How to migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify

The short answer

Moving from BigCommerce to Shopify is a move between two hosted platforms that solve the same problem in slightly different ways. You don’t leave behind servers or patching; you change the platform your store runs on, the apps around it and the way your URLs are structured.

The data side is usually straightforward. BigCommerce exports are generally clean, and products, customers and orders map well onto Shopify. The real work is in three places: mapping and redirecting every URL, restructuring product options to fit Shopify’s limits, and reconnecting the integrations that run your business.

I’ve engineered more than 350 Shopify stores and migrated over 500,000 products in 20 years. This guide covers why retailers make the move, what transfers, how BigCommerce URLs map to Shopify, your options for doing it, and when staying on BigCommerce is the better call.

Who this guide is for

This guide is for established retailers running on BigCommerce who are weighing up Shopify. Typically that’s a store with hundreds or thousands of products, a few years of customers and orders, organic rankings worth protecting, and a set of integrations for stock, accounting, email and shipping.

If you’re still deciding between the two platforms rather than planning a move, my comparison of Shopify vs BigCommerce sets out the differences side by side. And if your BigCommerce store is working well and none of the reasons below apply, read when to stay on BigCommerce first.

Why retailers move from BigCommerce

The reasons I hear most often are commercial rather than technical:

• Plans tied to sales. BigCommerce plans have sales thresholds. As of October 2026, its published pricing upgrades Core stores automatically above $30,000 of trailing-12-month sales, Growth stores above $100,000, and moves Scale stores to the Performance plan at $2 million, with a 0.9% charge on sales above a monthly cap on Scale. Shopify’s standard plans aren’t tied to your turnover in the same way.
• The 2026 plan changes. On 1 June 2026, BigCommerce renamed its plans (Standard became Core, Plus became Growth, Pro became Scale, Enterprise became Performance) and introduced an “Open Payment Provider” fee of 2.0%, 1.0% or 0.6% by plan on orders processed through payment providers that aren’t embedded in BigCommerce. For some retailers that changed the sums.
• The app ecosystem. Shopify’s App Store is large, and many retail tools build for Shopify first.
• Team familiarity. Shopify is widely known, which makes it easier to hire staff, agencies and freelancers who already know it.
• Checkout and Shop Pay. Shopify’s checkout and its Shop Pay accelerated checkout are a draw for many retailers. Shopify publishes its own conversion claims for both; treat any vendor’s figures as a reason to test, not a guarantee.

On price alone, the two platforms are closer than people think. BigCommerce’s published monthly prices for Core, Growth and Scale ($39, $105 and $399 billed monthly) match Shopify’s US prices for Basic, Grow and Advanced. The differences are in thresholds, transaction fees and what you need from the platform.

What moves to Shopify

Shopify’s guidance is to import products first, then customers, then historical orders, so every order links to the right customer and product. Historical orders are imported as records, with staff notifications turned off so nobody gets an email for every imported order.

Products, options and modifiers

This is the part of a BigCommerce migration most likely to surprise you.

BigCommerce distinguishes between variant options, which create SKUs with their own stock and price, and modifiers, which capture extra choices such as personalisation text, gift wrap or add-ons without creating new SKUs. Shopify’s products have up to three options that create variants. Anything that works like a BigCommerce modifier needs another route: a product options app, line-item properties built into the theme, or a restructure of how the product is sold.

Products with more than three option dimensions need restructuring too, usually by splitting one dimension into separate products linked together on the page. Shopify now supports up to 2,048 variants per product, but some themes and apps still only handle 100, so I check every app in the plan against your largest products before the build starts.

Bundles and kits deserve a mention too. If you sell products together at a combined price on BigCommerce, decide whether they become a single product, a bundle built in the theme, or a bundles app on Shopify, because the choice affects stock, reporting and how the bundle appears in Google Shopping.

Custom fields usually become metafields. That’s an improvement worth taking: structured metafields can power collection filters and specification tables, where BigCommerce custom fields are often free text. The migration is the moment to decide which fields buyers filter on, which they compare, and which nobody uses.

URLs, redirects and SEO

BigCommerce lets merchants choose their URL formats in the store settings, and many stores use short URLs at the root of the site, such as /product-name/ for products and /category-name/ for categories. Shopify’s formats are fixed: products sit under /products/, categories under /collections/ and information pages under /pages/, and those folder names can’t be changed.

