WooCommerce to Shopify: 10-Point Practical Checklist to Prevent Common Breakages

The transition from WooCommerce to Shopify is a strategic move that many growing commerce teams plan when they seek stability, performance, and a simplified operations stack. This guide opens with a practical, engineer-friendly framing for a WooCommerce to Shopify migration that prioritizes preventing the common breakages that derail launches: broken checkouts, lost SKUs, SEO regressions and mismatched taxes. The following content combines tactical field-level instructions, reproducible mapping approaches, a prioritized list of breakages with root causes and fixes, and an actionable cutover playbook that minimizes downtime and rollback risk. It is written from a third-person perspective and reflects operational lessons learned by teams that have executed platform moves at scale.

Migration governance and discovery: set the scope, stakeholders, and risk tolerances

Effective migration governance reduces ambiguity and prevents scope creep that creates hidden breakages. Project sponsors should be identified early, including a product owner responsible for final acceptance and a technical lead who owns data integrity and cutover scripts. Legal, finance, and fulfillment stakeholders must be consulted where payment flows, tax logic, and fulfillment contracts could introduce constraints that a platform change reveals. Third-party partners or agencies should be scoped for specific deliverables, not vague “help”, deliverables might include data-transformation scripts, theme porting, or custom app development.

A discovery audit should capture the current WooCommerce implementation at a granular level: active plugins, custom code snippets, payment gateway configurations, shipping rules, tax classes, product metadata, promotional logic, and analytics events. The discovery phase should also include performance baselining so post-migration regressions can be measured. Many teams use single-point spreadsheets and export summaries, but structured JSON or database snapshots are preferred for reproducibility and rollback planning.

Key deliverables that lock scope and reduce later breakages include: a prioritized features list, a “must-have” vs “nice-to-have” matrix, a field-level data inventory, and an integration map of external services (ERP, PIM, CRM, email ESP, fulfillment). These deliverables formalize what will be migrated and what will be re-implemented, which limits mid-sprint scope expansion that often introduces errors.

• Define primary project stakeholders and acceptance criteria.
• Produce a field-level inventory of all product and order data.
• Map integrations and list fallback or alternative services.
• Agree a launch window and rollback conditions.

A brief governance charter that lists responsibilities and escalation points prevents confusion during cutover. When teams treat governance as an afterthought, they often encounter last-minute decisions that produce configuration mismatches and broken user journeys. Clear sign-off gates at the end of discovery, after data mapping, and post-staging QA are simple safeguards that reduce delivery risk.

Data export and canonicalization: preparing reliable source dumps

Data integrity starts with repeatable, canonicalized exports from WooCommerce. The primary data objects of concern are products, customers, orders, coupons, tax rates, shipping classes, and site content (pages, blogs, redirects). Exports should be taken from the canonical data store, typically the production database, and sanitized to remove test orders, duplicates, and stale records that will pollute the Shopify environment. Timestamped, versioned exports allow teams to track what changed between staging and final cutover.

When exporting products, include all metadata fields, attribute definitions, variation matrices, and custom taxonomies. Orders should include full line-item details, applied coupons, shipping and billing addresses, tax breakdowns, and custom order statuses. Shipping methods and rates must be exported with rule logic described in human-readable form if rules are implemented via multiple plugins or custom code. Use CSV or JSON where possible; JSON preserves nested structures (useful for variations), while CSVs are simpler to validate using spreadsheet tools.

• Export products with SKUs, parent-child variation links, and media references.
• Export customers with anonymized PII copies for staging while keeping hashed originals for production import tests.
• Export orders and transactions with full audit trails and external payment reference IDs.
• Export site content and redirect tables to preserve SEO value.

If the WooCommerce site uses multiple plugins that alter data (complex pricing, bundle products, subscriptions), include plugin configuration exports or screenshots as part of the data package. This prevents interpretation errors when mapping to Shopify and avoids breakages where, for example, bundles are converted into simple products without preserving pricing logic.

Field-level mapping templates and transformation scripts

Field mismatches are a primary source of migration bugs: images that don’t load, attributes that become empty, or prices that arrive as strings instead of decimals. Explicit field-level mapping templates bridge the semantic gap between WooCommerce exports and Shopify imports. A recommended approach is to create mapping files in CSV for simple fields and JSON for nested structures, documenting source column, target field, expected type, transformations, and verification rules.

