Shopify to Shopify migration: rebuild, move or transfer

The short answer

A Shopify to Shopify migration is one of three jobs:

• A rebuild on the same store. Your products, customers, orders and URLs stay exactly where they are. You replace an older theme, often a pre-2.0 or heavily patched one, with a modern Online Store 2.0 theme, and clean up the apps and code around it. This is the most common job and, done properly, the lowest risk.
• A move to a new Shopify store. Data is copied from one store into another, for example to restructure, split or merge stores, or to start clean. This is a genuine data migration, closer to moving from another platform.
• A transfer of ownership. The store itself changes hands, for example when a business is sold. Nothing is migrated; the account is transferred.

I’ve engineered more than 350 Shopify stores and migrated over 500,000 products in 20 years. Most Shopify owners who ask me about moving to a new store actually need a rebuild on the one they have. This guide explains why, and what each route involves.

Which job do you need?

The last row catches people out. Moving to Shopify Plus is a plan change on your existing store, not a migration. My Shopify Plus migration guide covers what’s involved.

Signs your store needs a rebuild

Most Shopify stores don’t need moving. But many established ones would benefit from a rebuild. These are the signs I look for:

• The team avoids editing the store because changes need a developer, or something breaks when they try.
• Only the home page uses sections, a sign of a pre-2.0 theme.
• The theme has been customised so heavily that its developer’s updates can no longer be applied.
• Page speed has crept down as apps and scripts have been added over the years.
• Product pages can’t show what buyers need, such as specifications, comparisons or rich media, without workarounds.
• The design no longer matches the brand or the price point of what you sell.
• Tracking and apps were bolted into theme code and nobody is sure what’s still in use.

One or two of these can often be fixed in place. Four or five usually means a rebuild will pay for itself in time saved and sales gained.

What Online Store 2.0 is

Online Store 2.0 is the architecture behind modern Shopify themes. In Shopify’s developer documentation, it’s defined by three things: JSON templates, sections that can be used on every page rather than only the home page, and app blocks that let apps add features to the theme without editing its code.

For a store owner, that means:

• Every page is editable in the theme editor, not just the home page, so product, collection and content pages can be changed without a developer.
• Apps plug in cleanly through app blocks, and can be removed without leaving code behind.
• Different templates for different products, so a premium range can have a different page layout from accessories.
• Structured content through metafields shown directly in the theme.

Shopify says upgrading to Online Store 2.0 isn’t mandatory, and older themes keep working. It describes three routes: install a new 2.0 theme, update to a newer 2.0 version of your current theme if one exists, or migrate the theme manually. Whether it’s worth doing is a business question: how much time your team loses to the old theme, and what it’s costing in speed and conversion.

Custom theme or template?

A rebuild raises the question of what to rebuild on. There are two broad routes. A theme from the Shopify Theme Store gives you a tested Online Store 2.0 starting point, with updates from its developer, and suits stores whose needs match what the theme was designed for. A custom theme is built around your catalogue, your brand and the way your customers buy, with only the features you need and nothing you don’t.

For established retailers with large or specialist catalogues, a custom theme usually earns its cost, because product and collection pages can be designed around the data rather than squeezed into a general-purpose layout. For simpler stores, a well-chosen Theme Store theme, configured properly, can be the better value. The audit is where that choice gets made, against your own catalogue and pages rather than in the abstract.

Rebuilding on the same store

A rebuild on the same store is the safest kind of Shopify to Shopify migration, because the data never moves. Products, customers, orders, collections, pages, blog posts and redirects all stay in place. So do the URLs, which means there’s no redirect map and far less SEO risk.

The new theme is built and previewed alongside the live one, then published when it’s ready. Shopify lets you keep several themes in a store and preview unpublished ones, so the switch is a single click, and the old theme stays available as a fallback.

