How to migrate WordPress to Shopify, blog included

The short answer

A WordPress to Shopify migration is really two migrations side by side. The shop, usually WooCommerce, moves its products, customers and orders into Shopify’s store. The content, meaning pages, blog posts and guides, moves into Shopify’s pages and blog. Both need their URLs mapped and redirected, because Shopify’s URL structure is different from WordPress’s.

The store side is well-trodden. The content side is where WordPress sites differ most from other platforms, because WordPress was built for publishing and many retailers have years of posts, guides and pages that earn search traffic on their own. Those deserve as much care as the products.

I’ve engineered more than 350 Shopify stores and migrated over 500,000 products in 20 years. This guide covers what moves, how WordPress URLs map to Shopify, how to migrate a WordPress blog to Shopify properly, and when keeping WordPress is the better call.

Who this guide is for

This guide is for three kinds of WordPress site owner:

• Retailers on WooCommerce who want to move the whole site, store and content, to Shopify.
• Content-led businesses with a large blog or resource library and a smaller shop, who want selling to be simpler without losing their content.
• Sites using another WordPress shop plugin, or a WordPress site with a shop bolted on, that has outgrown the setup.

If your site is almost entirely WooCommerce with little content, my WooCommerce to Shopify migration guide goes deeper on the store side. If your WordPress site is mostly publishing with a small shop that works well, read when to keep WordPress first.

Why move from WordPress to Shopify

WordPress is flexible and widely supported. For many retailers, that flexibility comes at a cost they eventually want to stop paying:

• Hosting, updates and security. A self-hosted WordPress site needs its core software, theme, plugins and server kept up to date. On Shopify, the platform, hosting and security are run for every store.
• Plugin sprawl. Shop features often come from a stack of plugins, each updated on its own schedule, and conflicts between them can break checkout.
• A purpose-built checkout. Shopify’s checkout is built and maintained by Shopify, and Shopify states it is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant for card payments.
• One system for selling. Shopify brings online store, point of sale, marketplaces and social selling into one admin.

For WooCommerce stores in particular, the platform is only as stable as the combination of WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme, the plugins and the hosting underneath them. Each is maintained by someone different. When one updates, the others have to keep up, and the store owner is the one who finds out if they don’t.

What you give up is some of WordPress’s publishing flexibility. Shopify’s blog is simpler than WordPress. For most retailers that’s fine; for heavy publishers, it’s a real consideration covered below.

What moves to Shopify

Getting the data out of WordPress

WordPress and WooCommerce give you three export routes, and none of them covers everything on its own:

• WordPress’s own exporter (Tools, Export) creates a WXR file, an XML format covering posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories and tags, navigation menus and custom post types. It’s the starting point for content.
• WooCommerce’s product CSV exporter is built in and covers products, including variations.
• Orders and customers have no complete native CSV export in WooCommerce. WooCommerce’s own guidance points to extensions for full order and customer exports, or a migration tool can read them directly.

Shopify’s free Store Migration app supports WooCommerce as a source, but its scope is limited: Shopify’s July 2026 announcement lists products and customers, while its WooCommerce help page describes it as early access and products only. It doesn’t move orders, blogs, pages, redirects or SEO data. For a full migration, specialist tools such as Matrixify, Cart2Cart or LitExtension, or a managed migration, fill the gaps.

WordPress URLs and redirects

WordPress URLs depend on your permalink settings. WordPress’s default is the “plain” format, such as /?p=123, but most established sites use readable formats such as /post-name/ or /2024/05/post-name/. WooCommerce adds its own bases: products at /product/product-name/, categories at /product-category/category-name/ and tags at /product-tag/tag-name/.

Shopify’s folders, such as /products/, /pages/ and /blogs/, can’t be renamed, so every WordPress URL gets a permanent redirect to its new address. That includes date-based post URLs, category and tag archives that earn traffic, author pages with links, attachment pages and any old URLs WordPress was already redirecting. My Shopify migration SEO guide covers the redirect map in detail.