A minimal product field mapping CSV might include: source_field, target_field, type, required, transformation_rule. Example rows:

• sku, sku, string, yes, trim()
• name, title, string, yes,
• price, variants[0].price, decimal, yes, parseFloat()
• images, images, array, no, split(“|”) -> upload step

Provide a small, idempotent transformation script (Node.js or Python) that consumes WooCommerce CSV/JSON and emits Shopify-compatible CSV/JSON. The script should include validation steps and a “dry run” mode that reports:

• rows with missing required fields
• mismatched SKUs or duplicated handles
• price format issues and currency mismatches
• image URL reachability failures

Example pseudocode snippet (Python-style):

• Read source JSON
• For each product:
  • Normalize SKU: sku.strip()
  • Convert price: Decimal(price_string)
  • Map categories to product_type and tags
  • Consolidate variations into variants array
  • Emit transformed JSON to shopify_products.json

Transformation scripts should be stored in version control alongside the mapping file. They must be idempotent so a failed cutover can be retried after fixes without risking duplicated products or corrupted references. Ship a short README that documents required runtime versions and how to run dry runs locally.

• Maintain mapping templates for products, customers, orders, coupons, and redirects.
• Use automated validation that flags type mismatches and empty required fields.
• Preserve original export files and track each transformation step.

Teams that skip automated transformations and rely on manual spreadsheet edits expose themselves to transcription errors that cause missing images, orphaned variations, and SKU collisions on import.

App and custom plugin parity matrix: map functionality, not names

A frequent misconception is that plugins map one-to-one across platforms. Functionality parity must be enumerated, not plugin names. Create a parity matrix that lists each WooCommerce extension and the functional requirements it implements, then map those to Shopify apps or native capabilities. The matrix should capture feature parity, implementation notes, data migration effort, and any functional gaps.

Example matrix columns:

• WooCommerce plugin
• Functionality description
• Required data migration
• Shopify equivalent(s)
• Feature parity level (full/partial/requires custom dev)
• Estimated effort (low/medium/high)

Typical plugin migrations include payment gateways, subscription providers, loyalty engines, advanced shipping calculators, and product bundles. For example, WooCommerce Subscriptions may map to Shopify Subscriptions via Shopify Billing API and a subscription app, but the data model differs, recurring order history needs to be preserved as order metadata rather than native subscription objects.

• List each plugin with its primary business function.
• Identify Shopify apps with documented APIs that match or exceed that functionality.
• Note where custom development is required and include an effort estimate.

Use live links to vendor documentation when possible to avoid interpretation errors. Teams should expect feature gaps: not every WooCommerce extension has a direct Shopify equivalent, and some behaviors may need reimplementation. This mapping reduces last-minute surprises where a checkout flow that relied on a plugin suddenly fails to apply discounts or shipping rules.

Theme migration and frontend parity: preserving brand and UX

Visual breakages: missing assets, broken CSS, and layout shifts, are often perceived as higher risk than data issues because they are immediately visible to users. Theme migration should treat the Shopify theme as a reimplementation of the brand experience, not a straight port. Extract brand tokens (fonts, colors, spacing rules), component behavior (product tiles, filters, quick view), and accessibility requirements from the existing site, then recreate them in Shopify’s Liquid templates and Section architecture.

Design systems and component libraries should be cataloged during discovery. Where possible, export SVGs and high-resolution imagery and retain consistent naming conventions for assets. Media management differences between WooCommerce and Shopify mean that images may need to be re-uploaded and re-referenced; the migration scripts should support uploading images to Shopify and replacing image URLs in product records.

• Catalog UI components and their behavioral importance.
• Rebuild critical flows (product view, cart drawer, checkout) with parity-first priority.
• Validate responsive breakpoints and key accessibility markers (aria, labels).

Testing should include visual regression comparisons using screenshot tools to detect layout regressions across templates. Teams that prioritize a pixel-perfect port without aligning to platform conventions risk brittle code that breaks with future Shopify updates; a pragmatic rebuild that preserves brand while leveraging Shopify components tends to be more maintainable.

Checkout, payment, tax, and shipping: the highest-risk areas

Checkout and post-checkout processes are the most sensitive migration areas: small configuration differences can break order capture, tax calculations, and fulfillment flows. Shopify’s checkout is more constrained than WooCommerce’s custom checkout opportunities, especially on Shopify Plus where additional customizations are available. Teams should document all checkout customizations and map them to Shopify capabilities or alternate approaches (like pre-checkout scripts or cart-level apps).

