If you’re planning to move your store from Magento to Shopify, there’s more to it than just uploading your product catalog. Your SEO rankings, customer records, order history, and store functionality all need to come, too. Miss just one of these, and you could lose valuable traffic or leave your returning customers scratching their heads.
That’s exactly what this guide will help you avoid. It’s designed for store owners and ecommerce teams who want a clear, step-by-step Magento to Shopify migration plan they can follow.
You’ll find out everything, from safely backing up your data and setting up proper redirects, to connecting your Shopify helpdesk software before that first post-launch support ticket lands in your inbox.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Magento to Shopify migration isn’t just about moving products. Your SEO, customer data, order history, and store functionality all need to transfer correctly.
- Backup everything and clean up your data before you start migrating from Magento to Shopify.
- 301 redirects are non-negotiable. Without them, your search rankings and organic traffic can disappear overnight.
- Test everything before going live, including checkout, mobile experience, shipping, and tax settings. Catching issues after launch is always more difficult.
- Don’t rush the timeline. A delayed launch beats a broken one every time.
Should You Migrate from Magento to Shopify?
Magento (now called Adobe Commerce) is a strong platform. But running it takes a lot of work. You need to handle your own servers, apply security updates, hire developers, and pay for ongoing maintenance.
For smaller teams, that’s a lot to keep up with. And if you’re still on Magento 1, which stopped getting support back in 2020, you really need to move, because staying on it puts your store at risk.
On the other hand, Shopify works differently. It’s a hosted platform, which means Shopify handles the servers, the updates, and the security for you. You also get access to over 16,000 apps to add features to your store. If you want something that’s easier to run every day and doesn’t need a developer on call, Shopify is worth a serious look.
But it’s not the right fit for every store. If you rely on custom B2B setups, complex ERP connections, or a fully customized checkout, Magento still gives you more room to build.
There’s also a product limit to consider. As of October 2025, Shopify allows up to 2,048 variants per product. That’s generous for most stores, but if your catalog is complex, you must plan around it.
What You Can (& Can’t) Migrate from Magento to Shopify
Before you start the migration, it’s important to know what will transfer smoothly and what won’t. This saves you from surprises halfway through the process.
What migrates well:
- Products, including SKUs, descriptions, prices, images, and categories.
- Customer records, like names, emails, and addresses.
- Order history.
- Blog posts and CMS pages (using tools like Matrixify).
- Product reviews (through third-party apps like Judge.me or Yotpo).
What doesn’t migrate directly:
- Customer passwords. You see, Magento and Shopify encrypt them differently. Your customers will need to reset their passwords after the move.
- Gift cards, store credits, and reward points.
- Custom checkout modifications.
- Complex custom product attributes from Magento 2, which require manual remapping.
- Magento extensions. You’ll need to find matching apps in the Shopify App Store instead.
Knowing these limits upfront lets you plan workarounds early, rather than scrambling to fix things after launch.
Magento to Shopify Migration Checklist
This checklist breaks the entire migration into four phases: preparation, data migration, SEO protection, and post-launch testing. Follow these to avoid the most common mistakes that trip up store-owners mid-move.
Phase 1: Pre-Migration Preparation
The work you do before the migration matters as much as the migration itself. Rushing past this phase is how stores end up with messy data, missing products, and broken workflows on the other side. So, take your time here.
Backup Your Magento Store Completely
Export your full database, media files, theme files, and custom extension configurations. Do this before you touch anything else. If something goes wrong later, this backup will get you back on track.
Audit Your Current Store Data
Go through your products, customers, and orders. Figure out which products are still active, which customer accounts are genuine, and which orders are worth keeping. Remove duplicates and outdated records now so you don’t carry that clutter into your new store.
Note Your Magento Version
Magento 1 and Magento 2 handle data exports differently. Knowing your version helps you choose the right export method and migration tools.
Document All Active Magento Extensions
Make a list of every extension you’re using and what it does. Then, look for a matching app in the Shopify App Store. Some will have a direct equivalent, while others won’t, and may need a custom workaround.
