The short answer
Searches for “Shopify migration agency” nearly tripled in the last year. More retailers are leaving WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce and niche retail platforms, and most of them are discovering the same thing: moving the products is the easy part.
The hard part is everything around them. Every URL changes. Years of specification data has to survive the trip. Stock has to stay in sync with the shop floor. And the rankings that took a decade to build have to be on the other side when you switch over.
A good Shopify migration agency treats the move as a protection job first and a design job second. That’s the standard to hold them to.
What a Shopify migration agency actually does
“Migration” covers a lot of separate jobs. A complete set of Shopify migration services includes all of these:
- Data audit. What you have, where it lives, and how clean it is, before anything moves.
- Catalogue migration. Products, variants, specifications, images, brands and collections, restructured for Shopify rather than copied across as they were.
- Customer and order migration. Accounts, addresses and order history, so repeat customers recognise the store.
- Content migration. Pages, guides and blog posts that carry rankings of their own.
- URL mapping and redirects. Every old address matched to its new one and redirected, so links and rankings carry over.
- Theme design and build. The new store itself, built around how your customers shop.
- Integrations. Point-of-sale, stock, accounting and finance connections rebuilt or replaced.
- Tracking. Analytics, conversion events and ad platform pixels rebuilt and verified against real orders.
- Launch and monitoring. A controlled switch-over, then rankings, traffic and revenue watched against a baseline.
Quotes that only mention the first two or three are quoting for a data transfer, not a migration.
What moves to Shopify, and what doesn’t
Not everything transfers cleanly. Knowing this up front avoids surprises in launch week.
| Data | Moves to Shopify? | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Products and variants | Yes | Shopify limits options per product, so complex ranges may need restructuring |
| Specifications | Yes, as structured fields | Free-text specs need cleaning before they can power filters |
| Images | Yes | A chance to fix inconsistent sizes and missing alt text |
| Customers and addresses | Yes | Marketing consent should carry over with the record |
| Customer passwords | No | Customers reset or activate their account; plan the email |
| Order history | Yes, via import tools | Usually imported as historical records rather than live orders |
| Reviews | Usually | Depends on the old and new review apps |
| URLs | No, they change | Shopify uses fixed patterns like /products/ and /collections/ |
| Blog and content pages | Yes | Formatting and internal links need checking |
| Gift cards and store credit | Partly | Balances can be recreated; check before launch |
The URL row is the one that matters most. Because Shopify puts every product under /products/ and every category under /collections/, almost every address on your old site will change. Each one needs a redirect, or the rankings attached to it are lost.
Why specialist retail migrations go wrong
Migrating a store that sells T-shirts and migrating a store that sells amplifiers are different jobs. Specialist retailers hit problems general migrations never see.
The catalogue is data, not a list
A hi-fi catalogue carries power ratings, impedance, finishes, connections, bundles and brand ranges. On older platforms that often lives in free-text fields or manufacturer PDFs. Moved as-is, it can’t power filters or comparison. Restructured during the migration, it becomes the thing that makes the new store work.
Stock lives in the shop
Showroom retailers run a point-of-sale system in store. If the integration isn’t planned as part of the migration, online stock drifts from the shelf, and some connectors silently overwrite product data every time they sync. That can undo SEO work overnight. Our Lightspeed to Shopify guide covers one common case.
Rankings are spread across thousands of pages
A specialist retailer often ranks for individual model numbers. Those rankings sit on product pages, and every one of those URLs changes. Miss a few hundred redirects and a slice of organic revenue disappears quietly over the following weeks.
The legacy platform has a mind of its own
Niche retail platforms often hold data in unusual structures, with no clean export. Getting it out intact is sometimes the longest part of the project, and it’s the part a generalist is least prepared for.
Want to know which of these applies to your store?
Book a free auditTen questions to ask a Shopify migration agency
Put these to every agency on your shortlist. The answers will separate them quickly.
- Have you migrated a store with a catalogue like mine? Ask to see one with deep specifications, not just a fashion store.
- How will you map and redirect my old URLs? You want a full mapping before launch, not redirects added after rankings drop.
