A Shopify to WooCommerce migration fails on the data nobody planned to lose

A Shopify to WooCommerce migration moves products and orders easily, then stumbles on everything else. MediaCutlet plans these around what cannot transfer: saved payment methods, subscription billing agreements, customer passwords and gift card balances. The redirect map decides whether you keep the search rankings you already paid for.

Most Shopify to WooCommerce migration quotes are priced as a data transfer. Products in, orders in, done. That framing is exactly why migrations go badly, because the products were never the hard part. Google’s own site move guidance is blunt about what is: map every existing URL to its new destination before anything else happens, and expect ranking movement while it settles.

MediaCutlet is four senior operators who embed with leadership teams, so the person planning your migration is the person executing it. No account managers, no junior handoffs, no subcontracted outcomes. We measure the work in dollars rather than impressions on the results page. Between web and AI engagements we have stood behind more than $500 million in client revenue, a good deal of it while the systems underneath were being replaced.

MediaCutlet works out of Red Bank, New Jersey, with clients nationally, and Strato Doumanis leads the digital and AI practice. He runs these migrations himself, because the failure modes are specific and none of them appear in a generic project plan. A store that loses money in a migration usually did everything right except the one item nobody put on the list.

Why do businesses leave Shopify for WooCommerce?

In our experience the trigger is one of four things. Volume has grown until the per-order platform fee is a real line item. App subscriptions have quietly stacked up until the monthly total looks like a salary. The business needs pricing or renewal rules the platform will not let anyone write. Or the content operation and the store have to stop living in separate systems.

Notice that none of those is dissatisfaction with Shopify as software. It is usually a business that outgrew the shape of the container, which is a different problem from a platform that failed.

What actually transfers, and what does not?

Products, variants, images, collections, customer records, order history, blog content and most discount codes all move. That is the part every vendor quotes, and it is largely mechanical.

Here is what does not. Customer passwords are stored hashed, so every customer resets on first login and you need a communication plan for that. Saved payment methods live with the payment processor inside PCI scope, not in your store, so they cannot be exported. Active subscriptions are billing agreements held by the gateway and usually cannot be reassigned, which makes recurring revenue the single most delicate part of the move. Gift card balances need to be reissued deliberately. Every Shopify app needs a WooCommerce equivalent or a small build. The theme gets rebuilt rather than moved.

How do we keep our search rankings through the move?

With a redirect map built before the migration, not after it. Shopify and WooCommerce structure product and category URLs differently, so essentially every indexed page changes address. Each old URL needs a permanent server-side redirect to its real counterpart, not a lazy sweep to the homepage.

Google asks that those redirects stay live for at least 180 days, after which it stops recognizing any relationship between the old address and the new one. We keep them far longer, submit updated sitemaps and watch both sets of URLs while indexing catches up. Some ranking movement is normal for a few weeks. A permanent drop is a redirect problem, and it is recoverable if somebody is actually looking.

What breaks in the first week after launch?

Predictable things, which is why we watch for them. Tax rules that were handled by the old platform now need configuring. Shipping logic meets the edge case nobody tested. Order confirmation emails start arriving from a new sender and land in spam. Abandoned cart flows, inventory sync and analytics goals all point at URLs that no longer exist.

The first live order is the real test, and someone should place it deliberately rather than waiting for a customer to find the problem. We stay close for the first two weeks, because that is when a migration is either fine or quietly bleeding.

A migration engagement with us includes:

• A full inventory of the current store, apps, integrations and subscription base
• A redirect map covering every indexed URL before any data moves
• Product, customer and order transfer with reconciliation against the source
• A plan for passwords, saved cards, subscriptions and gift card balances
• Payment gateway setup that keeps card data off your servers
• Rebuilt integrations into accounting, CRM, fulfillment and email
• Two weeks of close monitoring after launch, orders and rankings both

Engagement options: a full migration, a migration plan your own team executes, or a $2,500 to $3,000 assessment that tells you what the move would actually involve before you commit budget to it.

If you are considering this move, the time to map the risks is before a launch date exists, not after one is promised. Start a conversation with the operator who would run it.

Frequently asked questions

Can we keep our current design, or does it get rebuilt?

It gets rebuilt, because a Shopify theme cannot run on WordPress. We can match the existing design closely if you like it, and most clients treat the move as the moment to fix what was bothering them anyway.

Can the store stay open while the migration happens?

Mostly. The build and testing happen alongside your live store, and there is a short freeze around cutover where orders should not be placed. We schedule that for your quietest window and keep it to hours rather than days.

How do we tell customers what is changing?

With notice before the move, not an apology after it. The password reset is the piece customers actually feel, so it needs a plain email explaining it is coming and why, sent from an address they already recognize.

What happens to our historical reporting?

Order records come across, but the reporting tools do not, and the numbers will not line up perfectly because the two platforms count things differently. We export the old reports before cutover so you keep a clean historical record.

What does a Shopify to WooCommerce migration cost?

It scales with the number of integrations and whether subscriptions are involved, far more than with product count. The $2,500 to $3,000 assessment is the honest starting point, because a quote given before anyone has looked at your apps is a guess.

Can you handle this if nobody on our team is technical?

Yes, and that is worth saying out loud when you plan for after launch. Someone still has to own the store day to day, so we either train that person or stay on in a support role rather than leaving you with keys and no map.