WooCommerce to Shopify · MigrationWooCommerce to Shopify: no more plugin updates, live in 4 weeks.
WordPress, WooCommerce, theme and 30 plugins, each on its own update cycle. One click too many and the checkout is down. We move your shop to Shopify: all products, customers, orders, the blog and every URL. You keep the rankings and lose the server.
5.0 out of 5from 30 reviews in the Shopify Partner Directory- 4 weeksto go-live for a standard scope
- Every URLredirected, blog included
- No more hostingupdates, backups, security with Shopify
- 30 minutes, freeintro call with Robert
BERLIN ORGANICSLOUIS XVIHildegard
One team. Every channel. More growth.
Growth never comes from one channel alone. Your shop, SEO, ads and email have to work together. That is exactly what we do, all from one team.
A shop that sells.
Fast, clear and built on Shopify. Every visitor finds what they need and checks out without friction.
Found on Google.
Customers find you on their own, every day, without paying per click.
Sales right away.
Google and Meta ads bring new buyers now, while SEO keeps growing in the background.
Customers come back.
Klaviyo flows turn first-time buyers into regulars and bring back abandoned carts.
You focus on product and shipping. We handle everything online.
Talk to usWhat happens after your enquiry.
Intro call, 30 minutes, free
We look at your shop or your concept and tell you honestly what makes sense and what does not.
Written scope
Deliverables, timeline and responsibilities in writing before we start. No open-ended hourly budgets without a goal.
A fixed team
One point of contact, sprints, previews in a staging shop. After launch come SEO, ads and email.
Nothing goes live without approval
Every change to a live shop is agreed in advance and shown in staging first.
The code is yours
Theme, apps and integrations run in your own Shopify account. No lock-in.
Reply within 24 hours
On business days, also after launch. Written into the contract.
Talk to us.
We take on at most two new brands per month, so every project gets the attention it needs.
Book 30 minutes with Robert from Rankist
Free, you pick the time. Robert looks at your shop beforehand and tells you honestly what makes sense and what does not.
Or by email to hello@rankist.ch or WhatsApp +41 76 604 55 83
Sound familiar?
You hold your breath after every update
WordPress core, WooCommerce, theme, page builder and plugins update separately. One conflict and the cart is empty or the checkout is blank.
The shop gets slower the more it can do
Every plugin loads its own scripts. Caching plugins hide it until the campaign runs and the host throttles you.
Security is your job
Hacked WordPress shops are everyday news. Backups, firewall, SSL renewal, PHP version: all with you or your freelancer.
The checkout loses what the ads brought in
Multi-page, no express payment, fields nobody needs. Every change means a plugin or code.
WooCommerce vs Shopify in daily life
What changes for you after the migration, in one table. The technology follows in the text below.
| WooCommerce | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Your own host, performance depends on the plan | Included, worldwide, scales automatically |
| Updates | WordPress, WooCommerce, theme, plugins separately | One platform, updates without your involvement |
| Security | Backups, firewall, patches are your responsibility | PCI DSS, SSL, fraud analysis included |
| Checkout | Multi-page, changes via plugins | One page, Shop Pay, TWINT, Apple Pay, Klarna ready |
| Extensions | Plugins of varying quality | Apps reviewed by Shopify for compatibility |
| Blog and content | WordPress strength | Blog built in, pages and sections in the theme |
| Cost drivers | Hosting, premium plugins, developer hours for maintenance | Fixed plan plus the apps you really need |
Everything moves, nothing stays behind
WooCommerce stores products as WordPress posts with metadata. We translate that cleanly into Shopify’s data model.
How the WooCommerce to Shopify migration runs
Week 1: analysis and redirect map
Export of all data, rankings from Search Console, every old URL gets its new target.
Weeks 2 and 3: shop and data import
Theme in your design, import of products, customers, orders and blog into a staging shop.
Week 4: testing and go-live
Test orders, payment methods, taxes, shipping. Domain switch in minutes.
After: 30 days of monitoring
Search Console, 404 report and revenue checked daily. Anything odd gets fixed at once.
WooCommerce shops almost always come to us with the same story: the shop grew over time, every problem was solved with another plugin, and at some point maintenance took more time than selling. After the move the first thing people notice is that nobody installs updates anymore and no host calls. Then comes the checkout: fewer fields, express payment, Shop Pay. And the blog, which with WordPress was often the reason to stay, keeps running on Shopify with all articles and rankings.
More about our shop projectsWhat changes after the move to Shopify
A checkout that converts
Shop Pay remembers customers across all Shopify stores. Shopify reports up to 50 % higher conversion for Shop Pay versus guest checkout, measured in a study Shopify commissioned.
No server, no updates
Hosting, scaling, security, backups and updates sit with Shopify. Your freelancer hours go into features instead of maintenance.
