The failure mode in a platform migration is rarely the products. Product data moves reasonably well with tooling. What gets lost is everything that was not a product: the URLs search engines have indexed for years, the integrations that were plugins, the payment setup, and the reviews that were doing the converting.
This is the checklist we work from. It is ordered, because the first section is the one that gets skipped and the one that costs the most to fix afterwards.
Before you move anything: inventory what you have
Export the URL list, not just the products
Crawl the existing store and export every URL that returns a 200. All of it: products, categories, tags, attribute pages, blog posts, author archives, the pages nobody remembers creating. Then pull the same list from Search Console and from your XML sitemap, and merge the three, because none of them is complete on its own.
This merged list is the spine of the whole project. Every URL on it needs a decision: redirect to an equivalent, redirect to the nearest parent, or deliberately let go.
Record what ranks today
Export twelve months of Search Console query and page data before you touch anything. After launch this is the only way to tell the difference between a seasonal dip and a migration that went wrong, and you cannot get it retrospectively in the form you need.
Note the top landing pages by organic clicks and by revenue. Those specific URLs get verified by hand on launch day rather than trusted to the bulk process.
Inventory the plugins
List every active plugin and what it actually does for the business. Reviews, subscriptions, wishlists, invoicing, shipping rules, COD restrictions by pincode, WhatsApp notifications, GST invoice generation. Each one is either replaced by a Shopify app, rebuilt, or dropped on purpose. Discovering one of these in week two of the new store is how launches slip.
The redirect map is most of the job
How the URL structures differ
WooCommerce URLs vary by configuration, commonly with a /product/ or /shop/ segment and category paths that may or may not be nested. Shopify's structure is fixed: products live under /products/, collections under /collections/, pages under /pages/ and articles under /blogs/. You cannot change those prefixes, so nearly every product and category URL on the old store changes.
That means the redirect map is not an edge case to handle, it is the default state of every URL you own. Map it in a spreadsheet, old URL to new URL, before launch rather than after.
Where redirects live on Shopify
Shopify has URL redirects built into the admin, and they can be imported in bulk from a CSV, which is how a real map gets loaded. For large or pattern-based maps an app or an app-managed import is easier than the built-in screen. Whichever route, the map is prepared in advance and imported at cutover, not written by hand as 404s come in.
Handle the ones with no equivalent deliberately. A discontinued product should redirect to its collection, not to the homepage, and not to a 404. Mass redirection to the homepage is treated as a soft 404 and wastes the signal you were trying to keep.
How long to keep them
Google's own site move documentation says to use server-side permanent redirects where technically possible, and to "Keep the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year". Treat that as a floor rather than a target. There is no benefit to removing them, and links from other sites do not update themselves.
Data: what moves cleanly and what does not
Products and variants
Generally the smoothest part, with one recurring catch: WooCommerce's attribute and variation model does not map one-to-one onto Shopify's options and variants, and Shopify limits how many option dimensions a product can have. Products with many attribute combinations need restructuring rather than importing, and that decision is best made before the import rather than discovered during it.
Check images carry across at full resolution with their alt text, and that your product handles are sensible, because the handle is the URL.
Customers and order history
Customer records move. Passwords do not: they are hashed, and Shopify cannot import them. Your customers will be asked to reset, which is a communications job, not a technical one, and it needs an email written before launch rather than after complaints start.
Historical orders can be imported for reference. Decide early whether you need them in Shopify or whether the old platform's export is sufficient as a record, because full order history import adds real cost.
Reviews
Reviews are the asset most often lost in a migration, because they live in a plugin rather than in the store. Export them before the old site is decommissioned. Most Shopify review apps can import from a CSV, and the mapping back to the right product is done on SKU or handle, which is another reason to settle handles first.
What has to be rebuilt rather than migrated
Payments, which in India do not come across at all
Shopify Payments is not available to Indian merchants. Shopify's own help documentation lists the supported countries for Shopify Payments and India is not among them, which means an Indian store uses a third-party payment provider. Whatever gateway you were running on WooCommerce has to be set up fresh on Shopify through its own app or integration, with its own approval process and its own testing.
Start this early. Gateway onboarding involves paperwork and approval time that has nothing to do with your build schedule, and it is a common reason a launch date moves. Test the full flow with real low-value transactions before cutover, including UPI, cards and netbanking, and including the refund path.
Shipping rules and cash on delivery
COD is not a native Shopify payment method in the sense Indian merchants mean it. It is configured as a manual payment method, and any rules you had around it, pincode restrictions, order value limits, extra COD charges, come from apps or from your shipping aggregator rather than from the platform. Rebuild those rules explicitly and test them against real pincodes, including ones you do not serve.
Anything that was a plugin
Go back to the plugin inventory and confirm each line has a decision and an owner. GST invoicing in particular needs attention: the compliant-invoice behaviour a WooCommerce plugin was providing is an app or an integration on Shopify, and it is worth having your accountant look at a sample invoice from the new store before launch.
Launch week
- Build and test on the Shopify development URL while the old store stays fully live. There is no reason for downtime in a migration.
- Keep the new store password-protected until cutover so it cannot be indexed alongside the old one.
- Import the redirect map before DNS changes, not after.
- Check canonical tags, meta titles and meta descriptions have carried over on the pages that mattered in your Search Console export.
- Verify the new store in Search Console ahead of time and submit the new sitemap once redirects are live.
- Walk the top twenty organic landing pages by hand. Every one should land on its intended destination in a single hop.
- Place real test orders through every payment method, including COD, and confirm the confirmation emails and any WhatsApp notifications fire.
The first thirty days after cutover
Watch the Search Console coverage and 404 reports daily for the first fortnight. Real traffic finds URLs your crawl missed, and each one is a redirect you can add the same day. Watch analytics by landing page rather than in total, because an overall dip hides which section is bleeding.
Expect some fluctuation while the index settles. What is not normal is a sustained drop in a specific set of pages, and that almost always traces back to a redirect that was missed or points to the wrong place.
Frequently asked questions
Will we lose rankings by moving to Shopify?
Not from the platform change itself. Ranking loss in a migration comes from URLs that were not mapped, content that got thinner on the way across, or a slower site at the other end. The redirect map is the single biggest determinant, which is why it should be a named line item in any migration quote rather than something assumed.
Can we keep our WordPress blog and move only the store?
You can, by running the blog on a subdirectory or subdomain alongside Shopify, and some content-heavy brands do exactly that. It adds operational complexity and a second thing to maintain. Worth it if your blog is a genuine traffic asset, not worth it for a handful of posts.
How long does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration take?
For a standard migration, a few weeks; longer with a redesign, longer again for large catalogues and complex integrations. Our guide to Shopify migration cost sets out the bands by project shape. The variable that moves the timeline most is not catalogue size, it is how many plugins turn out to have been doing something important.
Should we redesign at the same time?
It is the common choice, on the reasoning that you are already paying to rebuild. Be aware that changing platform and design together makes post-launch diagnosis harder, because a drop could be either. If the current design converts well, consider moving like-for-like first and redesigning once the migration has settled.
