/ Migration guide
Move it, transform it, or retire it.
Short answer: Products, variants, customers, inventory, content, and historical orders can be moved from BigCommerce to Shopify using CSV files, migration apps, APIs, or a partner-led process. The theme, customer passwords, platform-specific apps, custom scripts, and many business rules do not transfer directly. Plan catalogue mapping, feature replacement, integrations, redirects, final data synchronization, and rollback criteria before changing DNS.
A BigCommerce to Shopify migration is a replatforming project, not a bulk export followed by a theme launch. Core records can move, but the two platforms model catalogues, content, customer accounts, discounts, B2B features, checkout, and integrations differently.
The migration succeeds when the new Shopify store preserves the business outcomes that matter: customers can find and buy the right products, staff can operate orders, connected systems remain accurate, search engines understand every moved URL, and the cutover does not lose transactions.
That requires three separate decisions for every part of the current store: move it, transform it, or retire it. This guide explains how to make those decisions and build a cutover plan that can withstand live trading.
/ What moves
What moves from BigCommerce to Shopify?
Shopify supports several migration routes: manual entry, CSV imports, third-party migration apps, and custom API-based work. The correct route often varies by data type. A catalogue may use a repeatable transformation pipeline while a small set of policy pages is recreated manually.
Data Typical route / important checks
Products and variantsTransformed CSV, migration app, or API
Options, SKUs, identifiers, prices, weights, status, descriptions, SEO fields, and variant combinations
CategoriesMapped into Shopify collections and navigation
Manual versus automated rules, hierarchy, merchandising, filters, and landing-page content
Product imagesFetched during import or uploaded separately
Source availability, order, alt text, filenames, variants, and embedded legacy CDN URLs
CustomersCustomer CSV, app, or API
Addresses, tags, consent, tax settings, company relationships, and duplicates
PasswordsDo not transfer
New account sign-in or activation journey and customer communication
Historical ordersMigration app or API
Taxes, discounts, refunds, currencies, fulfillment, products, customer links, and reporting impact
Pages and blogsApp, API, structured import, or manual rebuild
HTML, authors, dates, media, internal links, metadata, and redirects
ReviewsReview-provider export/import
Product matching, rating, date, reviewer, media, and verification status
Gift cards and store creditSpecialist reconciliation and destination setup
Outstanding balances, liability, expiry, customer ownership, and redemption testing
DiscountsRecreated or converted with specialist tooling
Eligibility, stacking, usage limits, customer groups, channels, and expiry
/ What moves — in detail
What moves, in detail.
Products
Products move, but the catalogue model changes
A product import can be technically successful and commercially wrong. BigCommerce categories, option sets, modifiers, custom fields, brands, product rules, bulk pricing, and channel assignments need explicit Shopify destinations.
Before importing, define which source fields become Shopify product options, metafields, metaobjects, tags, vendors, product types, collections, or app-managed records. Complex options deserve special attention: a selection that changes the sellable SKU is not the same as an add-on that changes engraving text, delivery date, or configuration.
Do not force every legacy field into a tag. Tags are useful, but an uncontrolled tag taxonomy becomes hard to govern and weakens filtering, search, integrations, and content management. Structured product data should remain structured.
Categories
Categories become collections and navigation
BigCommerce category trees often serve several jobs at once: taxonomy, navigation, merchandising, SEO landing pages, and product assignment. Shopify separates some of those concerns through collections, menus, search and discovery filters, theme templates, and metafields.
Map category intent, not only category names. Decide whether each destination collection is automated or manual, how products qualify, where it appears in navigation, which filters it supports, and whether its copy and metadata must move. Deep category hierarchies may need a cleaner menu and landing-page architecture rather than one-for-one recreation.
Customers
Customers move; passwords do not
Customer data can be imported, but password credentials cannot be transferred between platforms. Plan the account experience before launch. Customers may use Shopify’s current passwordless account experience or, where legacy accounts are used, follow an activation process.
Test migrated addresses, marketing consent, tax exemptions, B2B or company relationships, loyalty balances, subscriptions, returns, and order visibility. An email address appearing in Shopify is not proof that the customer journey works.
Orders
Historical orders need a business case
Shopify’s standard admin CSV tools do not import historical orders. An app or API-based approach is required. Decide how much history is useful for service, returns, warranties, customer accounts, finance, analytics, and compliance.
Imported orders can distort dashboards if statuses, dates, financial state, or source attribution are mapped carelessly. Validate real examples including refunds, partial fulfillments, discounts, tax adjustments, deleted products, multiple currencies, and guest orders. Some businesses import a defined period and retain BigCommerce as a secure read-only archive for older records.
