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3 min readUpdated

How to migrate your store from Magento to Shopify Plus

A practical guide to moving a store from Magento to Shopify Plus, stage by stage, from planning and proof of concept to data, integrations and go-live.

By Paal SobergFounder, Think Commerce

Two people planning a website at a whiteboard covered in home page sketches, one holding a laptop

A Magento to Shopify Plus migration moves your products, customers, order history, design and integrations to a hosted platform with no servers to run. Plan it in seven stages and it stays under control, even across several regions: discovery, proof of concept, design, data, integrations, testing and launch. Set the launch date around your trading calendar.

In short, to migrate an online store: map what has to move, test the hardest part first, move data and integrations, test everything, and launch in a quiet trading period. Coming from a platform other than Magento? See migrating to Shopify.

Why brands move from Magento to Shopify Plus

  • Lower upkeep. Magento often comes with significant maintenance and hosting costs. Shopify Plus is hosted for you, so there are no servers to manage.
  • Performance at peak. Shopify Plus is built to handle high traffic, including peaks such as Black Friday.
  • An easier admin. Your team manages products, orders and customer data in an interface that is simpler to use than Magento’s.
  • Faster to launch. Built-in features and the app ecosystem cut the set-up work, so a new store goes live sooner.

The seven stages of a Magento migration

1. Discovery and planning

Start with your requirements, your goals and how the current Magento store is set up. Then plan every part of the move: product data, customer data and each integration.

2. Proof of concept

Before the main build, prove the features your business depends on. Build a proof of concept for the key functions first, such as a checkout customisation, so you know they work on Shopify Plus before you commit to the rest.

3. Design and theme

Decide whether to keep your current look or redesign. You can work with your own designer: we customise a theme to match their design, so the brand stays consistent and the shopping experience improves.

4. Data migration

Move products, customer records and order history from Magento to Shopify Plus. Check the data once it lands. Data integrity matters more than speed here.

5. Integrations

Reconnect the systems your store relies on, such as your ERP and marketing tools, so orders, stock and customer data keep flowing after the switch.

6. Testing and quality assurance

Test everything before launch and fix what you find. If you are launching ahead of a busy period, include performance testing for the traffic you expect.

7. Launch

Pick a go-live date that fits your trading calendar. Launching before a peak, rather than during it, gives you time to settle in and then trade on the new platform when it counts.

Our Magento to Shopify migration service covers every stage, including SEO and redirects, so old Magento URLs point to the right new pages.

What this looked like for GaitLine

GaitLine, a Norwegian-developed shoe brand, sells direct to customers and to shoe and sports shops across the Nordics, Europe and the USA. It ran five regional D2C stores from one Magento instance. We moved them to five Shopify Plus stores in under 12 weeks, and all five went live a week before Black Friday 2022.

The results:

  • Conversion rate up 71% in the first 90 days, compared with the same period on Magento the year before.
  • Lower maintenance costs. Ongoing maintenance and hosting costs fell after the switch to Shopify Plus.
  • A better shopping experience. The new stores are faster and easier for customers to use.
  • Room to grow. The new set-up scales with GaitLine’s plans.

The GaitLine migration case study shows each stage in more detail.

For more Magento 2 moves, see the Majema case study and how we moved Christiania Glasmagasin before peak season.

Planning your own migration

Moving from WooCommerce instead? See our WooCommerce to Shopify migration, or start with our overview of migrating to Shopify. If you are on Magento now, tell us which version you run, how many stores you have and what they connect to. Ask us for a Magento migration plan.

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