Contemplating a Migration to Shopify: Here’s an Elev8DTC Checklist.
Contemplating a Migration to Shopify: Here’s an Elev8DTC Checklist
Migrating your e-commerce website to Shopify from another platform is a significant undertaking, but with careful planning, it can lead to a more robust, scalable, and user-friendly online store. Here's a comprehensive breakdown of what Elev8DTC feels most relevant to consider.
I. Pre-Migration Planning & Strategy
Define Your Goals:
Why are you migrating? (e.g., scalability issues, lack of features, poor user experience, high costs, desire for specific Shopify functionalities, correlation to a rebrand, etc).
What do you hope to achieve with Shopify? (e.g., increased sales, better conversion rates, improved site performance, simplified management, global expansion, world domination, etc).
What are your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for success? Which really matter to you?
Consider the future of your business, how it looks in a year, 2 and 3-5 down the line.
Audit Your Existing Site (Content & Data):
Content Inventory: Catalog all your current website elements: pages (about us, contact, policies), blog posts, product pages, images, videos, downloadable content, etc. This helps identify what needs to be moved and what can be purged.
Spring Cleaning: This is a great opportunity to trim down some of the extraneous information you have on your existing website. Focus on what fuels transactions and place a critical eye to what’s needed and what isn’t. Deploying older evergreen content in a renovated way later can serve as one roadmap to a content calendar filling other buckets of need in your CRM.
Data Audit: Identify all critical data points you need to migrate:
Products: SKUs, names, descriptions, images, variants, pricing, inventory, weight, vendor, product type, SEO meta fields.
Customers: Names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping/billing addresses, order history (for analytics/retargeting).
Orders: Historical order data (order IDs, dates, products purchased, customer associated, payment status, fulfillment status). Note: Customer passwords usually cannot be migrated for security reasons, so you'll need a strategy for existing customers to reset/create new passwords.
Collections/Categories: How your products are currently organized.
Blog Posts: Content, authors, tags, comments.
Pages: Static content like "About Us," "Contact," "FAQ," "Shipping Policy," etc.
Redirects: A comprehensive list of all current URLs, especially those with high traffic or backlinks, to ensure proper 301 redirects are set up on Shopify.
Apps/Integrations: List all third-party apps, plugins, and integrations (CRM, ERP, email marketing, loyalty programs, analytics, payment gateways, shipping providers) currently used and determine their Shopify equivalents or integration methods.
Performance Audit: Analyze current site speed, user experience, and mobile responsiveness. Set benchmarks to compare post-migration performance.
SEO Strategy: This is CRITICAL.
URL Structure: Plan your new URL structure on Shopify. Try to keep it as similar as possible to your old site to minimize SEO impact. If changes are unavoidable, map out every single 301 redirect from old URLs to new ones. This is kind of a pain in the ass, but it’s pretty crucial to do, especially for your core PDP and relevant SEO content driving pages (e.g., landing pages, forms)
Meta Data: Ensure all product, collection, page, and blog meta titles and descriptions are carried over or optimized for Shopify.
Content Preservation: Verify that all valuable content is migrated correctly and that internal linking is maintained.
Canonical Tags & Robots.txt: Understand how Shopify handles these and ensure they are correctly configured to avoid duplicate content issues.
Backlink Profile: Identify your high-value backlinks and ensure the pages they link to are correctly redirected.
Google Analytics & Search Console: Have existing data ready for comparison. You'll need to set up new tracking on Shopify.
Budget & Timeline:
Costs: Account for Shopify plan fees, app subscriptions, theme purchase (if not free), potential developer/agency fees, and any custom development.
Timeline: Break down the migration into phases with realistic deadlines. Consider a slower period for your business to minimize disruption.
Team & Resources:
Decide if you'll manage the migration yourself (manual/apps) or hire a Shopify Partner like Elev8DTC. For complex stores, professional help is highly recommended to ensure data integrity and SEO preservation.
II. Setting Up Your Shopify Store
Choose Your Shopify Plan: Based on your current and projected sales volume, choose between Basic, Shopify, Advanced, or Shopify Plus. You can always change this so unless you need more than basic functionality to build, just roll with Basic and update later.
Select Your Theme:
Choose a theme that aligns with your brand and offers the features you need. Shopify's theme store has many options (free and paid) optimized for performance and SEO. The largest share of sites we work with typically fall into the free area. For years, this was Dawn with many opportunities for custimization, going forward Horizon looks like the template of the future.
Consider customization needs. If you need a unique design or specific functionalities, you might need a custom theme or significant theme modifications.