/ What changes
What changes rather than moves?
01 · Theme
The storefront theme
BigCommerce Stencil theme code does not run on Shopify. The storefront must be implemented using Shopify’s theme architecture: Liquid, JSON templates, sections, blocks, CSS, and JavaScript. Design assets and proven journeys can inform the build, but templates and custom code require new implementation.
A migration is a useful moment to remove design debt, but avoid changing every commercial variable without measurement. Preserve high-performing product information and conversion behavior while improving accessibility, manageability, performance, and mobile experience.
02 · Features
Native features, apps, and custom behavior
BigCommerce and Shopify draw the line between native capability, apps, and customization differently. A feature included in the current BigCommerce plan may require a Shopify app, custom development, a new operational process, or a different plan.
Audit behavior rather than producing a list of installed apps. For each capability, document:
· who uses it and why;
· what triggers it;
· the data it reads and writes;
· customer-facing and staff-facing output;
· exceptions and manual overrides;
· connected systems;
· reporting and retention requirements.
Then classify it as native Shopify, app replacement, custom build, process change, or retirement. This prevents app selection from becoming a superficial name-matching exercise.
03 · B2B
B2B and customer-group logic
Established BigCommerce stores may rely on customer groups, price lists, company accounts, restricted products, payment terms, sales-rep workflows, quote requests, or tax-exempt purchasing. Recreate the commercial rules, not merely group labels.
Document who sees each price, catalogue, payment method, shipping method, and checkout route. Include approval workflows, company users, purchasing permissions, and ERP ownership. Shopify’s B2B capabilities and the appropriate implementation depend on plan, markets, and architecture, so confirm fit during discovery.
04 · Promotions
Promotions and pricing
Discount engines rarely map perfectly. Test automatic promotions, coupon combinations, customer-specific pricing, quantity breaks, gifts, bundles, shipping discounts, and channel restrictions. If Shopify represents a promotion differently, finance and marketing need to approve both the customer outcome and reporting behavior.
05 · Search
Search, filters, and merchandising
Rebuild search synonyms, redirects, ranking rules, filter sources, badges, sort behavior, hidden products, and merchandising overrides. Product data quality drives this area. A beautiful theme cannot compensate for inconsistent attributes or an unclear collection model.
/ Integrations
Integrations are often the critical path.
ERP, PIM, WMS, 3PL, POS, CRM, tax, shipping, payments, customer service, marketplaces, subscriptions, and analytics integrations must be treated as software workstreams. The existence of a Shopify connector does not prove functional parity.
For each integration, define:
Test end-to-end scenarios, not isolated API calls. A Shopify order should flow through payment, fraud review, tax, ERP, warehouse, fulfillment, shipment notification, cancellation, refund, and finance reconciliation as appropriate.
01System of record for every important field
02Identifiers used to match products, variants, customers, and orders
03Sync direction, frequency, and latency
04Creation, update, cancellation, refund, and deletion behavior
05Retry logic, rate limits, queues, and failure alerts
06Historical data needs and initial seeding
07Sandbox and production credentials
08Ownership after launch
/ SEO
Protect SEO during a BigCommerce to Shopify migration.
The platforms use different URL patterns, and even similar slugs can sit under different paths. Build the redirect map from evidence: BigCommerce exports, XML sitemaps, a full crawl, analytics landing pages, Google Search Console, backlinks, server logs, product feeds, and campaign destinations.
Map every valuable legacy URL to its closest Shopify equivalent. Avoid sending removed products and categories to the homepage. Where a genuine successor exists, use it. Where no relevant replacement exists, a true 404 or 410 may be more honest than an irrelevant redirect.
SEO migration work should also include:
+Preserving useful titles, descriptions, headings, copy, media, and FAQs
+Updating internal links directly to final Shopify URLs
+Checking self-referencing canonicals and indexation controls
+Validating structured data on products, breadcrumbs, articles, and reviews
+Mapping every language and regional URL where relevant
+Testing redirect status, destination, chains, loops, and soft 404s
+Submitting Shopify’s generated sitemap after launch
+Monitoring organic landing pages, queries, crawl errors, and indexation
Keep the BigCommerce image source accessible while migration tools fetch assets, then remove internal references to legacy CDN URLs. Product descriptions and editorial content can contain hard-coded image and link paths that survive a catalogue import unnoticed.
/ Migration plan ( 07 )
A practical BigCommerce to Shopify migration plan.
