/ Guides — Shopify migration checklist
Everything to check before, during and after launch.
A useful Shopify migration checklist does more than confirm that products were imported and the domain points to the new store. It protects the complete trading system: catalogue data, customer journeys, payments, shipping, tax, fulfillment, integrations, analytics, SEO, and the people operating the business.
/ In plain terms
The safest migrations are rehearsed releases.
Every critical requirement has an owner, an acceptance test, a deadline, and a fallback. The checklist below is designed for established ecommerce stores moving from WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, a custom platform, or another hosted system.
Short answer: Before launch, audit the existing store, design the Shopify architecture, map and test data, rebuild integrations, preserve SEO signals, and rehearse the cutover.
During launch, freeze uncontrolled changes, migrate the final delta, activate production services, switch the domain, and run real transactions.
After launch, reconcile records, monitor revenue and errors, fix redirects and indexing issues, and keep the source platform available until operational sign-off.
/ How to use this checklist ( 03 )
How to use this Shopify migration checklist.
Do not treat every item as equally important. Mark each requirement as launch-critical, high priority, or post-launch. Assign one accountable owner and record evidence of completion. “Tested” should link to a test result, screenshot, report, or approved exception.
01 · Launch-critical
Must pass before launch
Failure can stop sales, mischarge customers, lose orders, corrupt data, or create material legal risk.
02 · High priority
Named owner and dated resolution
Failure harms experience, operations, reporting, or organic performance but has a controlled workaround.
03 · Post-launch
Move to stabilization backlog
Optimization that does not threaten safe trading.
/ Before migration — Discovery and scope ( 10 )
Before migration: discovery and scope.
( Discovery and scope )
+Define the business reason for moving to Shopify and the outcomes used to judge success.
+Record the in-scope brands, domains, markets, currencies, languages, catalogues, channels, and locations.
+Inventory products, variants, customers, orders, content, reviews, discounts, gift cards, subscriptions, loyalty, and custom records.
+List every app, plugin, extension, custom script, scheduled job, webhook, and manual workaround.
+Document ERP, PIM, WMS, 3PL, POS, CRM, tax, accounting, support, marketing, marketplace, and analytics integrations.
+Interview ecommerce, marketing, customer service, warehouse, finance, legal, and technology teams.
+Identify seasonal peaks, campaign dates, launches, holidays, and operational blackout periods.
+Capture current commercial and technical baselines: revenue, conversion rate, average order value, payment success, traffic, rankings, performance, errors, and support volume.
+Create a feature-gap register showing whether each requirement will use native Shopify, an app, custom development, a changed process, or retirement.
+Agree project roles, approvals, escalation paths, launch authority, and rollback authority.
( Back up the source properly )
Back up the source properly.
Export source data and configuration before transformations begin. Keep original files immutable and date-stamped. Include databases or platform exports, media, theme code, redirect rules, DNS records, app settings, tax rules, shipping configuration, analytics settings, and integration documentation.
Backup Before transformations
A backup is useful only if it can be accessed and interpreted.
Record where it is stored, who can retrieve it, how long it must be retained, and whether personal data requires additional protection.
/ Before migration — Architecture and setup ( 12 )
Before migration: Shopify architecture and setup.
01Select the Shopify plan based on actual capability, volume, B2B, checkout, organization, and market requirements.
02Define products, variants, collections, product types, vendors, tags, metafields, and metaobjects.
03Decide which collections are automated and which require manual merchandising.
04Design navigation, search, filters, product recommendations, and content relationships.
05Configure organizations, stores, markets, languages, domains, currencies, and regional catalogues.
06Define inventory locations, routing, overselling, backorders, pickup, and fulfillment ownership.
07Choose the customer account model and plan the migrated-customer sign-in experience.
08Select payment providers, wallets, fraud controls, capture behavior, and payout reconciliation.
09Configure tax registrations, exemptions, duties, invoices, and region-specific rules with qualified advice where needed.
10Design shipping zones, rates, carrier services, packaging, free-shipping thresholds, delivery, and pickup rules.
11Define staff roles, permissions, two-factor authentication, partner access, and emergency access.
12Document production credentials and activation steps separately from development credentials.
/ Before migration — Data mapping and test imports ( 12 )
Before migration: data mapping and test imports.