So almost every URL on a BigCommerce store changes, and each one needs a permanent redirect:

• Products and categories, in whatever format your store used.
• Brand pages, web pages and blog posts.
• Any older URL formats, if your settings were changed at some point.
• Existing BigCommerce redirects, collapsed so they point straight to the new Shopify address.
• Discontinued products, redirected to the closest live alternative.

Shopify allows up to 100,000 redirects on standard plans and 20 million on Plus, and it only follows a redirect when the old address would otherwise return a 404, so the map is tested in bulk after launch. Google’s guidance on site moves recommends permanent redirects kept for at least a year, and warns that rankings can fluctuate while pages are recrawled. I capture rankings, traffic and revenue before launch and check them daily afterwards.

Titles, meta descriptions, image alt text and structured data move with each page. Because the domain stays the same, Google’s Change of Address tool isn’t needed: redirects and an updated sitemap do the job.

Customers, groups and trade accounts

Customer records, addresses and order history move across, so repeat customers recognise the store and your team can still see what they’ve bought. Marketing consent moves with each record, which matters for email: only customers who opted in should be imported as subscribers.

Passwords can’t be transferred between any two platforms. Shopify’s customer accounts sign people in with a one-time code sent to their email, so returning customers don’t need to set a new password. I set up the message that explains the change at launch.

BigCommerce customer groups need more thought. If you use them for simple segmentation, such as VIP or wholesale tags, they become customer tags on Shopify. If you use them for trade pricing, Shopify’s B2B features are the better route: since 2 April 2026, Basic, Grow and Advanced include company accounts, payment terms, volume pricing and up to three active price catalogues. Plus adds unlimited catalogues, catalogues for individual companies, deposits and partial payments. Map who pays what before you choose a plan.

Multiple storefronts and markets

If you sell in more than one country from BigCommerce, or run more than one storefront, decide early how that maps to Shopify:

• Several countries, one brand: Shopify Markets runs multiple countries, currencies and languages from a single store, with up to 20 languages on standard plans and 30 on Plus.
• Several storefronts, one brand: Shopify Plus includes the main store plus nine expansion stores for the same brand.
• Separate brands: these usually become separate Shopify stores, each with its own plan.

Multi-currency selling on Shopify needs Shopify Payments or a supported alternative, so it’s checked alongside your payment setup.

Apps and integrations

Every BigCommerce app needs a Shopify equivalent, a theme feature, or a decision that it’s no longer needed. In practice they fall into three groups:

• Like-for-like apps. Reviews, email, search, subscriptions and shipping tools often have Shopify versions from the same company, or close equivalents.
• Built into the theme. Product tabs, size guides, specification tables and many layout features can be part of a custom Shopify theme, with no monthly fee.
• Integrations to reconnect. ERP, EPOS, warehouse, accounting and marketplace connections are rebuilt and tested with real orders before launch.

Payments are part of this. Shopify Payments is available in the UK, US and many other countries, and Shopify charges an additional fee if you use a third-party payment provider instead. If you use a specialist finance provider, check its Shopify support at the audit stage.

Ways to migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify

If you’re comparing providers, my guide to choosing a Shopify migration agency has the questions to ask.

Preparing your BigCommerce store before the move

• Export a full product list including options, modifiers and custom fields, so the restructuring decisions can be made early.
• Export your existing redirects. They need folding into the new redirect map.
• List every app and integration, with what each one actually does for the business today.
• Pull your top pages from Search Console, so the URLs that earn the most traffic are checked one by one at launch.
• Check your BigCommerce billing date and term, so you don’t pay for a period you won’t use.
• Prune discontinued products. They don’t need migrating; they need redirecting.

How a BigCommerce migration runs

My Shopify migration package runs over four weeks from signed brief to a live store. Very large catalogues and complex integrations can take longer, and I’ll tell you if yours will after the audit, before you commit.

1. Week 1: audit and mapProducts, options, modifiers, customers, orders, apps and rankings reviewed. Every BigCommerce URL mapped to its Shopify address.
2. Week 2: design and buildA custom theme built around your catalogue while your BigCommerce store keeps trading.
3. Week 3: move and connectData imported in the right order, integrations connected and tested, redirects loaded.
4. Week 4: test and launchCheckout tested on real devices, a final data sync so no orders are lost, DNS switched, then 30 days of monitoring and fixes.