01
Stage 01
Discover the real scope
Inventory data, features, integrations, content, URLs, markets, operational workflows, reports, staff roles, and manual workarounds. Interview teams across ecommerce, customer service, warehouse, marketing, finance, and technology.
Capture commercial and technical baselines: revenue, conversion rate, average order value, payment success, fulfillment timing, organic traffic, top landing pages, site speed, support contacts, and known failure rates.
02
Stage 02
Design the Shopify architecture
Define the product model, collections, navigation, filters, content structures, customer accounts, markets, locations, apps, theme system, checkout approach, and integration ownership. Produce a feature-gap register with an agreed destination and acceptance test for every requirement.
03
Stage 03
Build repeatable data transformations
Keep original BigCommerce exports untouched. Clean and transform copies through documented rules so the process can be rerun. Handle duplicate SKUs, missing identifiers, invalid HTML, inconsistent option values, obsolete products, embedded media, and destination limits deliberately.
Reconcile at multiple levels: total records, records by status, variants per product, inventory by location, customer consent, order value, refunds, and sample field-level comparisons.
04
Stage 04
Run test migrations early
Use representative data, not only the easiest products. Include complex options, sale prices, out-of-stock products, digital items, bundles, unusual tax classes, multiple addresses, refunded orders, partial fulfillment, and international records.
Review the Shopify admin, storefront, search, filters, feeds, notifications, and connected systems. An import report can show success while the commercial experience remains wrong.
05
Stage 05
Build and integrate in controlled environments
Keep the BigCommerce store trading while Shopify is built. Ensure development systems cannot charge live payments, email real customers, publish feeds, or send test orders to production fulfillment. Maintain environment-specific credentials and explicit activation steps.
06
Stage 06
Test customer and operational journeys
· Search, navigation, collections, filters, and product discovery
· Options, add-ons, pricing, promotions, inventory, and bundles
· Cart, checkout, payment, fraud, tax, and order confirmation
· Customer registration, sign-in, addresses, and order visibility
· Shipping rates, pickup, delivery, and international restrictions
· Fulfillment, partial fulfillment, cancellation, refund, return, and exchange
· B2B pricing, company users, permissions, terms, and tax exemptions
· ERP, PIM, WMS, 3PL, CRM, accounting, service, and marketplace flows
· Analytics, pixels, consent, attribution, and product feeds
· SEO redirects, canonicals, metadata, structured data, and 404 handling
07
Stage 07
Rehearse the cutover
Write a timed runbook and walk through it with every owner. Include the freeze window, final exports, data delta, redirect load, app activation, integration switching, DNS, payment mode, storefront password removal, smoke tests, stakeholder communication, and escalation paths.
Record actual rehearsal duration. This exposes steps that rely on one person, credentials that are unavailable, scripts that do not rerun safely, and validations that take longer than expected.
/ Cutover
Planning the final cutover.
The main migration happens before launch; the cutover closes the gap between the last full migration and the live switch. During that gap, BigCommerce continues receiving orders, customers, reviews, inventory updates, and content changes.
Choose between a strict change freeze and a tracked-delta model. For many live stores, transactions cannot stop, so the final process must identify and sync new records accurately.
Stage Typical activities / exit condition
Before freezeFinish build, migration, integrations, redirects, training, QA, and rehearsal
No unresolved launch-critical defects
Freeze or controlled windowRestrict catalogue and content changes; record exceptions
Source changes are bounded and visible
Final deltaMove new customers, orders, inventory, reviews, products, and edits
Reconciliation meets agreed tolerance
SwitchActivate production integrations and payments, connect domain, remove password
Shopify accepts live customer traffic
Smoke testPlace real orders, verify downstream flow, redirects, analytics, email, and inventory
Named launch checks pass
StabilizationMonitor errors, support, conversion, fulfillment, SEO, and data consistency
Operations sign off and incident rate normalizes
/ Rollback
Define rollback honestly.
Rollback is not simply pointing DNS back. Once Shopify accepts live orders and customer changes, returning to BigCommerce requires a plan for those records. Define the latest safe rollback point, which systems must be reversed, who makes the decision, and how new Shopify transactions will be preserved.
Use launch gates for measurable conditions: checkout succeeds, key shipping rates are correct, orders reach fulfillment, inventory updates, critical redirects work, analytics receives events, and customer service can access orders. Do not launch because the calendar says so when a revenue-critical gate has failed.
Common migration mistakes.
01
Scoping from product count alone.
Options, integrations, markets, B2B rules, content, and operations drive complexity.
02
Importing before designing the destination model.
Data lands in convenient fields rather than correct structures.
03
Assuming a Shopify app equals a BigCommerce feature.
