, clean CSV, import | 2–4 days |
| Customer & order migration | Export, clean data, import | 1–2 days |
| Store configuration | Shipping, taxes, payment gateways | 1–2 days |
| Design rebuild | Build store pages to match your brand | 3–5 days |
| Testing | Test purchases, checkout, emails | 1–2 days |
| Redirects | Map Shopify URLs to WooCommerce URLs | 1 day |
| Cutover | Switch DNS, disable Shopify | 1–4 hours |
| Post-launch | Monitor, fix issues | 2–3 days |
The migration process, step by step
We audit your Shopify store. We list every product, collection, app, custom feature, and integration. This shapes the migration plan and timeline.
You give us access to your Shopify store. Add support@chykalophia.com as a staff member with the required permissions, unless your project lead has given you a different address. See give us Shopify collaborator access.
We export your Shopify data. Products and customers are exported as CSV files from Shopify's admin. Orders are exported separately.
We set up WordPress and WooCommerce on staging. We install and configure everything on a private staging environment. You never see a half-built store go live.
We import and clean your product data. Shopify and WooCommerce use slightly different CSV formats. We transform the export and import your products into WooCommerce. Product images are migrated too.
We configure shipping, taxes, and payments. These settings don't export from Shopify. We rebuild your shipping zones, rates, and tax settings from scratch based on your current Shopify configuration.
We reconnect your payment processor. Stripe, PayPal, or your current payment gateway is connected to the new WooCommerce store. We test a real transaction in test mode before going live.
You review and approve the store. We send you a staging link. You test the full purchase flow, check product listings, and confirm everything looks right.
We set up URL redirects. Shopify's URL structure is different from WooCommerce's. We create redirects from all your Shopify product and collection URLs to the correct WooCommerce pages.
We switch the domain over. We update your DNS settings so your domain points to the new WooCommerce store. The Shopify store remains available at its myshopify.com address until you cancel it.
A note on orders and customer data
Shopify order and customer data can be imported into WooCommerce, but the process requires data cleanup. Imported historical orders are mainly useful for record-keeping — they won't re-trigger order emails or affect current inventory.
Customer accounts don't transfer with passwords (for security reasons). Customers will need to create a new password on the WooCommerce store if they want an account, or can check out as a guest.
WooCommerce hosting considerations
Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce requires its own hosting. We recommend managed WordPress hosting providers such as Flywheel, WP Engine, or Kinsta. These providers handle server maintenance, backups, and security so you don't have to.
See managed WordPress hosting for a comparison.
Common questions
Related guides
- Pre-migration checklist
- Don't lose your SEO during a migration
- What is WooCommerce?
- What is managed WordPress hosting?
- Give us Shopify collaborator access
- Accepting credit cards (Stripe & more)
Need a hand?
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