How to migrate a WordPress blog to Shopify

The blog is where WordPress migrations most often lose value, because posts are treated as an afterthought. Done properly, it’s a structured job:

1. Audit the postsUse Search Console and analytics to sort posts into those that earn traffic or links, those worth updating, and those that can be retired with a redirect to a better page.
2. Choose the structureShopify can run several blogs, each with its own URL, such as /blogs/news/ and /blogs/guides/. Decide whether your WordPress categories become separate blogs or tags within one blog.
3. Clean the contentReplace shortcodes and page-builder blocks, fix headings, and update internal links to point at the new Shopify URLs.
4. Move the imagesImages are uploaded to Shopify and the links inside each post updated, so nothing still loads from the old server.
5. Carry the SEOEach post keeps its title, meta description, featured image, excerpt, author and publish date.
6. Redirect and checkEvery old post URL redirected to its new one, then the top posts opened one by one after launch.

The audit step is worth dwelling on. Most blogs that have been running for years follow the same pattern: a minority of posts earn most of the traffic and links, a larger group earns a little, and a long tail earns nothing at all. The first group is migrated with the most care and checked individually after launch. The second is often the best opportunity on the site, because updating and consolidating those posts during the move can lift them. The third doesn’t need to come across at all; each post is redirected to the most relevant page that does.

Comments are the one thing that usually doesn’t come across. Shopify articles can take comments, but importing existing WordPress comments generally needs a specialist tool, and many retailers decide to start fresh.

Should you keep WordPress for content?

Some businesses keep WordPress for publishing and move only the shop to Shopify. There are two common ways to do it:

• WordPress on a subdomain, such as blog.yourdomain.com, with the shop on Shopify at the main domain.
• A Shopify shop embedded in WordPress using Shopify’s embeddable buy buttons, with WordPress staying the main site.

Both work, but both mean running two systems, with two sets of updates, two designs to keep consistent and analytics split across them. For most retailers, where the content exists to sell products, bringing everything onto Shopify is simpler and keeps the content and the products linking to each other. For heavy publishers, where content is the business, keeping WordPress can be the right answer.

Running your content on Shopify

It’s worth being clear about what publishing on Shopify feels like day to day, because it’s different from WordPress.

Shopify’s blog editor handles the essentials well: headings, images, links, embedded video, excerpts, tags, authors and SEO titles and descriptions for every article. What it doesn’t have is WordPress’s plugin library for publishing, such as advanced editorial workflows or complex layouts built from blocks inside the editor.

The answer for most retailers is to put the structure in the theme. Buying guides, comparison pages and landing pages are built as templates with sections the team can fill in, so a new guide looks consistent without anyone wrestling with layout. Shopify’s metaobjects can hold structured content, such as brand profiles or FAQs, that appears across many pages and is edited in one place.

Done that way, content becomes easier to keep consistent than it was in WordPress, and it can feature live products, with current prices and stock, wherever it makes sense.

Plugins, page builders and features

Every WordPress plugin needs a decision: a Shopify app, a theme feature, or retirement.

• Shop plugins for filters, product options, bundles, wishlists and reviews usually become Shopify apps or theme features.
• SEO plugins aren’t needed in the same way: titles, descriptions, sitemaps and canonical tags are handled by Shopify and the theme.
• Page builders don’t transfer. Pages built with them are redesigned as Shopify theme sections, which your team can then edit without a developer.
• Security, caching and backup plugins are no longer needed, because Shopify handles hosting and security.
• Forms become Shopify contact forms or an app.

Customers and orders

Customer records, addresses and order history move, so returning customers recognise the store and your team can still see past purchases. Shopify’s guidance is to import products first, then customers, then historical orders, so each order links correctly. Historical orders are imported as records, with staff notifications switched off first.

Passwords can’t be moved between platforms. Shopify’s customer accounts sign people in with a one-time code sent to their email, so customers don’t need to create a new password. Email subscribers move with their marketing consent, and only customers who opted in are imported as subscribers.