Configure Basic Settings:
Store details (address, currency, time zone).
Staff accounts and permissions.
Make sure you are prepared with good language for each of your policies and get those in as they often lag to the end for approvals
Set Up Payment Gateways:
Activate Shopify Payments (recommended) or integrate third-party payment providers.
Configure payment capture settings.
Configure Shipping & Taxes:
Define shipping zones, rates, and methods.
Set up tax rates for your region and product types.
Try to anticipate your needs, and also whether you’ll need to tie to existing shipping accounts, what your typical shipping configurations look like, and whether you have customs, tariff or harmonized code requirements to your global locations.
Install Essential Apps:
Review the Shopify App Store for apps that replicate functionalities from your old site or add new features (e.g., reviews, loyalty programs, email marketing, analytics, SEO tools). Be strategic – too many apps can slow down your store. Less is more typically here.
III. Data Migration
Backup Your Existing Store: Before anything else, create a complete backup of all your data from your current platform. This is your safety net. This is 1000% needed.
Choose Your Migration Method:
Manual Copy/Paste: Viable for very small stores with limited products, customers, and pages. Time-consuming and prone to errors.
CSV Files: Export product, customer, and order data into CSVs from your old platform, then format them to match Shopify's CSV import templates. This is a common method for structured data and deployed often.
Third-Party Migration Apps: You can find these in Shopify’s store, or just use Shopify's own "Store Migration" app (for specific platforms) can automate much of the process. They typically handle products, customers, and orders which are your most tedious areas
Shopify Admin API (for developers/agencies): For large, complex migrations with custom data structures, using the API offers the most control and flexibility. This often involves custom scripting.
Professional Migration Service: Hiring a Shopify Partner or agency specializing in migrations is often the safest and most efficient option for complex or large stores, especially if you want to minimize downtime and preserve SEO.
Order of Data Migration: Just a suggestion, but this seems to be the most efficient way.
Products (including variants, images, inventory)
Customers
Historical Orders (link customers to their orders where possible)
Collections
Blog Posts
Pages
IV. Post-Migration & Pre-Launch
Thorough Testing: This cannot be stressed enough. Run as many as you can. Don’t forget to analyze Shipping. This is a great area to really hone in on meeting your opex goals.
Product Testing: Check all product pages, images, variants, pricing, inventory. Add products to cart.
Checkout Flow: Place test orders (successful and failed transactions), test different payment methods, shipping options.
Customer Accounts: Test account creation, login, order history view, password reset.
Forms: Test contact forms, newsletter sign-ups.
Internal Links: Click through your site to ensure all internal links work correctly.
External Links: Check links to social media, external resources.
Search Functionality: Ensure your site search works as expected.
Mobile Responsiveness: Test on various devices and browsers.
App Functionality: Verify all installed apps are working correctly.
Analytics & Tracking: Ensure Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and other tracking pixels are correctly installed and firing.
SEO Testing:
301 Redirects: Verify every critical redirect from your old site to the new one works. Use a redirect checker tool.
Canonical Tags: Check that canonical tags are correctly pointing to the preferred version of pages.
Meta Data: Confirm titles and descriptions are displaying correctly in search results previews.
Robots.txt: Ensure it's not blocking search engines from crawling important pages.
Sitemap: Submit your new Shopify sitemap to Google Search Console.
Content Review: Proofread all pages, product descriptions, and blog posts for errors or formatting issues.
Final Polish: Add your favicon, integrate widgets, and ensure all images are optimized.
V. Launch Day & Post-Launch
Set Your Domain: Point your domain to your new Shopify store. This is the moment your new site goes live.
Remove Password Protection: Make your store accessible to the public.
Announce the Migration: Communicate with your customers, especially existing ones, about the new platform and any changes to their login process.
Monitor Closely:
Google Analytics/GA4: Watch traffic, conversion rates, and bounce rates like a hawk.
Google Search Console: Monitor crawl errors, indexing issues, and keyword rankings. Be prepared to address any drops quickly.
Site Speed: Continuously monitor and optimize for performance.
Customer Feedback: Pay close attention to customer service inquiries related to the new site.
Continuous Optimization: A migration is not the end goal; it's a new beginning. Continuously analyze data, optimize for conversion, and explore new features and apps to grow your business on Shopify.
Migrating to Shopify is a strategic investment. Approaching it methodically, with a clear plan and attention to detail (especially for data and SEO), will ensure a smooth transition and set your business up for long-term success on the platform. Give us a shout if we can help you in any way.