Payment gateway mapping must include capturing the gateway provider’s transaction IDs and ensuring refunds and partial refunds retain the same references. Payment capture modes (authorize-only versus capture-on-fulfillment) need to be reconciled. Tax logic requires special attention: WooCommerce tax classes and compound taxes may not translate directly into Shopify’s tax zones and tax rates. Shipping rules often rely on combinations of weight, dimensions, carrier calculations and third-party plugins; reproduce these within Shopify’s shipping profiles or via carrier integrations.

• Recreate checkout flows and preserve order metadata in imports.
• Verify payment gateway connectivity and test capture/refund flows.
• Map tax tables and validate calculations against representative orders.
• Rebuild shipping profiles and test rate quotes across key postcodes.

End-to-end transaction tests should include simulated orders with representative tax and shipping scenarios. A single missed tax class or shipping rule can cause checkout price discrepancies that break conversion rates and trigger financial reconciliation issues.

Top 10 breakages: symptoms, root causes, remediation steps, verification

A prioritized troubleshooting list accelerates triage during and after migration. The top breakages observed across many migrations include checkout failures, missing media, price/tax mismatches, broken redirects, missing customer accounts, SKU collisions, app functionality loss, slow page performance, analytics gaps, and payment reconciliation errors. For each item, the checklist below provides symptom, root cause, remediation, and verification commands or steps.

1. Broken checkout or payment failures
   • Symptom: Transactions fail at payment or orders created without payment ID.
   • Root cause: Misconfigured payment gateway credentials, incorrect webhook endpoints, mismatched capture mode.
   • Remediation: Reconfigure gateway, verify webhook URLs in provider dashboard, run live sandbox capture tests.
   • Verify: Place live test order with $0.01 or use provider sandbox logs to confirm capture and transaction ID presence.
2. Missing images or broken media links
   • Symptom: Product pages show placeholders or 404 errors for images.
   • Root cause: Image URLs not re-uploaded to Shopify CDN, relative path issues, or import script failing on certain filenames.
   • Remediation: Re-upload images to Shopify via API, correct asset names, and update product image references.
   • Verify: Batch-check product pages for HTTP 200 on image requests.
3. Price or tax mismatches
   • Symptom: Checkout totals differ from expectations.
   • Root cause: Price formatting issues, currency conversion errors, or omitted tax classes.
   • Remediation: Normalize price formats during transformation, import tax tables, and validate against historical orders.
   • Verify: Recalculate totals for sample orders and compare to WooCommerce baseline.
4. Broken redirects and SEO loss
   • Symptom: Search engine result pages return 404; organic traffic drops.
   • Root cause: Different URL structures and missing 301 redirects.
   • Remediation: Generate redirect CSV linking old paths to new Shopify handles and import via Shopify Redirects API.
   • Verify: Use a sitemap comparison and spot-check high-traffic URLs.
5. Missing or orphaned customer accounts
   • Symptom: Customers cannot log in; order history is absent.
   • Root cause: Customer records not imported or password hashes incompatible.
   • Remediation: Import customers without passwords and prompt for password reset emails post-launch; preserve order history as account notes or linked order records.
   • Verify: Test account login and order history visibility for sample accounts.
6. SKU collisions and variant mismatches
   • Symptom: Products display incorrect variants or inventory mismatches.
   • Root cause: Duplicate SKUs or mishandled parent-child relationships during import.
   • Remediation: Deduplicate SKUs pre-import and enforce unique handle generation; map parent-child relationships explicitly to Shopify variants.
   • Verify: Run SKU uniqueness check and sample product comparisons.
7. Lost app functionality (subscriptions, bundles, loyalty)
   • Symptom: Discounts or subscriptions no longer apply.
   • Root cause: No mapped Shopify app or missing customizations.
   • Remediation: Install apps with matching APIs, reimplement hooks for subscription lifecycle events, migrate data where possible.
   • Verify: Simulate subscription creation, renewal, and discount application flows.
8. Slow pages and increased TTFB
   • Symptom: Pages load slower post-launch, higher bounce rates.
   • Root cause: Large media files, client-side scripts, or complex Liquid loops.
   • Remediation: Optimize images, reduce third-party scripts, and use Shopify’s CDN-friendly assets and metafields for heavy data.
   • Verify: Run Lighthouse and track TTFB and Largest Contentful Paint metrics.
9. Analytics and tracking gaps
   • Symptom: Orders not attributed, conversion funnels broken.
   • Root cause: Missing GTM or analytics event migration, incorrect measurement IDs.
   • Remediation: Reinstall tracking scripts, re-map eCommerce events to Shopify dataLayer hooks.
   • Verify: Generate test purchases and confirm eCommerce events in GA4/BI dashboards.
10. Payment reconciliation mismatches

• Symptom: Accounting doesn’t reconcile payments and refunds.
• Root cause: Missing transaction IDs or different refund handling.
• Remediation: Preserve gateway transaction IDs in order metadata; ensure refund flows create mirrored records.
• Verify: Reconcile a sample set of orders with accounting system exports.