Shopify’s current guidance recommends importing products first, customers second, and historical orders last so relationships can be retained. Other data can be sequenced around those dependencies. Disable relevant staff new-order notifications before importing historical orders if you do not want each imported order to trigger an email.
+Map every source field to a Shopify field, metafield, metaobject, app record, archive, or deliberate exclusion.
+Normalize SKUs, handles, option names, currencies, weights, dates, countries, phone numbers, and consent values.
+Resolve duplicate SKUs, customers, handles, emails, and external identifiers.
+Define treatment for draft, archived, hidden, discontinued, preorder, and out-of-stock products.
+Test complex variants, bundles, add-ons, personalization, digital products, subscriptions, and gift cards.
+Keep source image URLs accessible until Shopify or the migration tool has fetched the files.
+Verify product counts, variant counts, status, prices, compare-at prices, costs, weights, taxability, inventory, and images.
+Verify customer addresses, tags, consent, exemptions, company relationships, and duplicate handling.
+Validate historical orders across refunds, partial fulfillments, discounts, tax, currencies, guest checkout, and deleted products.
+Reconcile totals and field-level samples, not just successful import counts.
+Make transformations repeatable so corrections can be rerun instead of patched manually.
+Define the final delta process for records created or changed after the main migration.
/ Before migration — Theme, content and merchandising ( 10 )
Before migration: theme, content and merchandising.
01Confirm theme architecture, component inventory, templates, sections, blocks, and editor controls.
02Test responsive layouts on representative phones, tablets, laptops, and large screens.
03Review keyboard navigation, focus states, labels, contrast, alt text, reduced motion, and error messages.
04Check product pages for options, stock, pricing, media, sizing, specifications, delivery, returns, and calls to action.
05Check collections for product assignment, filters, sorting, pagination, copy, metadata, and merchandising.
06Migrate pages, articles, authors, dates, images, downloads, internal links, and embedded content.
07Review header, footer, menus, breadcrumbs, search, account, cart, and policy links.
08Verify empty states, zero-result search, unavailable products, 404 pages, and app failure states.
09Compress and size media appropriately; avoid carrying unnecessary legacy assets into the new theme.
10Check app scripts, tags, and third-party widgets for duplicate loading and performance impact.
/ Before migration — Apps and integrations ( 10 )
Before migration: apps and integrations.
( Apps and integrations )
+Confirm every app’s purpose, owner, cost, data access, support route, and uninstall implications.
+Remove overlapping apps and avoid recreating obsolete source-platform behavior without a business case.
+Define the system of record for products, inventory, customers, prices, orders, fulfillment, and returns.
+Confirm identifiers used to match products, variants, customers, orders, and locations.
+Test sync direction, frequency, latency, retries, rate limits, queues, and failure alerts.
+Test create, update, cancel, refund, return, exchange, and deletion scenarios.
+Verify webhooks, API versions, credentials, scopes, IP allowlists, and production endpoints.
+Confirm ERP and warehouse cutoffs so the same order cannot enter both old and new pipelines.
+Validate product feeds, marketplaces, email automation, support tools, and data warehouse exports.
+Assign post-launch monitoring and incident ownership for each integration.
/ Before migration — SEO ( 12 )
Before migration: SEO checklist.
Google recommends changing one major thing at a time where practical. If platform, domain, design, taxonomy, and content all change together, stronger baselines and page-level acceptance tests are essential.
01Build the legacy URL inventory from sitemaps, crawls, analytics, Search Console, backlinks, logs, feeds, campaigns, and the source CMS.
02Map each valuable URL to its closest equivalent Shopify destination.
03Avoid redirecting unrelated pages to the homepage; use a relevant destination or a genuine 404/410.
04Import and test direct permanent redirects with no avoidable chains or loops.
05Check Shopify reserved and fixed paths that cannot be used as redirect sources.
06Preserve useful titles, descriptions, headings, copy, images, alt text, reviews, FAQs, and downloads.
07Update internal links to final Shopify URLs rather than relying on redirects.
08Verify self-referencing canonicals, indexability, robots directives, hreflang, and pagination behavior.
09Validate product, offer, review, breadcrumb, organization, and article structured data where applicable.
10Verify Search Console properties and retain verification after the move.
11Prepare Shopify’s generated sitemap for submission after the public store is crawlable.
12Save pre-launch landing-page, query, backlink, indexation, and organic-revenue baselines.