Choose Your Shopify Plan
Your options are Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. If you’re coming from an enterprise Magento setup, Shopify Plus is usually the right fit.
Choose a Migration Method
You’ve got three main paths:
- Manual CSV import for small stores.
- Migration apps like Cart2Cart or LitExtension for mid-size stores.
- A professional Shopify migration service for large or complex catalogs.
Choose the one that suits you best.
Pick & Install a Shopify Theme
Don’t try to copy your old Magento design over. Start fresh with a theme from the Shopify Theme Store and build your storefront around it.
Set a Migration Window
Schedule your Magento to Shopify migration during your lowest-traffic period. This gives you room to test and fix issues without affecting too many customers.
Phase 2: Data Migration
With your preparation work done, it’s time to move your actual store data. This is the core of the migration, so take it step by step and double-check everything before you continue.
Export Products from Magento
Head to your Magento admin panel and export your products as a CSV file. Ensure it includes SKUs, descriptions, categories, prices, images, and inventory levels. This file is the foundation of your product catalog on Shopify.
Format Your CSV for Shopify
Shopify’s CSV import template uses specific column headers, and your Magento export won’t match them by default. Here, you’ll need to remap the columns manually or use a tool like Matrixify to handle the formatting.
Check for Variant Limit
As already discussed, Shopify allows 2,048 variants per product. If any of your products go beyond that, consider restructuring them before you import. Splitting them into separate products is the most common workaround.
Import Products into Shopify
For smaller, simpler catalogs, Shopify’s built-in import tool works fine. However, if you’re dealing with a large inventory that includes custom fields, metafields, or SEO data, Matrixify gives you much more control over the import.
Migrate Customer Data
Export your customer records from Magento, including names, emails, addresses, and purchase history. Then, import them into Shopify. Keep in mind that customer passwords won’t transfer because the two platforms encrypt them differently. You’ll need to send password reset emails after launch.
Migrate Order History
Use Matrixify or Cart2Cart to bring your past orders over. This isn’t just about record-keeping. Your support team also needs this data to handle refunds, returns, and customer questions.
Migrate Blog Content & CMS Pages
Shopify supports blogs and pages natively, so you won’t lose that content. Use Matrixify to bulk import blog posts or manually recreate your most important CMS pages if there are only a few.
Verify All Imported Data
Once everything is in Shopify, go through your admin and spot-check your products, customer records, and orders. Look closely at prices, images, and descriptions. Catching errors now is a lot easier than fixing them after launch.
NOTE: Cart2Cart is a solid choice if you want an automated, end-to-end migration from Magento to Shopify with minimal technical work. LitExtension handles large catalogs with complex data well, and Matrixify is the best option when you need advanced control over items like metafields, bulk edits, and SEO columns.
Phase 3: SEO & URL Migration
This is the phase store owners often underestimate. If you switch platforms without properly handling your URLs, your search rankings can drop overnight. All the organic traffic you’ve built over the years could disappear. So don’t skip any of these steps.
Crawl Your Magento Site Before Migration
Use a tool like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to export all URLs that Google currently indexes. This gives you a complete list of pages you need to account for in your new store.
Map Old Magento URLs to New Shopify URLs
Create a redirect map document that matches each old URL to its new Shopify equivalent. This can be a simple spreadsheet with two columns, listing the old path and the new one.
Understand Shopify’s URL Structure
Shopify uses fixed URL paths like /products/, /collections/, /pages/, and /blogs/. You can’t replicate Magento’s URL structure exactly, which is why the redirect map from the previous step isn’t optional.
Setup 301 Redirects in Shopify
As you are permanently moving, set up 301 redirects, which tell Google that a page has permanently moved to a new address. Without these, Google considers your old pages as dead links.
To do this:
- Go to Shopify Admin → Content → Menus. Click URL Redirects.
- Click Import URL redirect.
- Click + Add file to add your CSV file.
- Then, click Upload file to upload your redirect map.
- After that, click Import redirects.
Migrate Meta Titles & Descriptions
Your product and page metadata won’t transfer without assistance. Use Matrixify’s SEO columns (Metafield columns) to bulk-import your meta titles and descriptions so you don’t have to re-enter them one by one.