- What happens to my product data structure? A good answer involves restructuring, not just copying.
- How will you handle my point-of-sale and stock? Get the integration named and scoped in the quote.
- Will there be any downtime? The answer should be no: build in preview, switch at launch.
- How will customers log in after the move? They should have a plan for account invites and the email that goes with it.
- What baseline will you measure against? Rankings, traffic and revenue captured before work starts.
- Who rebuilds and verifies tracking? Conversions should be checked against real orders before launch.
- What’s fixed: scope, fee and launch date? All three should be in writing before you commit.
- What happens after launch? A defined period of monitoring and fixes, included in the price.
Red flags
“We’ll sort the redirects after launch.” By then the damage has started. Redirects belong in the plan, not the snag list.
A price with no data audit behind it. Nobody can quote a migration accurately without seeing what’s being moved.
An app-only approach for a large catalogue. Import apps are useful tools, but they move data as it is. They don’t restructure it.
No mention of your point-of-sale system. For a showroom retailer, that’s the biggest variable in the project.
Tracking left to you. If no one verifies conversions before launch, you’ll be making ad decisions on broken data.
Agency, freelancer or do it yourself?
Import apps, yourself
App fees + your timeWorkable for a small, simple catalogue on a clean platform. Data moves as it was, and redirects and tracking are on you.
Specialist agency
From $9,997 with KAData audit, restructuring, redirects, theme, integrations and tracking handled as one project, with a fixed scope and launch date.
Freelancer
Varies widelyCan work well for a defined piece of the job. Check who covers the parts outside their speciality.
For an established specialist retailer, the agency route usually costs less overall, because the expensive mistakes in a migration are the ones that surface after launch. If you’re weighing the options more broadly, see our guide to choosing between a Shopify agency, freelancer or specialist.
Notes by platform
Every platform you might be leaving has its own quirks. These are the ones that most often shape a migration’s scope.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce stores often rely on a stack of plugins for filtering, bundles, reviews and product options, and the data those plugins hold doesn’t always export cleanly. Expect to rebuild some features natively in the new theme rather than look for a like-for-like app. Blog content usually moves well, and it’s often carrying rankings worth protecting.
Magento
Magento catalogues tend to be large and heavily attributed, with configurable products that need mapping onto Shopify’s variant structure. The upside is that the data is usually well organised. The work is in restructuring it, not rescuing it.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce exports are generally clean, and the main work is in URL mapping, because its URL patterns differ from Shopify’s, and in rebuilding any custom templates and checkout features.
Lightspeed and other retail POS platforms
Retailers coming from a point-of-sale system with built-in ecommerce face a choice: keep the POS in store and connect it to Shopify, or move point-of-sale to Shopify too. That decision shapes the whole project, and our Lightspeed to Shopify guide walks through it.
Niche and legacy retail platforms
Specialist sectors, AV included, often run on small platforms built for their industry. These can hold data in unusual structures with no clean export, and getting it out intact is sometimes the longest part of the project. This is where a migration agency with specialist retail experience earns its fee.
How long a Shopify migration takes
A custom theme build with migration typically takes 2–6 weeks; bespoke builds with complex catalogues or integrations typically take 4–8 weeks. Here’s the typical shape of a six-week project.
| Stage | Typical timing | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Audit and scoping | Before week 1 | Data, rankings and integrations reviewed; fixed scope, fee and date agreed in writing |
| Baseline and URL map | Weeks 1–2 | Rankings and revenue captured; every old URL mapped |
| Data restructuring | Weeks 1–3 | Catalogue cleaned and rebuilt as structured data |
| Design and build | Weeks 2–5 | Custom theme designed, signed off and built in preview |
| Integrations and tracking | Weeks 4–6 | POS, stock and analytics connected and verified |
| Launch and monitoring | Week 6, then 30 days | Switch-over, redirects live, monitoring and fixes |
The single biggest cause of delay isn’t technical. It’s slow decisions on design and content. Agreeing who signs off, and how quickly, keeps a migration on its date.