Ways to migrate WordPress to Shopify

How the migration runs

My Shopify migration package runs over four weeks from signed brief to a live store, and your WordPress site keeps trading throughout.

1. Week 1: audit and mapProducts, posts, pages, plugins, integrations and rankings reviewed; every WordPress URL mapped.
2. Week 2: design and buildA custom Shopify theme, including blog and page templates, built to your brand.
3. Week 3: move and connectProducts, customers, orders, pages and posts imported and cleaned; integrations connected; redirects loaded.
4. Week 4: test and launchCheckout and content checked, a final data sync, domain switched, then 30 days of support.

Content is migrated alongside the store, not after it, so the blog and pages are ready to check well before launch day.

Very large blogs or catalogues can take longer, and I’ll tell you if yours will after the audit, before you commit.

Preparing your WordPress site before the move

• Take a full backup of files and database, and keep it after launch.
• Export a list of every published URL, from your sitemap or a crawl, including posts, pages, products, categories and tags.
• Pull your top pages from Search Console by clicks over the last year, so the content that matters is known by name.
• List your plugins and what each one actually does today. Many can simply be retired.
• Note your permalink settings, and whether they’ve changed over the years, because older URL formats may still carry links.
• Find your shortcodes and page-builder pages, since they need rebuilding rather than copying.
• Check your hosting renewal date, so you don’t pay for a year you won’t use, and don’t cancel before launch.

Launch week

• A short content freeze on WordPress, so no new posts, 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 top products, posts and pages checked one by one.
• Checkout tested end to end, including payment methods, discounts, tax and shipping.
• DNS switched carefully, changing only the website records so email keeps working.
• The new sitemap submitted in Search Console, and the old WordPress sitemap allowed to drop away.
• Images checked to confirm nothing still loads from the old WordPress server.

What improves after the move

• No more update cycles. No WordPress core, theme or plugin updates to apply and test.
• One admin for selling. Products, orders, customers, content and campaigns in one place.
• Content that sells. Blog posts and guides can feature products directly, with stock and prices always current.
• A store the team can edit. Theme sections replace page builders, so pages can be changed without breaking the layout.
• A checkout you don’t maintain. Shopify runs and updates it for every store.

What it 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, pages and blog posts, 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.

Against that, set what you stop paying: WordPress hosting, premium plugin licences, security services and the developer time to keep it all updated. My Shopify migration cost guide covers what moves the price, and my Shopify migration checklist lists every step.

Common mistakes

When to keep WordPress

• Content is the business. If you publish heavily and the shop is a sideline, WordPress’s publishing tools may matter more than Shopify’s selling tools.
• Your shop is small and working. A few products sold through a well-maintained WooCommerce setup may not justify a move.
• You rely on WordPress-only functionality, such as membership or learning plugins, with no Shopify equivalent you’re happy with.

For established retailers whose content exists to sell, moving everything onto Shopify is usually simpler and cheaper to run. For the full service, see my Shopify migration service; for how a large catalogue move looks in practice, the Lipton’s Shopify migration case study, with more than 2,800 products migrated.

WordPress to Shopify migration: FAQ

Sources

WordPress permalinks: wordpress.org documentation, “Customize permalinks”, updated 28 June 2025. WordPress exporter (WXR): wordpress.org documentation, “Tools Export screen”, updated 8 June 2024. WooCommerce permalinks: woocommerce.com documentation, modified 19 May 2026. WooCommerce product CSV exporter: woocommerce.com documentation, modified 9 October 2026. WooCommerce order and customer exports: woocommerce.com, “How to import and export products and orders”, modified 8 February 2025. Shopify Store Migration app: Shopify blog, 21 July 2026, and Shopify Help Center, migrating from WooCommerce, accessed 24 October 2026. Shopify URL folders, redirects, import order, variants and customer accounts: Shopify Help Center, accessed 24 October 2026. Shopify PCI DSS Level 1: shopify.com/security/pci-compliant, accessed 24 October 2026. KA Consultancy prices and proof points as published on the Shopify migration services page.