Migrating to Shopify: Data, Customer Accounts and Cutover

Reviewed 4 November 2026. “Import successful” can be an expensive message to take at face value. It tells you little about whether a returning buyer can sign in, find a previous order and renew a subscription next month. Those three actions depend on different data. Give each its own acceptance test.

Which data belongs on which route?

Shopify recommends importing products first, customers second and historical orders last so their references exist. Historical imports can trigger new-order emails to staff. Check notifications before a large job and restore the settings afterwards. Matrixify offers a free demo and paid plans at US$20, $50 and $200 per 30 days, each with limits by data type and job. Shopify’s migration matrix and Matrixify limits

Two returning customers, two different problems

A repeat buyer with order history. Current customer accounts use a six-digit email code by default. That flow needs neither the old password nor an activation email. Test that the code reaches the address associated with the imported orders. A customer CSV alone does not move those orders. Explain the new procedure to support and tailor customer communications to the actual account type. Shopify account sign-in and customer CSV

A subscriber with a stored payment method. A buyer can pay for a new purchase while the next renewal fails. Shopify describes a paid managed migration for supported card data and an app-assisted API route for certain gateways. Reuse of an existing PayPal billing agreement depends in particular on the account that created it. Obtain confirmation of the supported path, required reauthorization and failed-charge handling before switching. Use the agreed provider process for card data. Shopify on migrating saved payment methods

Test the business processes the new store needs to handle

Take the five most common support cases from the old store. Reproduce them on the intended plans and apps. Shopware properties and variants, WooCommerce plugin data or Magento attribute sets may need their own transformation. Follow one difficult case all the way through before importing ten thousand similar records.

For a German checkout, test a payment and refund for every required payment method, plus tax, shipping and invoices for each market. Content blocks after checkout are available from Basic upwards. Apps on the information, shipping and payment pages require Plus. B2B features also vary by plan, including the number of active catalog assignments and whether a catalog can be assigned directly to one company. Checkout apps and B2B features by plan

Decide the right response for every old URL

Gather old URLs from sitemaps, analytics, Search Console and important external links. A page keeping its content and URL needs no redirect. A changed path should point permanently and directly to its relevant successor. Return a genuine 404 or 410 for retired content with no replacement. Shopify allows redirects only from broken paths and rules out certain reserved routes. Check the imported list against those limits. Google generally recommends keeping redirects for at least a year. Shopify redirect limits and Google’s site-move guidance

Cutover and the following weeks

1. Record the export timestamp, cutover time, owner and fallback. Agree which system records orders between the export and the switch.
2. Import changed records using stable source IDs. Reconcile counts and totals by currency. Check whether rerunning the same order import creates a duplicate.
3. Verify domain and TLS. Complete a mobile order, refund, account sign-in and confirmation email in the new system. Check newsletter consent and purchase tracking separately.
4. Submit the sitemap. Monitor redirects, lost entry pages, payment failures and support cases daily. Reconcile the first subscription renewals with the provider.
5. Release the old system only when open returns, customer queries, archive access and the last billing cycle are covered.

Budget against these acceptance checks. Two stores with the same catalog can differ by weeks if only one has subscriptions or customer-specific B2B terms. Shopware versus Shopify and choosing Shopify apps