What to prepare before you talk to an agency
You’ll get a faster, more accurate quote, and a better migration, if you gather a few things first:
- Your platform and version, plus any custom modules or plugins the store relies on.
- A rough product count, including variants, and where your specification data currently lives.
- Your point-of-sale and stock system, and how it talks to the website today.
- Access to Google Search Console and analytics, so rankings and traffic can be baselined.
- A list of integrations: accounting, email, reviews, finance, shipping and anything else that touches orders.
- Your busiest trading periods, so launch avoids them. For most AV retailers that means steering clear of November and December.
- Who signs off, and how quickly decisions can be made. A migration slows down fastest when approvals stall.
None of this needs to be perfect. It just lets the agency see the real shape of the job rather than guess at it.
Planning launch week
The switch-over itself should be the quietest part of the project. When it isn’t, it’s usually because one of these was left until the last minute:
- A content freeze. A short window where no new products or prices are added to the old store, so nothing is lost between the final data sync and launch.
- Redirects tested in advance, including your most valuable product and category URLs, checked one by one.
- Payment and checkout tested end to end, with real orders placed and refunded, including finance options.
- The customer email ready, explaining the new store and how to activate an account.
- Ad campaigns checked, so they point at live URLs and conversion tracking fires on the new checkout.
- Search Console updated, with the new sitemap submitted on launch day.
After launch, the first two weeks are about watching: crawl errors, ranking movements on key pages, conversion rate and revenue against the baseline. Small dips are normal as Google re-crawls; anything sustained gets investigated the same day.
How we run a migration
- Audit and scopingYour current store, catalogue, rankings and integrations reviewed. Fixed scope, fee and launch date in writing before anything is committed.
- Baseline and URL mapRankings, traffic and revenue captured, and every old URL mapped to its new address before the build starts.
- Data restructuringThe catalogue rebuilt as structured data, ready to power filters, comparison and product pages.
- Design and build in previewA custom theme built and tested in preview while your current store keeps trading. No downtime.
- Integrations and trackingPoint-of-sale and stock connections rebuilt, and analytics and conversions verified against real orders.
- Launch and monitorControlled switch-over, redirects live, then 30 days of monitoring and fixes against the baseline.
A migration in practice
Lipton’s Audio & Video is a premium hi-fi and AV retailer in Ontario with a showroom and national ecommerce. We migrated the store to Shopify with a custom theme, rebuilding more than 2,800 products as a single structured dataset serving organic search, on-site filtering and Google Shopping.
After the migration, the same team ran SEO and Google and Meta marketing. Revenue grew +191%, then +114% the following year, at an 11.9x blended return on ad spend, and marketing cost fell from 17.6% to 8.5% of revenue.
The full account is in the Lipton’s Audio & Video Shopify migration case study. For how we approach the wider build for this sector, see Shopify website design for hi-fi and AV retailers.
See what a migration would involve for your store.
Book a free auditWhat Shopify migration services cost
With KA Consultancy, migration is part of the build rather than a separate line item. A custom theme design and build starts from $9,997, and bespoke design and development from $19,997 for large or complex catalogues, custom integrations and multi-market stores.
What moves the number is the catalogue’s size and data quality, the platform you’re leaving, and the integrations involved. Our Shopify migration cost guide breaks those down, and our Shopify website cost guide for AV retailers covers the full year-one budget.
When you don’t need a migration agency
- You’re already on Shopify. Then you need a redesign or a rebuild, not a migration. Hi-Fi Centre’s custom theme was built on its existing Shopify store, with no migration at all.
- The catalogue is small and simple. A few dozen products with clean data can move with import tools and a careful afternoon.
- The site has little organic traffic. If there are no rankings to protect, the biggest risk in a migration doesn’t apply.
Shopify migration agencies: FAQ
Sources
KA Consultancy process, prices and timelines are as published on our Shopify website design page. Migration results are from the Lipton’s Audio & Video case study. Search volumes for “Shopify migration agency” and “Shopify migration services” are from Google Keyword Planner, September 2025 to August 2026.