Gambio to Shopify: out of the old shop system, live in 4 weeks, no SEO loss.

Gambio to Shopify is a move many merchants postpone longer than is good for them. Gambio has carried many German shops since the xt:Commerce days, and it is precisely the old shops that have what counts: rankings, regular customers, order history. This text explains how all of that moves to Shopify, how the ERP stays connected and when Gambio can stay after all.

Why Gambio shops move to Shopify

Gambio is a classic self-hosted shop system from Germany with a solid base but a small ecosystem. There are few modules, even fewer developers, and every template change usually depends on one person. Updates need a backup, a test environment and rework, which is why many shops run on old versions. Hosting, PHP version, backups, firewall and performance during campaigns are with you or your host. The checkout is multi-step and without express payment.

Shopify turns this around. Hosting, security, checkout and updates are part of the platform, the team maintains pages and campaigns itself in the theme editor, and for every function there are reviewed apps and developers of every size. You pay a fixed plan and no longer depend on one person.

Gambio to Shopify: items, properties and attributes

Gambio knows items with properties that create variants with their own price and stock, plus attributes, additional fields, manufacturers and customer group prices. Shopify has products with up to three options, metafields for everything beyond that, collections instead of categories and price lists for customer groups. Properties become options with variants, attributes and additional info go into metafields. We export directly from the Gambio database, write a mapping for every field, import into a staging shop and check samples against the old shop so that variants, prices, stock and images are correct before anything goes live.

Customers move with accounts, addresses, customer groups and order history. Passwords cannot be exported from Gambio, so customers set a new one at first login. We carry over orders with status, invoice and order numbers so customer service and accounting keep seeing the history.

ERP and integrations after the move to Shopify

Many Gambio shops are connected to JTL-Wawi, Afterbuy, Billbee, pixi or their own ERP. Shopify has connectors to all common systems and an API for special cases. Before the project we define which system leads for items, prices, stock and orders, and test the data flow in staging with real orders. Payment methods such as TWINT, PostFinance, credit card, PayPal, Klarna and invoice run via Shopify Payments or partners. How this works with JTL in detail is described on the JTL to Shopify page.

Redirects in a Gambio to Shopify migration

Gambio generates SEO URLs from item and category names, often ending in .html, and also knows old ID paths such as product_info.php?products_id=123 that are still linked and indexed in many shops. Shopify uses /products/handle and /collections/handle. Without redirects every Google click lands on a 404 page. We export every indexed URL from Gambio and Search Console, including the old ID paths, assign its new target and create the 301 redirects before go-live. How the redirect mapping works in detail is explained on the Shopify migration page.

Checkout and conversion after the move to Shopify

The Gambio checkout is multi-step and dates from before express payment. The Shopify checkout is a single page, knows Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and TWINT and is tested continuously by Shopify itself. Shopify reports up to 50 percent higher conversion for Shop Pay compared with guest checkout, measured in a study commissioned by Shopify. In our own projects we regularly see more completed orders after the migration. How we then grow traffic and revenue is described on the Shopify SEO agency page.

B2B and customer groups on Shopify

Gambio shops in the SME sector often sell to resellers with their own prices and payment terms. Shopify Plus covers this with company accounts, price lists per customer, quantity rules and payment terms, in one shop together with the consumer business. What Shopify B2B can do and where the limits are is described on the Shopify B2B page.

When Gambio to Shopify is not the right decision

If your business relies on custom development in the Gambio core, prices have to come from an ERP in real time, or you must run servers and code yourself for compliance reasons, Gambio can stay. We have built both and tell you before the project. Which other shop systems are worth considering is shown in our article on relevant shop systems.

Gambio to Shopify with Rankist

We have been in e-commerce since 2015, have supported 293 shops and are one of three Shopify Plus Partners in Switzerland. We started as an SEO agency, which is why redirect mapping is not an appendix for us but the core of the migration, especially for old shops with many ranking URLs. After the move we stay on board for SEO, ads and email if you want, as a Shopify agency from one team. The first step is a free 30-minute call in which we look at your Gambio shop and tell you what the move needs.