Your domain stays yours. On launch day it’s pointed at Shopify, changing only the records the website needs, so your email keeps working.

Launch week on a BigCommerce migration

• A short content freeze on BigCommerce, so no new products or prices are lost between the final sync and launch.
• A final delta import of customers and orders placed since the main migration.
• Redirects tested in bulk, with the highest-value URLs checked one by one.
• Checkout tested end to end, including payment providers, discounts, tax and shipping rules.
• DNS switched carefully, touching only the website records so email keeps working.
• Feeds and ads updated, so Google Shopping, marketplaces and ad links point at the new store and conversions fire.
• The new sitemap submitted in Search Console, and crawl errors watched daily.

What improves after the move

Retailers who move from BigCommerce to Shopify well tend to notice the same things in the first few months:

• A store the team can run. Products, collections, landing pages and campaigns managed in Shopify’s editor without waiting for a developer.
• Cleaner product data. Custom fields restructured into metafields that power filters, specification tables and better Google Shopping feeds.
• Fewer moving parts. Features built into a custom theme rather than spread across several apps, each with its own monthly fee.
• Predictable platform costs. A plan chosen for the features you use, without the platform changing tier because your sales grew.
• A wider pool of help. Staff, freelancers and agencies who already know Shopify, when you need them.

None of that happens automatically. It comes from treating the move as a chance to fix the catalogue and the design, not just copy them across.

What a BigCommerce to Shopify migration costs

My Shopify migration package starts from $19,997 USD, or £14,997 + VAT for UK clients, with flexible plans depending on the deposit paid. It includes the audit, a custom theme, migration of products, images, customers, orders and content, every old address redirected, integrations connected, launch and 30 days of post-launch fixes. I’m UK-based and work remotely with retailers all over the world. Outside the UK, the package starts from $19,997 with no VAT, quoted in US dollars after the free store audit.

Your Shopify plan and apps are paid to Shopify and the app developers directly. When you compare running costs, include BigCommerce’s sales thresholds and any Open Payment Provider fee on one side, and Shopify’s plan, apps and payment fees on the other. My Shopify migration cost guide covers what moves the price. If you’re on BigCommerce’s Performance plan, my Shopify Plus migration guide covers whether you’d need Plus on the other side.

Common mistakes

When to stay on BigCommerce

• Your store is working well and your costs are stable. If you’re comfortably within your plan’s thresholds and the payment fee changes don’t affect you, there may be no business case to move.
• You rely on a feature you can’t replace. Check every critical feature has a Shopify route before you commit. The audit lists them.
• You’ve just rebuilt on BigCommerce. Get the return on that investment first.
• You’re small and simple. If you do move, a migration app may be enough, and I’ll tell you if it is.

For established retailers who do decide to move, the switch between two hosted platforms is very manageable when it’s planned. Lipton’s Audio & Video’s move, with more than 2,800 products migrated, is set out in the Lipton’s Shopify migration case study. For the full service, see my Shopify migration service.

BigCommerce to Shopify migration: FAQ

Sources

BigCommerce plan names, prices, thresholds and Open Payment Provider fee: bigcommerce.com/pricing, accessed 24 October 2026; BigCommerce “Plan and pricing updates” page (effective 1 June 2026) and blog, 11 May 2026. BigCommerce URL formats and exports: BigCommerce help documentation as summarised by third-party guides (Avada, 2021; Tooltester, 2022; Skyvia, updated 6 July 2026), as the official help centre could not be read directly. Shopify plan prices: shopify.com/pricing (US), accessed 24 October 2026. Shopify options, variants, redirects, URL folders, import order and customer accounts: Shopify Help Center, accessed 24 October 2026; variant limit from the Shopify changelog, 15 October 2025. B2B on non-Plus plans: Shopify changelog, 2 April 2026. Store Migration app: Shopify blog, 21 July 2026. Matrixify migration processes: matrixify.app, accessed 24 October 2026. Site moves and Change of Address tool: Google Search Central, updated 20 August 2026. KA Consultancy prices and proof points as published on the Shopify migration services page.