Case Study: How We Migrated a $5M WooCommerce Store to Shopify with Zero Downtime

The Challenge: Success Was Killing Them

The brand was growing fast, but their infrastructure was collapsing.

1. Black Friday Crash: During their BFCM sale, the checkout crashed for 45 minutes. Estimated loss: $25,000.
2. Plugin Conflict: Updating their “Bundles” plugin broke their “Subscriptions” plugin. They had to roll back the site twice in one month.
3. Slow Mobile Site: Mobile load times averaged 4.5 seconds due to heavy JavaScript bloat.

The Goal: Move to Shopify Plus before their Spring Collection launch (4 weeks away) without losing their SEO rankings.

The Solution: The 4-Week Sprint

Week 1: Audit & Foundation

We mapped out their 50+ plugins. We found that 20 of them could be replaced by native Shopify features.

• Hosting: Removed.
• CDN: Removed.
• Security Check: Removed.
• Caching Plugin: Removed.

We set up the Shopify Plus environment and integrated their ERP (NetSuite) using a certified connector.

Week 2: Data & Redirects (The “Zero-Loss” Protocol)

They had 4,000 indexed pages on Google. We created a 1:1 redirect map.

• /product/summer-dress -> /products/summer-dress
• /product-category/sale -> /collections/sale

We migrated 5 years of order history (150,000 orders) so their customer service team retained full context.

Week 3: Design & Features

We didn’t just port the design; we optimized it.

• Checkout: Activated Shop Pay (1-tap checkout).
• Upsells: Built a custom “Complete the Look” section on the PDP using Shopify 2.0 metaobjects.

Week 4: The Cutover

The Delta Migration: On Thursday night at 2 AM, we froze the WooCommerce site. We imported the final 300 orders that came in during the week. The Switch: We updated the DNS. By 2:15 AM, the Shopify site was live. Downtime: 15 minutes.

The Results (90 Days Later)

1. Conversion Rate Explosion

• Mobile Conversion: Increased from 1.8% to 2.4% (+32%).
• Checkout Speed: Reduced from 8 seconds to 3 seconds.

2. Operational Freedom

The CTO, who used to spend 15 hours a week managing servers and testing plugins, now spends 0 hours on ops. He is currently building a custom Loyalty App.

3. SEO Stability

Organic traffic dipped by 5% for 1 week (normal variance), then returned to 100% baseline by Day 14. By Day 30, organic traffic was up 10% due to faster page speeds.

Executive Summary

You do not need to accept “downtime” as a cost of doing business. With the right architecture and a sprint-based approach, you can upgrade your engine while driving the car.

[Ready for Your Case Study?]

If your store is doing >$1M and you feel the WooCommerce ceiling, let’s talk. Book a Migration Assessment with Presta.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did they lose any reviews?

No. We migrated 4,500 reviews from Yotpo (Woo) to Yotpo (Shopify) seamlessly.

How did they handle subscriptions?

We migrated all subscription tokens from WooCommerce Subscriptions to a Shopify subscription app. Customers did not need to re-enter their credit cards.

Sources

• Shopify Plus Case Studies
• Migration TCO Analysis