Edge cases, data ownership, performance, and reporting differ.
04
Leaving integrations until the theme is finished.
They become the late critical path.
05
Testing only the happy path.
Refunds, partial fulfillment, failed payments, and customer-group exceptions break after launch.
06
Treating SEO as redirect upload day.
Architecture, content parity, and destination URLs must be agreed much earlier.
07
Skipping the final data delta.
Recent orders, customers, reviews, or inventory changes are lost.
08
Launching without named owners.
Everyone watches, but nobody is accountable for a failed signal.
09
Closing BigCommerce immediately.
The source is still needed for validation, reconciliation, retention, and controlled fallback.
/ Timeline
How long does a BigCommerce to Shopify migration take?
A simple store with standard products and few integrations may move relatively quickly. An enterprise or high-growth store with several catalogues, B2B rules, international markets, subscriptions, custom checkout behavior, years of history, and ERP or warehouse connections is a substantial program.
A credible timeline includes discovery, architecture, theme and app work, data transformation, integration development, test migrations, QA, user acceptance testing, staff training, cutover rehearsal, launch, and stabilization. Parallel work can shorten elapsed time, but dependent decisions still need sequencing.
Ask potential partners what their estimate assumes about data quality, custom features, integration ownership, content entry, redirects, acceptance testing, and post-launch support. A low migration quote can exclude the work most likely to threaten revenue.
/ Who should run it
When to use an app, an internal team, or a migration partner.
Manual CSVManual CSV work can suit a small, simple catalogue.
Migration appA migration app may be effective for a larger but conventional store, especially when dry runs and repeatable mappings are available.
Internal teamAn internal team can lead when it has enough capacity across Shopify architecture, data engineering, frontend development, integrations, SEO, QA, and change management.
Specialist partnerA specialist partner is useful when the store is operationally complex, organic traffic is commercially important, custom behavior must be rebuilt, or several business systems change together. The partner should own more than data transfer: solution design, risk management, acceptance criteria, coordination, and launch readiness are the valuable parts.
/ FAQ ( 08 )
BigCommerce to Shopify migration FAQs.
Can I migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify without losing data?
Most important commerce data can be moved, but not every record uses the same method. Products and customers can use CSV, apps, or APIs; historical orders need an app or API; passwords cannot transfer; and reviews, gift balances, content, and app data need separate plans. Test and reconcile before cutover.
Will BigCommerce customer passwords work on Shopify?
No. Password credentials cannot be migrated between the platforms. Choose the Shopify customer account model, test the migrated customer journey, and communicate the sign-in or activation process clearly before launch.
Can I migrate BigCommerce orders to Shopify?
Yes, using a migration app or API-based process. Shopify’s standard admin CSV import does not import historical orders. Validate dates, financial status, taxes, discounts, currencies, refunds, fulfillment, product references, and customer links.
Does my BigCommerce theme transfer to Shopify?
No. BigCommerce Stencil themes do not run on Shopify. The storefront must be rebuilt using Shopify’s theme architecture or replaced with an appropriate Shopify theme. Brand assets and proven design patterns can be carried into the new implementation.
Will a BigCommerce to Shopify migration hurt SEO?
It can if URLs disappear, redirects are wrong, content is removed, internal links break, or indexation controls are misconfigured. Build a complete URL inventory, map direct permanent redirects, preserve valuable content and metadata, test technical SEO, and monitor Search Console after launch.
Can I keep the same domain when moving from BigCommerce to Shopify?
Yes. You can connect the existing domain to Shopify. Page paths may still change, so prepare redirects before the domain switch. Coordinate DNS, SSL, email records, verification records, apps, and external service allowlists.
How do I migrate BigCommerce product options to Shopify?
First classify each option by behavior: variant-defining option, informational field, add-on, or configuration rule. Map sellable combinations to Shopify variants and use metafields, metaobjects, line-item properties, apps, or custom development for other needs. Test pricing, inventory, SKU, and fulfillment effects.
How much does a BigCommerce to Shopify migration cost?
Cost depends on data quality, catalogue complexity, custom features, B2B requirements, design, integrations, markets, SEO footprint, testing, and cutover support. Discovery should produce a feature-gap register and architecture before a dependable estimate is made.
/ Next
Plan the move as a commerce program.
Signature Works delivers Shopify migrations across discovery, architecture, data transformation, custom theme development, apps and integrations, SEO preservation, quality assurance, cutover, and post-launch stabilization.
If your BigCommerce store has years of catalogue decisions, operational rules, and connected systems behind it, we can help separate what should move from what should be redesigned, then build a cutover plan around live revenue.