Setup Google Analytics 4 & Google Search Console
Ensure both are connected and tracking before you go live. If you wait until after launch, you’ll have a gap in your performance data that you can’t retrieve.
Submit a New Sitemap to Google Search Console
After launch, submit your Shopify sitemap (yourstore.com/sitemap.xml) to Google Search Console. This helps Google find and re-index your new pages faster.
Phase 4: Post-Migration Testing & Launch
Your data is moved, and your redirects are in place. However, you’re not done yet. Before you flip the switch and go live, you need to test everything that a real customer would touch. This is where you catch the small things that can cause big problems after launch.
Test Checkout End-to-End
Place a real test order on your store. Go through the entire process, from adding a product to the cart to completing payment. Ensure the payment goes through, the order confirmation email arrives, and the inventory count goes down. If any of these fail, you need to fix them.
Check All 301 Redirects
Use a redirect checker or Screaming Frog to confirm that your old Magento URLs point to the right Shopify pages. Even one broken redirect can send a customer or a search engine to a dead page.
Test on Mobile
Over 70% of ecommerce traffic comes from phones. So, ensure you open and test your store on a few different devices and screen sizes to check everything looks right and works smoothly. That includes buttons, images, checkout – all of it.
Verify Shipping & Tax Settings
Set up your shipping zones, rates, and tax rules before going live. Getting these wrong leads to either overcharging customers or eating costs you didn’t plan for.
Send Password Reset Emails to Existing Customers
Since passwords don’t transfer between Magento and Shopify, use Shopify’s bulk email tool to let your migrated customers know they need to set a new password. Do this before they try to login and hit a wall.
Notify Customers About the New Store
Send a short email to inform your customers that you’ve moved to a new platform. This builds trust and reduces confusion when they notice things look different.
Setup Your Customer Support Workflows
After a Magento to Shopify migration, your support team will receive a wave of questions. Customers will ask about their accounts, orders, and passwords. In this case, you need a system ready to handle all of that from a single place.
This is a good time to connect Desku.io to your Shopify store. It pulls order data, tracking info, and customer history directly into your helpdesk, so your agents don’t have to jump between tabs to assist a customer.
Monitor Traffic & Rankings for 30 Days
Once you transfer Magento to Shopify, keep a close eye on Google Search Console and Analytics for the first month. Watch for ranking drops, crawl errors, or broken redirects. If something looks off, fix it quickly. The faster you respond, the less damage it does to your SEO.
How Long Does a Magento to Shopify Migration Take?
It depends on the size and complexity of your store:
- Small stores with under 500 products can usually wrap things up in one to two weeks.
- Mid-size stores with 500 to 5,000 products typically need three to six weeks.
- Large or complex stores with custom attributes, multiple storefronts, or enterprise setups can take anywhere from two to four months.
What takes the most time usually isn’t the data transfer itself. It’s the cleanup, the SEO redirect mapping, and rebuilding your storefront design. Those are the parts that slow things down.
One thing to consider: don’t rush your timeline just to hit a launch date you chose on a calendar. A broken launch always costs more than a delayed one.
FAQs
Can I keep my Magento domain when I switch to Shopify?
Yes. Your domain stays yours. You only need to update your DNS settings to point it to Shopify. The switch doesn’t affect your domain ownership at all.
Will my product reviews migrate to Shopify?
Not on their own. Shopify doesn’t automatically pull reviews from Magento. You’ll need a third-party app (Judge.me or Yotpo) to import them.
Does Shopify support multi-currency and multi-language like Magento?
Yes, but it handles them differently. Shopify Markets handles international selling, and you can add multilingual support through Shopify Translate & Adapt or third-party apps.
What happens to my Magento gift cards and store credits?
They don’t transfer automatically. You must recreate them manually in Shopify or use a dedicated app to manage the transition.
Do I need a developer for the Magento to Shopify migration?
Not always. If you’re running a small, straightforward store, tools like Cart2Cart or LitExtension can handle the migration without a developer. But if your store has custom attributes, ERP integrations, or a large catalog, working with a professional Shopify agency is the safer route.