A remediation-focused checklist accelerates resolution by providing clear verification steps. Where possible, automate verification with scripts that validate imports and highlight mismatches for quick remediation.

Preflight automated tests and staging checklist

Preflight testing eliminates many issues that only appear under realistic loads. A staging environment should mirror production configuration as closely as possible, including domain routing through a temporary host header or a staging subdomain. Staging must use masked or anonymized data for privacy compliance but preserve the data shape and distribution. Automated tests should be included in any migration sprint to ensure repeatability and confidence.

Essential automated tests include:

• Product import validation: check required fields, SKU uniqueness, image presence.
• Checkout smoke tests: full cart to payment flow for sample SKUs and shipping/tax combos.
• Order import reconciliation: count of orders and sum of gross sales between source and target for a given date range.
• Redirect verification: sample old URLs return 301 and match expected final URLs.
• Analytics event presence: eCommerce purchase events logged to analytics.
• Validate webhook processing and external integration endpoints.
• Run performance tests on representative pages and measure key metrics.

Create a staging acceptance checklist that includes client-facing demos of the purchase flow, customer account login, subscription flow (if present), and admin workflows for order management and fulfillment. The more the staging environment resembles production, the better the team can catch process-oriented breakages like fulfillment label generation or ERP handoffs.

Cutover playbook: sequencing, snapshotting, and rollback plan

The cutover window is the most tense period of a migration. A prescriptive playbook reduces decision friction and ensures everyone knows the exact steps and rollback triggers. The playbook should define a pre-cutover freeze, production snapshot steps, data cutover sequencing, DNS swap plan, and immediate post-launch verification.

Snapshotting and rollback preparation:

1. Create a full database snapshot and store it in a secure, versioned backup location.
2. Preserve a filesystem snapshot of uploaded assets.
3. Export a final set of orders and customer records in a timestamped archive.
4. Document an emergency rollback plan that includes steps to restore database snapshots, revert DNS, and re-enable the old storefront.

Cutover sequencing should follow an order of operations that reduces data drift:

1. Put WooCommerce into read-only or maintenance mode (prevent new orders).
2. Take final snapshots and exports.
3. Run transformation scripts against the final export to create Shopify import files.
4. Import products, customers, and historical orders into Shopify.
5. Validate inventory and order sums.
6. Execute DNS swap to the Shopify domain (or point the primary domain).
7. Run smoke tests for checkout, payment capture, and fulfillment label generation.
8. Monitor error queues and metrics for the agreed observation period.

A rollback decision should be based on objective criteria: payment capture failures above a threshold, critical order processing failures, or security incidents. The playbook should include contact details, escalation paths, and exact shell commands or console steps to revert the environment. Teams that rehearse the rollback in staging are less likely to panic during an actual cutover.

• Implement an order freeze and define the duration.
• Automate as many import and validation steps as possible.
• Keep the rollback plan short, repeatable, and tested.

Post-launch verification: orders, redirects, SEO, and customer communication

Immediate post-launch checks verify that critical flows operate and that stakeholders are informed about any residual issues. Order capture and reconciliation are the highest-priority checks. The team should validate the number of orders, total gross sales, and compare payment gateway transaction IDs against the exported snapshot.

Redirects are essential for preserving organic traffic and should be verified systematically. Import a redirect CSV into Shopify, then run automated scripts to confirm the old top N URLs (by traffic) return 301 to the new paths. Update the sitemap and submit it to search engines to help speed reindexing.

Customer communication should be proactively planned: notify customers about site changes, request password resets where necessary, and surface guidance for any temporary inconveniences. For store owners with loyalty programs or subscription services, send individualized communications that explain how recurring charges or loyalty balances will be preserved.

