E-commerce migration
Magento to Shopify Migration
Most stores leaving Magento are not leaving because of Magento. They are leaving because nobody wants to own the hosting, the patching and the upgrade cycle any more. That is a good reason to move, but it also means the migration has to protect everything the old platform was quietly doing right, and that is the part most quotes skip.
- 2018
- building since
- 70+
- designers, engineers and product people
- Sydney
- headquarters with team members across several countries
- 230+
- code repositories in our own GitHub organisation, before counting client-owned ones
What the migration actually involves
Deciding whether to move
Adobe Commerce earns its complexity when you have deep catalogue rules, B2B or customer-specific pricing, multi-store setups, or ERP integration that has to be exact. If none of that is you, Shopify almost certainly is. If some of it is, the honest answer is more complicated, and we would rather work that out before the quote than during the build. Either way it is a decision our e-commerce practice makes with you, not for you.
Protecting the rankings you already have
Magento and Shopify generate different URL structures. Without a deliberate map, the old URLs 404 on launch and every ranking attached to them is discarded, the fastest way to make a successful migration look like a disaster. We inventory every URL, map each to a destination, and verify the redirects before launch and again after.
Products, customers and order history
Products, variants, collections, customers and historical orders all come across. How cleanly depends on how much of your catalogue lives in custom Magento attributes rather than standard fields, which is why the audit comes first. Password hashing differs between the platforms, so customers need one reset, planned and communicated, not discovered on launch day.
Extension parity
Magento extensions do not migrate. We audit which are genuinely in use, map each live function to a Shopify app or custom work, and name the small number with no clean equivalent. Those are the ones that decide whether the move is right, so we surface them early rather than at the end.
Integrations and the operational tail
ERP and inventory, POS, freight carriers and rate logic, payment gateways, subscriptions, marketing and CRM. On a mid-market store this is usually the real timeline driver, and the reason a migration quoted on catalogue size runs over.
Cutover and the month after
A launch plan with a rollback position, then active monitoring of rankings, redirects and conversion once traffic is on the new store. A replatform is judged on the month after go-live, not the day of it. That is when a missed redirect map shows up in the numbers.
Why so many stores are leaving Magento now
Most Magento owners we speak to are not unhappy with what the store does. They are tired of what it takes to keep it safe. In 2026 alone Adobe shipped scheduled security bulletins in May, July, August and September, plus an emergency hotfix for StyleSmuggler, an actively exploited vulnerability that the routine September release did not fix. Stores older than 2.4.4 get no patches at all.
Every one of those is work somebody has to schedule, test and deploy. On Shopify, the platform is patched for you. For a store whose value is in its products and customers rather than in custom commerce logic, that trade is often the whole case for moving.
The patching treadmill
Scheduled bulletins, out-of-band hotfixes that must be applied separately, and credential rotation after an incident. We track every 2026 Magento bulletin, and the list is the clearest argument there is.
Upgrades that became projects
The further behind a store falls, the more an upgrade costs, until it rivals a migration. If you are pricing an upgrade anyway, price the move as well. Our Magento to Shopify cost guide covers what drives the number.
What each part of your Magento store becomes on Shopify
Shopify does most of what a Magento store does, but it models several things differently. These are the mappings that decide how much of a migration is configuration and how much is rebuilding.
Configurable products become variants
Shopify allows up to 2,048 variants per product but only three options, such as size, colour and material. Magento products configured on four or more attributes need restructuring, into separate products or with some attributes moved into metafields.
Attributes become metafields
Custom Magento attributes and attribute sets map to Shopify metafields, which can drive storefront filters. Which attributes customers actually filter by decides the design, so that is worth knowing before the data moves.
The category tree becomes collections
Shopify collections are flat, with hierarchy built through navigation menus. Collections can be curated by hand or filled automatically by rules, so a deep Magento category tree usually becomes a smaller set of rule-based collections and a menu.
Customer groups and tier pricing need a decision
Since April 2026 every Shopify plan from Basic up includes company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing and up to three B2B catalogues. Pricing that differs for each trade customer, the way Magento customer groups often work, needs catalogues assigned directly to companies, which is Plus. If trade pricing is central to your business, this single mapping can decide the plan, or whether Shopify fits at all.
Store views become Markets or expansion stores
Currencies, languages and regional pricing inside one store are handled by Shopify Markets. Genuinely separate storefronts are expansion stores on Plus. Which one fits depends on whether your Magento websites share a catalogue or only a logo.