What still needs care:

• Content in the old theme. Text, images and settings stored in the old theme’s sections don’t move automatically to a different theme. They’re rebuilt in the new one.
• App code left in the old theme. Apps installed years ago may have added code to theme files. A rebuild is the moment to remove what’s no longer used.
• SEO elements in templates. Headings, structured data, canonical tags and category copy need to be present in the new templates.
• Tracking. Any tracking added directly to the old theme must be rebuilt, ideally through Shopify’s customer events and pixels rather than theme code.
• Checkout. Checkout customisation now runs through checkout extensibility rather than theme files. If the old store relied on checkout.liquid or additional scripts, those were switched off by Shopify in 2024 and 2025 and should already have been replaced.

My guide to custom Shopify theme vs template covers the choice of what to rebuild on.

Moving to a new Shopify store

Sometimes a new store is genuinely the right answer: splitting one store into regional or brand stores, merging several stores into one, starting a new legal entity, or untangling a store whose data has become unmanageable. In that case, it’s a real data migration, and the same rules apply as moving from any platform.

• Import order. Products first, then customers, then historical orders, as Shopify recommends.
• Passwords. Shopify says customer passwords can’t be migrated from another store, and that includes another Shopify store. Customers sign in with a one-time code on Shopify’s customer accounts.
• Orders. Historical orders come across through an app or the API, as records, with notifications switched off.
• URLs. If the new store keeps the same product and collection handles and takes over the same domain, most URLs stay the same. Anything that changes gets a redirect.
• Apps and subscriptions. Apps are reinstalled and reconfigured on the new store, and any subscription contracts handled with the subscription app’s own migration tools.
• Gift cards, store credit and discounts recreated where they’re still live.

Spreadsheet tools such as Matrixify are the usual way to copy data between two Shopify stores, because they export and import almost every Shopify data type in the same format. My Shopify data migration guide covers the process and checks in detail.

Merging or splitting stores

Two common reasons for a genuine move between Shopify stores:

Merging several stores into one

Retailers who opened separate stores for different countries years ago often find they can now run them as one. Shopify Markets handles multiple countries, currencies and languages from a single store, with up to 20 languages on standard plans and 30 on Plus. Merging means combining catalogues, deduplicating customers who shopped in more than one store, and redirecting the old country stores’ URLs to the right market on the main store.

Splitting one store into several

Going the other way, a business may need separate stores for genuinely different brands, for wholesale, or for a new legal entity. On Shopify Plus, expansion stores allow up to nine additional stores for the same brand on one contract; separate brands usually need separate plans. Splitting means deciding which products, customers and orders belong where, and redirecting any URLs that move to a new domain.

Either way, the work is a proper data migration with a redirect map, and it’s worth scoping as carefully as a move from another platform.

Transferring store ownership

If a business is changing hands, the store usually doesn’t need migrating at all. Shopify lets the current owner transfer ownership from the store’s general settings, and the new owner accepts by email. According to Shopify’s help centre:

• Ownership can’t be transferred while the store has Shopify Capital or Shopify Credit outstanding.
• A Shopify Balance account needs emptying first.
• The custom domain, billing details and payout details have to be moved over separately.
• Shopify Plus stores can’t use this method and go through Plus Support instead.

For a buyer, the advantage of a transfer over a migration is continuity: the same store, the same URLs, the same order history and the same customer accounts, with nothing to redirect. The checks are commercial rather than technical, such as which apps and subscriptions are tied to the seller’s accounts, and which integrations use the seller’s logins.

Plan the domain, payments and app subscriptions as part of the handover, along with staff accounts and any collaborator access from agencies or developers.

Protecting SEO

On a same-store rebuild, URLs don’t change, so the risks are on the page rather than in redirects: a template that drops category copy, a heading structure that changes, missing structured data, or product pages that no longer show the content they ranked for. Each template is checked against the old one before the new theme is published, and rankings and organic traffic are compared with a baseline afterwards.

On a move to a new store, URLs only change if handles change or the domain changes. Where they do, every changed URL is redirected, and if the domain itself changes, Google’s Change of Address tool comes into play. My Shopify migration SEO guide covers both.