/ Before launch — End-to-end QA ( 14 )
Before launch: complete end-to-end QA.
Run tests by journey, market, device, customer type, and operational role. Use production-like data without allowing tests to send real fulfillment or customer communications accidentally.
+Browse navigation, search, filters, collections, recommendations, and recently viewed products.
+Add simple, variant, discounted, subscription, bundled, personalized, and restricted products to cart.
+Test guest, new-customer, returning-customer, B2B, tax-exempt, and international checkouts.
+Test all important payment methods, authorization failures, capture, cancellation, refund, and chargeback workflows.
+Verify shipping rates across locations, weights, thresholds, regions, pickup, and unavailable destinations.
+Verify tax and duties with representative domestic and international addresses.
+Confirm order confirmation, customer email, staff email, fraud, ERP, warehouse, and tracking events.
+Test partial fulfillment, split shipment, cancellation, refund, return, exchange, and inventory restoration.
+Validate account registration, sign-in, addresses, order history, subscriptions, loyalty, and gift balances.
+Test analytics consent, page views, ecommerce events, attribution, pixels, and server-side events.
+Crawl the store for broken links, 404s, metadata, canonicals, indexability, structured data, and orphan pages.
+Run accessibility, browser, responsive, performance, and security checks.
+Complete user acceptance testing with the staff who will operate the store.
+Close every launch-critical defect or record an explicit approved exception.
/ Cutover preparation ( 10 )
Cutover preparation checklist.
01Choose a lower-traffic launch window and avoid major campaigns or understaffed periods.
02Lower DNS TTL in advance when appropriate and confirm domain registrar access.
03Write a timed runbook with owners, dependencies, commands or admin actions, expected results, and escalation contacts.
04Rehearse the runbook and record actual duration.
05Define the content and catalogue freeze, allowed exceptions, and communication process.
06Define the source-data cutoff and final delta window.
07Prepare customer service, warehouse, marketing, finance, and leadership communications.
08Confirm Shopify billing, plan, payment activation, domains, SSL expectations, and app contracts.
09Confirm backups, source-platform access, production credentials, and vendor availability.
10Define launch gates, rollback criteria, latest safe rollback point, and final decision-maker.
/ During launch — Cutover ( 11 )
During launch: cutover checklist.
Step
01
Start the controlled freeze.
Stop or tightly track source changes that could escape the final delta.
Step
02
Capture final source exports.
Record timestamps, counts, checksums where useful, and known exceptions.
Step
03
Run the final delta.
Load product changes before customers and historical orders when relationships depend on them.
Step
04
Reconcile the delta.
Compare counts, totals, statuses, inventory, and representative records.
Step
05
Load final redirects.
Test critical, high-traffic, and sampled long-tail URLs before traffic moves.
Step
06
Activate production services.
Enable payment, tax, shipping, email, feeds, integrations, and monitoring in the agreed order.
Step
07
Connect the domain.
Apply DNS changes and monitor SSL and hostname behavior.
Step
08
Remove storefront restrictions.
Disable the password and confirm no development noindex or blocking rules remain.
Step
09
Run smoke tests.
Place real low-value orders across key payment, shipping, tax, and market combinations.
Step
10
Confirm downstream flow.
Verify fulfillment, inventory, notifications, analytics, support, finance, and cancellation/refund behavior.
Step
11
Make the go/no-go decision.
Use agreed launch gates, not optimism or calendar pressure.
/ Immediately after launch — First 24 hours ( 11 )
Immediately after launch: first 24 hours.
( First 24 hours )
+Monitor order volume, conversion, payment failures, shipping errors, tax anomalies, and customer contacts.
+Confirm orders reach every required downstream system and fulfillment location.
+Compare inventory movements and prevent parallel updates from the retired source workflow.
+Check analytics real-time reports and validate ecommerce events against actual transactions.
+Crawl the live domain from outside the build environment.
+Test old URLs, redirects, 404s, canonicals, robots directives, and indexability.
+Submit the Shopify sitemap in Search Console once the public store is accessible.
+Use Change of Address only when the domain or subdomain changed, not for path changes on the same domain.
+Monitor logs, uptime, app errors, integration queues, API failures, and webhook retries.
+Keep a shared incident log with severity, owner, workaround, resolution, and customer impact.
+Communicate status and known issues to staff at agreed intervals.
