How to Migrate Shopify to WooCommerce (2026): Step-by-Step Guide

Merchants leave Shopify for WooCommerce for a short list of reasons: they want to own the stack and the data, they are tired of per-app subscription fees, they need URL and content control that Shopify does not offer, or their store is really a content site with a shop attached. All are legitimate. None of them make the migration itself easy.

This guide walks through the whole move in the order we run it: decide what actually needs to migrate, export it from Shopify, set up WordPress and WooCommerce properly, import and verify the data, rebuild the storefront, replace apps, protect your SEO with redirects, and launch with a checklist instead of hope.

Before you start: what moves, what does not

Shopify lets you export products, customers, orders, discount codes, gift cards, and blog posts as CSV files, and download your theme. That is the portable layer. Everything else is either recreated or lost.

• ✓Moves cleanly: products, variants, images, collections as categories, customers, order history, blog posts and pages, discount codes
• ✓Moves with work: product metafields, SEO titles and descriptions, URL structure, tax and shipping rules, customer accounts and passwords
• ✓Does not move: apps and their data, Shopify Payments tokens and saved cards, theme sections and settings, Shopify Flow automations, Shop Pay, checkout customisations

Customer passwords are the item that surprises people most. Shopify never exposes password hashes, so every customer will set a new password on WooCommerce. Plan a launch email that explains this and a friction-free reset flow.

Step 1: Audit the Shopify store and freeze scope

Crawl the live store and inventory every URL, every app, every integration, and every custom feature. Note which apps hold customer data such as reviews, subscriptions, loyalty balances, and wishlists. Pull the Shopify analytics for the last twelve months so you know which pages carry traffic and revenue and must be protected.

• ✓Full URL export from a crawler such as Screaming Frog, plus Google Search Console top pages
• ✓App inventory with the WooCommerce equivalent, custom build, or drop decision for each
• ✓Integration list: ERP, 3PL, email platform, accounting, marketplaces, ad pixels
• ✓Custom theme features and checkout customisations that need rebuilding

Step 2: Set up hosting, WordPress, and WooCommerce

On Shopify, hosting was invisible. On WooCommerce it is part of the product. Choose managed WordPress hosting with object caching, a CDN, staging environments, and automatic backups, sized for your traffic peaks rather than your average day. Install WordPress, WooCommerce, an SEO plugin, a redirect manager, a backup plugin, and a security plugin before importing anything.

Set the WooCommerce permalink structure now. If you want to keep Shopify-style paths such as /products/handle and /collections/handle, configure the product and category bases to match. If you prefer WooCommerce defaults such as /product/slug, you commit to a full redirect map instead. Either is fine. Changing your mind after import is not.

Step 3: Export from Shopify

From the Shopify admin, export Products with all variants and images, Customers, Orders, Discounts, and Gift cards as CSV. Export blog posts and pages through a blog export app or the Admin API, since Shopify has no native content export. Download the current theme as a reference for the rebuild. Keep the exports in a dated folder because you will repeat this for the final delta before launch.

Step 4: Choose the import method

There are three realistic routes, and the right one depends on catalog size, order history, and how much custom data you carry.

• ✓Native importers: WooCommerce's product CSV importer plus the WordPress importer. Free, fine for a few hundred simple products, weak on variants, metafields, and order history.
• ✓Migration plugins and services: tools such as Cart2Cart, LitExtension, or WP All Import handle products, customers, orders, and images with field mapping. Paid, priced by record volume, and the fastest route for mid-sized stores.
• ✓Custom migration via the Shopify Admin API and WooCommerce REST API: a developer script that maps every field, including metafields, SEO data, and app data. The only route that fully controls edge cases at scale.

Whatever route you take, import into staging first, run a full comparison against the Shopify exports, fix the mapping, wipe, and import again. Never fix data by hand on the first pass. You will be importing at least twice.

Step 5: Map the data properly

• ✓Collections become product categories or tags. Automated collections need rebuilding as category rules or filter plugins.
• ✓Variants map to WooCommerce variable products with attributes. Shopify's three-option limit disappears, but option names must be consistent.
• ✓Metafields map to custom fields or product attributes, depending on whether they are display data or filter data.
• ✓SEO titles and descriptions map to your SEO plugin's fields. Do not let them fall back to defaults.
• ✓Orders import with status, line items, totals, and customer links so reporting and customer history survive.
• ✓Customer tags and accepts-marketing flags map to WooCommerce roles and your email platform's lists.

Step 6: Rebuild the storefront and replace the apps

Shopify themes do not run on WordPress, so the storefront is a rebuild. Use the old theme as a design reference and rebuild with a block theme or a purpose-built WooCommerce theme, keeping the product page structure that was converting. This is the moment to fix what was not working rather than clone it.

Replace apps one by one from the audit list. Reviews, subscriptions, and loyalty need their data exported from the Shopify app and imported into the WooCommerce plugin, which usually means a support ticket to the old vendor. Bundles, upsells, and pricing rules are often simpler to rebuild natively in WooCommerce than to buy again.

Step 7: Payments, shipping, taxes, and email

Connect your payment gateway, typically Stripe or PayPal, in test mode. Saved cards from Shopify Payments cannot be moved, so subscription customers will re-enter payment details. Recreate shipping zones and rates from the Shopify configuration, then configure tax with a tax service or the WooCommerce tax tables. Set up transactional email with a dedicated SMTP or email API so order confirmations do not land in spam.

Step 8: Protect SEO with redirects and metadata

This step decides whether the migration costs you traffic. Take the full URL inventory from step 1, map every Shopify URL to its WooCommerce equivalent, and load the map into your redirect plugin or server config as 301 redirects. Include product, collection, blog, page, and image URLs that carry backlinks.

• ✓Keep the same domain if at all possible; a platform move plus a domain move doubles the risk
• ✓Verify canonical tags, meta titles, and descriptions carried over on a sample of top pages
• ✓Regenerate the XML sitemap and submit it in Google Search Console on launch day
• ✓Keep the Shopify store live but password-protected until every redirect is verified

Step 9: Launch checklist

• ✓Final delta export and import of new orders and customers since the first import
• ✓Test orders on mobile and desktop with real payment in live mode, then refund
• ✓Redirect checks on the top 200 URLs by traffic and every URL with backlinks
• ✓GA4, ad pixels, and consent tooling firing correctly on product, cart, and purchase
• ✓Performance check: Core Web Vitals on product and category pages under load
• ✓DNS switch during a low-traffic window, with the Shopify store kept as a rollback for two weeks

What the migration costs

Doing it yourself costs time, hosting, and the plugins you pick. Migration plugins and services are priced by the number of products, customers, and orders. A managed migration that includes discovery, data mapping, theme build, app replacement, redirects, tracking, and post-launch support starts around $5,000 and grows with catalog size, order history, and custom features.