Move from Magento to Shopify without losing orders or rankings

The short answer

A Magento to Shopify migration checklist has five phases: audit what your Magento store does today, plan how each piece maps to Shopify, move the data in the right order (products, then customers, then orders), rebuild the storefront and settings, and protect your search traffic with a full redirect map before you switch the domain. Shopify’s own migration guide says to import products first, then customers, then historical orders, so orders link to the right products and people.

The two things that cause the most trouble are customer passwords, which cannot be moved, and URLs, which almost always change because Shopify uses fixed paths like /products/ and /collections/. Plan for both from day one. The full checklist is below.

Why stores are moving off Magento in 2026

Magento (now Adobe Commerce, with a free Magento Open Source edition) is powerful, but it needs ongoing developer time, hosting, and regular upgrades to stay patched. Adobe publishes end-of-support dates for each release line. As of 2026, regular support for the 2.4.6 line ended on August 11, 2026, so stores still on 2.4.6 or older face an upgrade either way. Adobe also says extended support is only for Adobe Commerce customers, not Magento Open Source.

For many owners that upgrade becomes the moment to ask whether a hosted platform makes more sense. Shopify handles hosting, security patches and checkout for you. The trade-off is less low-level control, so the checklist starts with finding out exactly what your Magento store does that Shopify will need to do differently.

Phase 1: Audit your Magento store

Before anyone exports a file, write down what you have. This list becomes your scope and your test plan.

• Catalog: number of products, simple versus configurable products, bundles, grouped products, custom attributes and how many options each product uses.
• Customers: total accounts, customer groups, tier or group pricing, B2B accounts and saved addresses.
• Orders: how many years of history you need to keep and who uses it (customer service, accounting, reporting).
• Extensions: every installed extension and what business job it does. Many will be replaced by Shopify apps or built-in features; some will not have a match.
• Integrations: ERP, accounting, inventory, shipping, marketplaces, email marketing and reviews.
• Content: CMS pages, blog posts, policies, FAQs and landing pages.
• SEO baseline: top pages and queries from Google Search Console for the last 12 months, plus revenue by landing page from analytics.
• Taxes, shipping and payments: current rules, rates, carriers and gateways.

Phase 2: Map Magento features to Shopify

Most migrations go wrong where the two platforms work differently. Check these early:

• Product options. Shopify raised its limit to 2,048 variants per product in 2025, but products are still built from a small number of option types (such as size, color and material). Magento products with many custom options may need to be restructured, split, or handled with an app.
• Customer groups and pricing. Magento’s customer-group pricing does not map one-to-one. Shopify Plus has B2B features; on other plans you may need an app or tags plus discounts.
• Multi-store setups. One Magento install running several storefronts may become several Shopify stores or one store with markets. Decide this before you import anything.
• URLs. Shopify uses fixed prefixes: /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/. Your Magento URLs will change, so every old URL needs a redirect.
• Checkout customizations. Custom Magento checkout steps need to be rebuilt using Shopify’s supported checkout options and apps.
• Integrations. Confirm each connected system has a Shopify connector or can be linked through an integration layer.

Write a simple table: Magento feature, what it does for the business, the Shopify replacement, and who owns testing it.

Phase 3: Move the data in the right order

1. Clean first. Remove discontinued products, duplicate customers and test orders. Migrating junk costs time and clutters the new store.
2. Products. Export from Magento, reshape into Shopify’s product CSV format (or use a migration app), and import. Check that image URLs in the file are reachable, because Shopify pulls images from them.
3. Collections. Rebuild categories as collections, manual or automated.
4. Customers. Import names, emails, addresses, tags and marketing consent. Shopify states that customer passwords cannot be migrated by CSV, so customers will set new ones.
5. Historical orders. Shopify’s basic CSV tools do not import orders; use a migration app or the API. Turn off order notifications first so customers do not get emails for old orders, as Shopify’s guide advises.
6. Content. Move pages, blog posts and policies. Keep the wording that ranks; this is not the time for a full rewrite.
7. Gift cards and store credit. Carry over balances so customers do not lose value.

Run a test migration on a copy of the data first, check it, then do the final migration close to launch so new orders are not left behind.

Phase 4: Rebuild the storefront and settings

• Choose and customize a theme. Rebuild key templates: product, collection, cart, home and landing pages.
• Set up shipping zones and rates, taxes, payment providers and store policies.
• Install and configure the apps that replace Magento extensions, then remove any you do not need.
• Reconnect integrations (ERP, accounting, inventory, email marketing, reviews) and test the data moving both ways.
• Recreate page titles and meta descriptions for your top pages.
• Add analytics, conversion tracking and ad platform tags.
• Create staff accounts with the right permissions.

If you have a physical store, Shopify’s guide also covers setting up Point of Sale in the same project.

Planning a move off Magento? Book a free 30-minute call. We’ll look at your current store and tell you what we’d tackle first, no obligation.

Phase 5: Protect your search traffic

Google ranks individual pages, so changed URLs without redirects can cost you rankings you spent years earning. Google’s site-move guidance recommends a permanent redirect from each old URL to its closest new equivalent.

• Crawl the live Magento site and export every URL: products, categories, CMS pages, blog posts and images that get traffic.
• Build a redirect map pairing each old URL with the closest new Shopify URL. Do not send everything to the home page.
• Import the map into Shopify’s URL redirects (it accepts a CSV file).
• Avoid chains, where one redirect points to another redirect.
• After launch, submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch the Pages report for not-found errors.

Phase 6: Test, launch and monitor

Before launch

• Place test orders: successful payment, failed payment, refund, cancellation and fulfillment.
• Review every notification email customers will receive.
• Check prices, weights, inventory and taxes on a sample of products from each category.
• Test on phones, since most store traffic is mobile.
• Spot-check 50 to 100 redirects, including your highest-revenue pages.

Launch day

• Run the final data sync for new orders and customers.
• Disconnect the domain from the old platform and connect it to Shopify, as Shopify’s guide advises, to avoid SSL errors.
• Send customers a short email explaining the new store and how to set a password.

After launch

• Check Search Console and analytics weekly for at least eight weeks.
• Fix missed redirects as they appear.
• Keep a read-only copy of the Magento data for reference and records.

How long does a Magento to Shopify migration take?

It depends on catalog size, how much custom work your Magento store has, the number of integrations and how much history you move. A small catalog with few extensions moves much faster than a store with thousands of configurable products, customer-group pricing and an ERP connection. The biggest time savers are a clean audit and a decision, early on, about what not to move.

Should you do it yourself or hire help?

A simple store with a small catalog and no integrations can often be moved with Shopify’s tools and a careful owner. Bring in help when you have configurable products, B2B pricing, an ERP or accounting connection, years of SEO traffic, or no room for downtime. JLB USA builds stores on Shopify, Shopify Plus and Magento, handles integrations with CRM, accounting and ERP systems, and sets up redirects from old pages so rankings carry over. See our web design and e-commerce work for more.

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