Checkout logic moves to Functions and extensions
Cart price rules become Shopify discounts, and custom logic becomes Shopify Functions. Customising the checkout steps themselves needs Plus. Shopify Scripts, the old route, stopped running in June 2026, so Functions are the only option now.
Extensions become apps or custom work
Each live extension maps to a Shopify setting, an app or a custom app. The few with no clean equivalent are the ones to find first, because they decide whether the move is right.
URLs and passwords change
Magento product and category URLs, often ending in .html, become Shopify /products/ and /collections/ paths, so every one needs a redirect. Passwords do not transfer; with Shopify's new customer accounts, customers sign in with a one-time code instead.
Certified on both sides of the move
Two of our developers hold Adobe Commerce (Magento) certifications and three hold Shopify certifications. That matters on this migration more than any other, because getting it right depends on understanding exactly what the Magento store is doing before deciding how Shopify should do it.
Moving the other way, from Shopify to Adobe Commerce? That is a different decision with different reasons, and we cover it on our e-commerce migration page.
Not sure moving is right?
Some stores should stay and be supported properly, and some should upgrade first. Our free stay, upgrade or move assessment looks at what your store actually does and tells you which, from developers certified on both platforms.
Going from Shopify to Magento instead
Rarer, and right for a narrower set of businesses: complex B2B, several storefronts from one catalogue, or rules a hosted platform will not enforce. When moving from Shopify to Adobe Commerce makes sense.
Keeping the rankings you already have
Most of what a migration risks is not data. It is the search equity attached to URLs that have been indexed for years. That risk is entirely manageable, and it is lost when the redirect map is treated as a launch-week task rather than a deliverable.
Every indexed URL gets a mapped destination
Not the ones in the sitemap, the ones Google actually has. Old campaign landing pages, discontinued products with backlinks, category paths that changed three platforms ago. The inventory comes first, and it is almost always larger than anyone expects.
Platforms enforce their own URL shapes
Shopify will not accept most Magento product and collection paths. A one-to-one map is rare, so the exceptions need decisions, consolidate, redirect to the nearest parent, or accept the loss deliberately rather than by omission.
The map is enforced, not hoped for
We check it mechanically. On our own platform migration the build fails if any legacy URL would 404, every one has to resolve or carry a redirect before anything ships. A spreadsheet nobody re-runs is how redirects quietly rot.
Measured after launch, not assumed
Rankings dip during reindexing and recover; that is normal. What is not normal is finding out six weeks later that a redirect chain was pointing at a removed page. We check the live URLs after the deploy rather than trusting the plan.
The proof
Work we have shipped, not a capability deck.
- Aelia Duty Free We took over and still run an Adobe Commerce platform where the trading rules are genuinely hard, multi-currency, multi-location, duty and tax logic and real-time inventory. The same understanding of what Magento is doing under a store is what makes moving off it safe. Read the case study
- LOOP An e-gift-card marketplace built end to end, from brand through to the storefront customers buy in. Read the case study
Commerce work we do
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Magento & Adobe Commerce
Builds, replatforms, upgrades and performance rescue, including SAP integration.
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Adobe Commerce support
Taking over platforms other agencies built: incident response, out-of-band security patching and upgrades.
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Stay, upgrade or move?
A free, independent assessment for Magento stores, from developers certified on both Magento and Shopify.
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Magento security patches
Every 2026 Adobe bulletin in plain English, and which ones are hotfixes you have to apply separately.
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Magento upgrades
Version upgrades and extension audits, and when the platform is not what needs the money.
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Shopify & Shopify Plus
Shopify-certified developers: storefronts, theme builds, app integration and headless front ends.
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Shopify Plus
Checkout extensibility, B2B and D2C together, multi-storefront, and when the tier is not worth it.
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E-commerce development
The whole practice: platform selection, build, integrate and run.
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Headless commerce
Decoupled storefronts on Shopify and Adobe Commerce, and when a themed build is the better call.
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Migration & replatforming
Moving between platforms without losing data, rankings or trading days.
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WooCommerce
WordPress commerce where the catalogue and the content live together.
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E-commerce & retail
The sector view, what retail platforms are actually asked to do, and where they break.
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B2B & wholesale commerce
Company accounts, contract pricing, quotes, credit terms and ERP-held price logic for trade suppliers.
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Adelaide commerce
Adobe Commerce for South Australian retailers, including the duty free store trading at Adelaide Airport.
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New Zealand commerce
GST, rural freight and trans-Tasman selling, and the duty free stores running across airports in both countries.
