I moved one of my earliest stores from WooCommerce to Shopify.
It was a huge pain and took me several weeks.
That’s because I had no idea how to migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify effectively.
Back then, no guides like this one existed.
Hopefully having this step-by-step guide will make the process much faster and easier for you.
Contents
- 1 How To Migrate From Woocommerce To Shopify
- 2 How To Switch From Woocommerce To Shopify: Final Thoughts
How To Migrate From Woocommerce To Shopify
Follow the steps below to get your online store moved from WooCommerce to Shopify with minimal hassle.
Step 1: Choose The Method Of Migration
You have a few options when it comes to migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify. Choose from one of the following four methods.
Method 1: Using A Third-Party App
You can easily migrate to Shopify from Woocommerce using migrating applications like LitExtension, Cart2Cart, or Matrixify/Excelify. These applications are super easy to use even for non-tech savvy merchants. They also perform the migration within minutes.
Note that some of these apps are paid. You can choose a subscription plan to suit the amount of data you wish to migrate. Here are the steps for using the Matrixify application:
- Download the Matrixify app.
- Set up the Woocommerce API. This step helps Matrixify connect to your Woocommerce store.
- Go to Woocommerce settings and access REST API.
- Add a key and give it some description like Migration Demo. Next, choose a user which is how Matrixify will connect to the Woocommerce API.
- Go to permissions and choose ‘just read’. This way, you can ensure that you do not make any changes to the Woocommerce store.
- Press Generate an API key. This will create a consumer key and consumer secret. These two things will help us create a URL.
- Copy the consumer key. Go to the Matrixify app.
- In the Import section, there is a place to paste your URL. Type https:// and paste the consumer key, colon (:), then consumer secret, then @ (at symbol), and then your Woocommerce domain name.
- Press upload from the URL.
- Matrixify will now connect to your Woocommerce API and you will be able to see your products, custom collections, customers, etc.
- You can migrate all of this data to Shopify or choose to migrate some of it. For example, at the end of the URL, type ? ‘only= customers, orders’.
- If you wish to migrate the whole store (products, customers, historical orders, reviews), press the dry run checkbox.
- You can also convert the Woocommerce data to the Matrixify/Excelcify template. Migrate to Shopify.
- Press import – it will generate a zip file.
- Wait for the dry run to finish.
- Once finished, check the import results. You will see it is an Excel sheet with products. For each product, it gives the Handle of the respective customs collection. Also, in the body HTML, there are images with image src which point to the Shopify location.
- We have to convert image links to Shopify links which is why they are in the same zip file.
- In the folder images, you will see all images downloaded from Woocommerce. You need to upload these to Shopify so they remain intact.
- You will see the words REPLACE which shows you the tags of the product like the date created, and whether the product is published or not.
- Woocommerce has unlimited options but Shopify has only three. This is where, in the third option, you might see some merging of data. You also have the SKU, variant position, barcode, and variant images. Shopify supports only three variants so they can get merged.
- Go to redirects. Click and switch paths based on the old path and the new target.
- Similarly, repeat the migration for customers. The Woocommerce migration tool tends to migrate just one address per customer. So be careful and choose the option that suits you best.
- Once you have cleaned up the Woocommerce data files, you can import them to Shopify.
- This time, choose the normal import instead of the dry run. Press import and the import will take place in the background. You can continue working and even close the apps, the migration will occur in the background.
- Once it is finished, you will get an email from the Matrixify app. It might give you a status such as Import Finished With Errors. Fix the issues indicated.
Instead of using paid apps, you can also do a manual Migration.
Method 2: Manual Migration
Manually copy all of your Woocommerce data and paste it into Shopify.
Method 3: CSV Transfer
Another method of migrating from Woocommerce to Shopify is to create CSV files of your Woocommerce data by exporting it and then importing those CSV files into Shopify. The downside of this method is that not all data can be migrated this way.
Method 4: Hire A Professional
If you have a lot of data and fear data loss, you can hire a Shopify partner to help you with the migration. This is the easiest way to do it, but naturally also the most expensive.
Step 2: Export Data From Woocommerce
To export product data, go to Woocommerce -> All Products -> Products. Click Export. Export all Custom Data. Generate a CSV file.
Similarly, export the Woocommerce customers’ data by installing this plugin. Go to import/export suite. Choose export.
Go to Customer/User. Click the advanced option batch export. Choose CSV as the export format. Select Delimiter for differentiating elements in raw data. Click export.
Step 3: Edit The CSV Files
Shopify needs its data in a specific format. For example, you need to change the CSV column names to Shopify’s data type. Likewise, if your Woocommerce attributes field has several options, you need to create multiple rows for proper migration to Shopify. Make the changes to the customer CSV file to Shopify’s data type as well.
Step 4: Import To Shopify
- In Shopify Admin click Products.
- Click Import
- Add file
- Publish new products to all sales channels
- Upload and preview.
- Shopify will also send you an email regarding successful import.
- Similarly, import customer data CSV file. Review the summary and click View all customers.
Step 5: Fix Common Errors
Here are some common errors you may face during the migration and ways to fix them:
- Import successful but with some changes: The import summary will show you the items that need changes.
- Products imported but not published: Some items may be hidden in Woocommerce. They cannot be published unless you make them available in the sales channel.
- Details missing in imported items: Review the items and fill in the missing details.
- Failed to import variants: Manually add the variant options in Shopify.
Review product details including meta descriptions, tags, images, prices, and variants. You can also create product collections.
Step 6: Import Other Data
These are optional steps:
- Import your reviews using apps like Loox.
- Install a plugin on your Woocommerce to export order history. To import order history on the Shopify store, use a third-party app like Matrixify or LitExtension.
Step 7: Make Your Shopify Functional
- Add a theme.
- Set up shipping (create shipping zones, set up rates, create dimensions, etc.).
- Configure taxes.
- Set up a payment provider.
- Set up order fulfillment, and add store policies, etc.
- Set up a new domain. Alternatively, you can connect to an existing domain. Use these steps.
- Add staff members.
- Place some test orders.
How To Switch From Woocommerce To Shopify: Final Thoughts
Knowing how to migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify makes the entire process so much easier. I really wish I had had a step-by-step guide when I had to migrate a store many years ago. In fact, that is the reason I wanted to write this guide.
Hopefully this ensures that no one else has to go through the process on their own and figure everything out as they go. That ends up taking forever and will probably result in the loss of some data, too. I know I lost a bunch of product pages when I did it originally.
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