/ After launch — Stabilization ( 12 )
After launch: first week and stabilization.
01Reconcile migrated products, customers, orders, gift balances, subscriptions, loyalty, and inventory.
02Compare revenue, conversion, average order value, payment success, refunds, and fulfillment against baseline.
03Review 404s, soft 404s, redirect chains, crawl errors, indexed pages, and Search Console queries.
04Monitor top organic landing pages individually rather than relying only on total traffic.
05Validate feeds, disapprovals, marketplace listings, email flows, retargeting audiences, and campaign destinations.
06Review Core Web Vitals and template performance with real-user data as it becomes available.
07Audit app behavior, cost, support issues, and duplicate scripts.
08Collect staff and customer feedback; separate training gaps from product defects.
09Prioritize defects by revenue, operational, legal, and customer impact.
10Keep redirects active for at least a year; retain useful redirects longer for customers and backlinks.
11Keep the source platform secure and accessible until data, compliance, finance, and operations sign off.
12Archive project decisions, mappings, exports, test evidence, runbooks, and lessons learned.
/ Common checklist mistakes ( 08 )
Common checklist mistakes.
01Using a generic list without owners. Work appears covered but nobody is accountable.
02Checking configuration instead of outcomes. A shipping rule exists, but the correct rate never appears at checkout.
03Testing only happy paths. Refunds, partial fulfillment, failed payments, and international exceptions fail later.
04Skipping the data delta. Recent orders, customers, reviews, prices, or inventory changes disappear.
05Leaving SEO until launch week. Destination URLs and content decisions are already fixed.
06Calling every issue launch-critical. The team loses focus on the failures that can stop safe trading.
07Retiring the source immediately. Evidence and records needed for reconciliation become unavailable.
08Launching without rollback data handling. New Shopify orders make a simple DNS reversal impossible.
/ FAQ ( 08 )
Shopify migration checklist FAQs.
What should be included in a Shopify migration checklist?
Include discovery, backups, Shopify architecture, data mapping, test imports, theme and content, apps, integrations, SEO, payments, tax, shipping, analytics, QA, final delta, DNS, smoke tests, monitoring, reconciliation, and source-platform retirement. Assign an owner and evidence to every critical item.
How long does a Shopify migration take?
A small standard store may take weeks, while a complex replatforming can take several months. The timeline depends on data quality, design, integrations, custom features, markets, content, testing, stakeholder decisions, and cutover constraints.
In what order should Shopify data be imported?
Shopify recommends importing products first, customers second, and historical orders last so order relationships can connect correctly. Test the sequence and disable staff new-order notifications if imported historical orders would create unwanted emails.
When should URL redirects be created?
Build the URL inventory and mapping during architecture, load redirects before traffic moves, and test them during QA and immediately after launch. Use direct permanent redirects to the closest relevant destination and account for Shopify’s reserved-path limitations.
Should I change my domain during a Shopify migration?
Keep the existing domain unless there is a strong business reason to change it. A domain move adds another variable. If it must change, verify both properties in Search Console, redirect every relevant URL, submit the new sitemap, and use Change of Address appropriately.
What should be tested on Shopify before launch?
Test discovery, product options, pricing, promotions, cart, checkout, payments, fraud, tax, shipping, accounts, notifications, fulfillment, refunds, returns, integrations, analytics, consent, SEO, accessibility, performance, browsers, devices, and operational workflows.
How long should the old ecommerce platform stay available?
Keep it secure and accessible until data reconciliation, finance, compliance, customer service, operations, and rollback needs are satisfied. Many teams retain a read-only archive for longer when historical records are needed.
How do I know a Shopify migration was successful?
Success means the store trades reliably, records reconcile, integrations remain healthy, staff can operate it, customers can complete key journeys, organic signals are transferring, and commercial metrics remain within understood ranges. Measure against a documented pre-launch baseline.
/ Next
Turn the checklist into a controlled launch.
Signature Works plans and delivers Shopify migrations across discovery, architecture, data, custom themes, integrations, SEO, QA, cutover, and stabilization. The checklist becomes a project control system with named owners, evidence, launch gates, and clear decisions.
If your migration involves meaningful revenue, complex data, or connected operations, we can help you move without treating the live store as the test environment.
Also worth a look: Migrations and rescues · Store audits · Shopify technical ownership