• Reconcile orders and payments immediately.
• Run a redirects audit for high-traffic pages.
• Confirm analytics events and tracking attribution.
• Notify customers about password reset steps and potential account changes.

Teams that delay customer communication typically escalate support tickets, which overloads support channels and distracts engineering resources from critical fixes.

Performance optimization and content delivery after migration

After platform migration, performance tuning ensures the store meets conversion expectations and retains SEO ranking. Shopify’s CDN handles many static asset delivery concerns, but front-end performance still depends on optimized media, minimized script usage, and efficient Liquid templates. Image formats should be modernized (WebP where supported) and thumbnails created for common breakpoints.

Critical performance tasks:

• Replace inline or third-party scripts that block initial rendering.
• Use lazy-loading for offscreen images.
• Limit the use of heavy apps that inject scripts on every page.
• Monitor Core Web Vitals and address regressions.

Content delivery considerations include the sitemap and structured data. Shopify supports schema output; verify product, breadcrumb, and organization schema are correct. Maintain canonical URLs and ensure hreflang tags are preserved for international sites.

• Monitor metrics continuously for several weeks after launch.
• Use A/B tests only after baseline performance stabilizes.
• Audit third-party scripts and purge unused tags.

A systematic approach to performance avoids short-term fixes that later complicate the codebase and reintroduce breakages.

Analytics, reporting, and financial reconciliation

Accurate analytics and reporting are required for growth and finance teams. Migration commonly breaks event tracking; verifying that eCommerce events (add-to-cart, begin_checkout, purchase) arrive correctly in analytics platforms is critical. Teams should compare historical funnels and order attribution across the cutover period to ensure marketing attribution remains intact.

Technical steps include migrating GTM containers, verifying measurement IDs, reconciling server-side events if employed, and ensuring eCommerce dataLayer schemas align with existing dashboards. Finance teams need preserved transaction metadata for reconciliation: transaction IDs, refund records, and payment gateway references.

• Perform parallel reporting during cutover and reconcile totals.
• Preserve transaction and refund metadata in order notes.
• Validate subscription renewals and any recurring billing exports.

Integration with ERPs and accounting tools should be validated for a sample window of orders. If the accounting exports change format, create transformations that map Shopify exports to the ERP’s expected schema to avoid manual reconciliation work.

Cost, resourcing, and addressing common objections

Business stakeholders often raise concerns about agency fees versus hiring contractors or in-house teams. The practical rebuttal is that a structured migration reduces total cost by enabling a faster, lower-risk launch with documented scripts and tested rollback plans. End-to-end agency teams provide cross-functional capability: UX, engineering, growth, that avoids the coordination overhead of assembling contractors.

Common objections and concise rebuttals:

• “Agency fees seem higher than contractors.”
  • Agencies bundle domain knowledge, repeatable processes, and accountability that reduce long-term costs created by rework and conversion loss.
• “External teams won’t understand our customers.”
  • Thorough discovery and collaborative user research embeds domain knowledge into the migration plan and maps feature priorities accordingly.
• “We fear missed deadlines or scope creep.”
  • Fixed-scope sprints with agreed acceptance criteria and sprint demos minimize scope creep and surface issues early.

Resourcing a migration requires at least one product owner, one technical lead, a designer for theme recreation, and an engineer familiar with Shopify APIs. For complex integrations (ERP, subscription engines), budget for a specialist or agency with documented experience. The value proposition centers on accelerating time-to-market while protecting revenue and search equity.

• Build a compact cross-functional team with clear deliverables.
• Favor experience and repeatable processes when evaluating partners.
• Require transparent milestones and client-facing demos.

Those balancing internal hiring with agency support often find a hybrid model most economical: agency-run migration sprint while internal teams focus on adjacent product work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Aren’t platform migrations always risky and expensive?

Migrations carry risk but structured sprints with clear scope, automated tests, and a cutover playbook reduce uncertainty. Providers with repeatable processes can lower overall cost by minimizing rework and protecting conversion and SEO value. Data-driven acceptance criteria and rollback plans make risk measurable and actionable.

How long does a typical WooCommerce to Shopify migration take for a mid-sized store?

A 4–8 week sprint is common for mid-sized stores with standard catalog sizes and limited custom integrations. Complex cases involving subscriptions, heavy custom code, or ERP integrations may extend beyond this timeframe. Estimation accuracy improves after the discovery audit and parity matrix.

Won’t we lose our SEO when changing URL structures?