More on migrations
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Moving Off Momentus, Ungerboeck or Priava Without Stopping Trading
A practical plan for Australian stadiums replacing Momentus, Ungerboeck or Priava: contracts, data export, holds, venue-by-venue cutover, decommissioning.
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Moving From BigCommerce to Shopify: What Comes Across, and What Needs Rebuilding
A BigCommerce to Shopify migration moves products and orders well. URLs, options, B2B Edition and multi-storefront need a plan. What to expect, in order.
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Moving From Neto (Maropost Commerce Cloud) to Shopify: What to Plan For
Moving from Neto, now Maropost Commerce Cloud, to Shopify? No one-click importer, every URL changes, and marketplaces, wholesale and POS need new homes.
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E-commerce Replatforming: What to Settle Before You Choose the New Platform
Most replatforms are decided on the new storefront and lost on the details behind it. What to settle before choosing a platform: what the current store really does, data, URLs, integrations, and the B2B rules nobody wrote down.
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Moving From WooCommerce to Shopify: What Comes Across, and What Does Not
A WooCommerce to Shopify migration moves products and orders easily. URLs, customer logins, plugins and payment fees are where it goes wrong. What to plan for, in the order it bites.
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Replacing a Microsoft Access Database With a Web Application
How to move a business off an Access database it has outgrown, what breaks, what migration involves, and how to keep the workflows people rely on.
Common questions
How long does a Magento to Shopify migration take?
For a straightforward catalogue on a standard theme, weeks. For a mid-market store with ERP integration, complex pricing rules and years of order history, plan in months. The storefront is rarely what sets the timeline, data quality, custom Magento functionality that has to be rebuilt rather than carried across, and integrations are. We would rather scope those three honestly than quote on catalogue size and revise later.
Will we lose our search rankings?
Only if URLs are treated as an afterthought, which is the single most common way a replatform destroys value. Magento and Shopify generate different URL structures, so without a mapping the old ones 404 and every ranking attached to them is discarded. Every URL should be inventoried, mapped and verified before launch and again after. We hold ourselves to it, this site was migrated off WordPress with an automated check that fails the build unless 100% of the old URLs still resolve or redirect.
Can we keep our order history and customer accounts?
Products, variants, collections, customers and historical orders all migrate. What varies is how cleanly, depending on how much lives in custom Magento attributes rather than standard fields. Passwords are the known exception: hashing differs between the platforms, so customers need one reset. Planning that communication is part of the migration rather than a launch-day surprise.
What about our Magento extensions?
They do not come across, and that is usually a feature rather than a loss. Most stores are carrying extensions installed years ago for reasons nobody remembers. We audit what is actually in use, map each live function to a Shopify app or custom work, and are explicit about the small number that have no equivalent, those are the ones that decide whether the move is right.
Should we move to Shopify at all?
Not always. Adobe Commerce earns its complexity when you have deep catalogue rules, customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-store or multi-brand setups, or ERP integration that has to be exact. Shopify removes hosting, patching and upgrade overhead, which is worth more than the flexibility you give up for most retailers, but not all. We audit before recommending, and we will tell you when staying put is the better spend.
What does it cost?
It depends far more on integrations, data quality and how much custom functionality has to be rebuilt than on how many products you have. Our guide to what a Magento to Shopify migration costs in Australia sets out the typical ranges and what moves them.
Do you work with retailers outside Sydney?
Our head office is in Sydney and we work with clients across Australia (Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and regional NSW included) as well as in New Zealand, where the duty free stores across the major airports have run on a platform we build and support since 2021. Delivery has been remote-first for years, so a project runs the same way whether you are ten minutes away or across the Tasman: scheduled calls, a shared board you can see at any time, and one named point of contact. We are happy to meet in person in Sydney.
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Engagement models
How we work
Four straightforward ways to engage us. Pick the one that fits, or mix them as your needs change.
Staff Augmentation
Add experienced Shakewell developers, designers or specialists directly to your own team. Engagements typically run three to twelve months, but can be as short or long as you need, you get the skills without the commitment and cost of hiring full-time.
About staff augmentationFixed-Scope Projects
Have a defined outcome in mind? We scope it, price it and deliver it as a project, a clear timeline, agreed milestones and a single point of accountability from kickoff to handover.
Embedded Delivery Teams
For larger or longer-running work, a cross-functional Shakewell team (development, design and delivery management) plugs in as your delivery arm, working to your priorities and your reporting cadence.
Support & Maintenance
Already live? We keep websites, stores and apps secure, updated and performing through ongoing retainers, business-hours support as standard, with 24/7 coverage available for critical issues.
About support & maintenance