Marketing from one team
After the move we take care of SEO, Google and Meta ads and email. You do not have to coordinate three agencies.
Ready to move? 30 minutes with Robert, free, and you know what the migration needs.
Request WooCommerce migrationFrequently asked questions.
How long does a migration from WooCommerce to Shopify take?
A standard scope takes 4 weeks from kickoff to go-live. Very large catalogues, many blog posts or a completely new design need 6 to 8 weeks. You get the schedule in writing after the analysis.
What happens to my WordPress blog?
It moves with you. Every post becomes a Shopify blog article with images, date and author, and every old blog URL is redirected. If you want to keep WordPress for content, we connect both under one domain.
Will I lose rankings when moving from WooCommerce to Shopify?
Not if every old URL points to its new target with a 301 and titles, copy and images move with it. We check this in Search Console for 30 days after go-live.
Do customer accounts and orders stay?
Yes. Customers, addresses and the complete order history are carried over. Passwords cannot be transferred from WordPress, customers set a new one at first login.
Is the shop offline during the migration?
No. The new shop is built in parallel in staging. On go-live day we switch the domain, which takes minutes.
WooCommerce to Shopify is the move from a toolkit you run yourself to a platform that is run for you. That sounds like less freedom and in practice means more time for what brings revenue. This text explains what happens to products, customers, blog and URLs during the move, which plugins disappear and when WooCommerce remains the better choice.
Why WooCommerce shops move to Shopify
WooCommerce is free, runs on WordPress and can be extended with tens of thousands of plugins. That is exactly what becomes the problem over time. A typical shop has core, theme, page builder, WooCommerce, a dozen payment, shipping, SEO and cache plugins, all with their own update cycle and their own developer behind them. Every update can break another plugin. Then there is hosting: performance, backups, firewall and PHP version are your responsibility or that of a freelancer who is on holiday when the shop goes down.
Shopify removes these layers. Hosting, security, checkout and updates are part of the platform, the shop scales automatically during campaigns, and apps are reviewed by Shopify for compatibility. You pay a fixed plan instead of hosting, premium plugins and maintenance hours.
WooCommerce to Shopify: products, variations and custom fields
WooCommerce stores products as WordPress posts with metadata. Variations, attributes, custom fields and tags are spread across the database. Shopify has products with up to three options, metafields for everything beyond that, and collections instead of categories. We export the data directly from the database, not via a plugin, write a mapping for every field and import into a staging shop. Samples against the old shop show whether variants, prices, stock and images are correct before anything goes live.
Customers move with accounts, addresses and order history. Passwords cannot be exported from WordPress, so customers set a new one at first login. We carry over orders with status, order numbers and payments so customer service and accounting keep seeing the history.
The WordPress blog in a migration to Shopify
Many WooCommerce shops grew out of a blog, and the blog often brings the largest share of organic traffic. Shopify has a built-in blog with articles, authors, tags and comments. We carry over every post with images, date and metadata and redirect every old blog URL to the new article. If you want to keep WordPress for content, you can: WordPress then runs on a subdomain or subdirectory and the shop on Shopify, with clean internal linking in both directions.
Redirects in a WooCommerce to Shopify migration
WooCommerce uses URLs like /product/name, /product-category/name and /shop/, plus blog URLs with or without dates. Shopify works with /products/handle, /collections/handle and /blogs/name/handle. Without redirects every Google click lands on a 404 page. We export every indexed URL from WordPress and Search Console, 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.
Plugins that disappear after the move to Shopify
Caching, security, backups, SSL, image optimisation, sitemap, canonical tags, product schema, cookie banner basics: all of this is part of the platform or the theme on Shopify. Payment methods such as TWINT, PostFinance, credit card, PayPal and Klarna run via Shopify Payments or partners. For newsletters, reviews and upsells there are reviewed apps. In practice, 30 plugins often leave 5 to 8 apps. Whatever is special we build as a custom function in the theme.
Checkout and conversion after the move to Shopify
The WooCommerce checkout is multi-page and grows with every plugin. 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 visitors complete their order after the migration. How we then grow traffic and revenue is described on the Shopify SEO agency page.
When WooCommerce to Shopify is not the right decision
If your business relies on a complex WordPress setup with a membership area, courses or bookings and the shop is only a by-product, WooCommerce can stay. Anyone who must run the code themselves for compliance reasons is also wrong with a hosted system. 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.
WooCommerce 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. After the move we stay on board for SEO, ads and email if you want, as a Shopify Plus agency from one team. The first step is a free 30-minute call in which we look at your WooCommerce shop and tell you what the move needs.
Let's talk about your shop.
Free intro call. You get an honest assessment of what makes sense for your shop. Reply within 24 hours on business days.
Shopify, SEO and ads, once a month.
What works right now in e-commerce, from 293 shops. No spam, unsubscribe any time.