If redirects are preserved, sitemaps updated, and canonical tags maintained, SEO impact is minimized. A redirect CSV mapping old URLs to new Shopify handles and immediate sitemap submission to search engines preserves equity. Monitoring organic traffic and search console data post-launch is essential to detect regressions.

How are customer passwords handled during migration?

Password hashes in WooCommerce are typically incompatible with Shopify. The standard practice is to import customer accounts without passwords and prompt customers to reset passwords on first login, accompanied by clear customer communication to reduce support friction.

Can third-party subscription and loyalty features be migrated directly?

Not always. Subscription and loyalty features are often implemented differently across platforms. A feature parity matrix identifies whether an app replacement or custom development is required, and migration may involve exporting recurring order history as order notes or mapping subscription records to a new provider’s API.

What happens if something critical breaks after launch?

The cutover playbook’s rollback plan is enacted. The team should be prepared to revert DNS, restore database snapshots, and re-open the previous storefront. Pre-defined rollback triggers: such as sustained payment failures above a threshold, prevent prolonged exposure and ensure a timely response.

Mid-project decision point and optional collaboration offer

At the mid-point of a migration sprint, tangible progress and remaining risk areas should be reassessed and communicated. For teams seeking external execution, the recommended mid-sprint contact option is available as a lightweight next step: Book a free discovery call. We Are Presta’s migration sprints have codified these processes into repeatable workflows that emphasize zero-downtime launches and measurable post-launch KPIs, which helps teams decide whether to proceed with an in-house cutover or engage specialist support.

Implementation examples and a small code snippet for image rehosting

Practical implementation examples accelerate execution. One common task is rehosting images into Shopify’s CDN and updating product image references. A compact Node.js example demonstrates uploading images and printing a mapping file for later product import.

• Extract image URLs from the transformed product JSON.
• Upload images to Shopify via the Admin API.
• Capture the returned asset URLs and generate a mapping CSV (original_url, shopify_url).

Pseudocode flow:

1. Read shopify_products.json.
2. For each image URL:
   • GET image to ensure reachability.
   • POST to Shopify assets endpoint with authentication.
   • Write mapping row.

This process addresses the frequent breakage of missing media by automating rehosting and replacing references. Teams should run this in dry-run mode first to avoid exceeding API rate limits and to verify that filenames don’t conflict.

Operational handoff: support, training, and post-launch backlog

Post-migration stability demands a clear operational handoff to store operators and support teams. Training should cover order handling in Shopify, refund flows, subscription management (if applicable), and app administration. A post-launch backlog should be prioritized separately from critical post-cutover fixes and include items such as UX polish, performance optimizations, and deferred features.

• Provide a short runbook for order reconciliation and refund handling.
• Deliver admin-level walkthrough sessions and short video tutorials for common tasks.
• Maintain a triage channel for high-priority issues during the first two weeks.

An explicit 30-60-90-day roadmap helps finance and growth teams plan for post-launch reporting changes and planned improvements rather than ad-hoc firefighting. Handoffs with clear ownership prevent knowledge loss and reduce accidental breakages due to misconfiguration.

Legal, privacy, and security checkpoints

Platform migration intersects with legal and privacy requirements. Teams must ensure the preservation of privacy notices, cookie banners, consent logs, and any data subject access request records. For stores operating across jurisdictions, tax and invoicing rules must be revalidated in the new environment.

Security checks include configuring secure webhooks, ensuring API credentials use least-privilege principles, rotating keys post-migration, and validating that third-party apps comply with organizational requirements. If the store deals with payment data, ensure PCI requirements continue to be met and that any vaulted payment tokens are mapped properly.

• Validate cookie consent and analytics consent preservation.
• Rotate API keys and verify webhook signatures.
• Confirm PCI scope remains acceptable and document changes.

Ignoring these items can lead to compliance gaps that are not apparent in the UX but have material legal and financial consequences.

Practical checklist recap: the 10-point tactical list

A concise, actionable 10-point checklist distills the most essential preventive actions:

1. Conduct a thorough discovery and sign off a scope charter.
2. Export canonical data snapshots, timestamped and versioned.
3. Create field-level mapping templates and idempotent transformation scripts.
4. Execute an app and plugin parity matrix and plan custom dev where needed.
5. Rebuild the core theme with brand parity and component-based approach.
6. Validate checkout, payment, tax, and shipping with realistic orders.
7. Implement automated preflight tests on staging with an order freeze rehearsal.
8. Prepare a cutover playbook with snapshots and tested rollback steps.
9. Import redirects and verify SEO signals post-launch.
10. Train operational teams and run a post-launch monitoring plan.