Apps, speed and clean-up

Older Shopify stores tend to accumulate apps. Each one may add scripts to every page, and some leave code behind after they’re uninstalled. A rebuild is the moment to audit them:

• Keep apps that earn their fee and work through app blocks or embeds.
• Replace with theme features anything a well-built theme can do natively, such as tabs, size guides, badges and simple bundles.
• Remove apps nobody uses, and the code they left behind.

Fewer apps usually means a faster store and a smaller monthly bill. Shopify Functions also let many discount, delivery and payment customisations run without heavy theme code; public apps built on Functions work on any plan.

Publishing a new theme safely

• Pick a quiet time, mid-week and away from promotions, with the team available afterwards.
• Duplicate the live theme before publishing, so you can switch back in seconds if needed.
• Check every template on the live domain straight after publishing: home, collections, products, cart, account, blog and pages.
• Place real test orders and confirm they appear in analytics and ad platforms.
• Check app features still appear where they should, through app blocks or embeds.
• Watch Search Console and analytics for the following weeks against the baseline.

Preparing for a rebuild

• List what the current store does well and what the team or customers complain about. Both shape the brief.
• Export your app list with what each app does and what it costs each month.
• Pull your top pages and queries from Search Console and your top landing pages from analytics, so the pages that matter are checked first.
• Note every customisation: special product templates, custom sections, scripts in the theme, and anything a past developer added.
• Check your product data: if specifications live in descriptions rather than metafields, the rebuild is a good time to restructure them so the new templates can use them.
• Agree a sign-off owner for design and content decisions.

What improves after a rebuild

• The team can edit every page through sections, without waiting for a developer.
• A faster store, with apps and leftover code cleaned out.
• Product pages built around structured data, showing specifications, comparisons and media consistently.
• A smaller monthly app bill, as theme features replace single-purpose apps.
• Tracking you can trust, rebuilt through Shopify’s customer events rather than scattered theme code.

And because the store, data and URLs stay where they are, those gains come with far less risk than a move to a new store.

How the work runs

For a move to a new store, my Shopify migration package runs over four weeks from signed brief to a live store. A same-store rebuild follows a similar shape without the data import:

1. AuditTheme, apps, templates, content, tracking and rankings reviewed; which job you need decided.
2. Design and buildA new Online Store 2.0 theme built and previewed alongside the live one.
3. Content and appsContent rebuilt in the new sections, apps cleaned up, tracking rebuilt through customer events.
4. Test and publishEvery template checked on real devices, then the new theme published, with 30 days of fixes afterwards.

What it costs

A move to a new Shopify store sits within my Shopify migration package, from $19,997 USD, or £14,997 + VAT for UK clients, with flexible plans depending on the deposit paid. 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. A same-store rebuild is usually a theme design and build project rather than a migration, and I’ll quote it as one after the audit, so you don’t pay for migration work you don’t need. Ownership transfers involve no migration fee at all.

My Shopify migration cost guide explains what moves the price on a full migration.

Common mistakes

When you don’t need any of this

• Your theme is current, fast and easy to edit. A refresh of a few templates may be all you need.
• Your theme has a 2.0 update available from its developer, and you haven’t customised it heavily. Updating may be enough.
• The problem is marketing, not the store. If traffic or conversion is the issue, a rebuild won’t fix it on its own.

If you’re moving to Shopify from another platform, my Shopify migration service covers the full move.

Shopify to Shopify migration: FAQ

Sources

Online Store 2.0 definition, optional upgrade and upgrade routes: shopify.dev, “Online Store 2.0”, accessed 24 October 2026. Store ownership transfer rules: Shopify Help Center, “Changing or transferring store ownership”, accessed 24 October 2026. Import order and passwords: Shopify Help Center, accessed 24 October 2026. checkout.liquid deprecation: Shopify changelog, 13 February 2023, and shopify.dev, accessed 24 October 2026. Shopify Functions availability by plan: shopify.dev, accessed 24 October 2026. Matrixify data types: matrixify.app and Shopify App Store listing, accessed 24 October 2026. KA Consultancy prices and proof points as published on the Shopify migration services page.