Each checklist item should have an owner, an acceptance criterion, and an associated verification script or manual test. This transforms the checklist from a wish list into an executable runbook.

Frequently overlooked details that cause late-stage breakages

Certain small details repeatedly cause late-stage issues: mismatched currency formatting, invisible metafields that apps rely on, overly long handles that exceed Shopify limits, and file name characters that the Shopify CDN blocks. Address these with automated checks during transformation scripts.

• Normalize currency and numeric formats early in the pipeline.
• Preserve and map metafields explicitly rather than assuming default behaviors.
• Sanitize handles and filenames to conform to Shopify limits.
• Validate third-party app compatibility and persistence of app-assigned metafields.

A final sweep that includes schema checks for both data and metafields catches many problems before they impact users. This sweep pays dividends by avoiding reactive hotfixes.

Final readiness and recommended next steps for teams planning the migration

Teams ready to execute a migration should finalize the discovery artifacts, finalize the parity matrix, and book a short technical alignment session that includes the development team responsible for integrations. For teams considering external support, a discovery call that reviews the mapping templates and parity matrix provides clarity on effort and risk.

A recommended operational step is to run a trial migration in a non-production window to validate transformation scripts, image uploads, and a small set of orders. This reduces uncertainty during the final cutover and surfaces subtle data issues.

• Lock scope and produce time-bound milestones.
• Run a trial migration with representative sampling.
• Confirm DNS timing and preserve rollback steps.

For those who prefer guided assistance, Request a project estimate or share your brief to review a migration plan and timeboxed sprint options that align with growth milestones. We Are Presta supports teams with end-to-end migration sprints that combine UX, engineering, and growth strategy expertise to accelerate time-to-market while minimizing breakages.

Frequently Asked Questions (combined objections and FAQs)

Agency fees seem higher than hiring contractors: why choose an agency?

An agency provides cross-disciplinary coordination, institutionalized processes, and accountability. While contractors may be cheaper per hour, the hidden costs of integration, oversight, rework, and missed deadlines often exceed the premium paid for an experienced agency. An agency with proven migration playbooks reduces total cost of ownership by delivering a predictable, measurable outcome.

How will the team ensure the external partner understands our customers and niche?

A rigorous discovery process that includes user research, analytics review, and feature prioritization embeds customer context into the migration plan. Experienced partners document assumptions and validate them with stakeholders early; this prevents misaligned implementations and prioritizes the features with highest customer impact.

What guarantees exist around deadlines and scope creep?

Sprints with defined acceptance criteria, incremental demos, and a clear backlog limit scope creep. Contracts can include milestone payments tied to acceptance tests. Frequent demos surface issues early, enabling scope adjustments before they compound into missed deadlines.

How are SEO and redirects preserved during the move?

Redirect CSVs that map old URLs to new handles, sitemap updates, and verification in Search Console preserve SEO. Importing and testing redirects prior to DNS cutover ensures that traffic flows correctly at launch and that search equity is retained.

Is it possible to test payment and refund flows without impacting customers?

Yes. Payment providers typically offer sandbox modes and low-value transaction testing. Staging environments should use masked payment credentials that simulate workflows without affecting real customers. Any live test during cutover should be communicated and controlled.

What level of post-launch support is recommended?

A supervised observation window of at least 72 hours with dedicated engineering and operations is recommended, with a 30-day follow-up plan for fixes and optimizations. This level of coverage ensures rapid response to unforeseen issues and smooth operational handoff.

Sources

1. WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Sprint – Practical service description and migration sprint structure used as a reference for sprint timing and zero-downtime aims.
2. WooCommerce to Shopify Migration: Ultimate 2025 Checklist – Comprehensive checklist resource referenced for common migration steps and checklist framing.
3. Migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify (2025 Guide) – User-focused guide referenced for typical user concerns and simplified migration steps.

Wrap-up: Launch readiness for WooCommerce to Shopify migrations

A rigorous migration playbook that combines field-level mapping, app parity planning, automated preflight tests, and a practiced cutover playbook substantially reduces the likelihood of the common breakages that derail launches. Teams that follow these steps will reduce time-to-market, preserve SEO and revenue, and smooth operational handoff. For a pragmatic partnership and to evaluate a timeboxed migration sprint, Explore case studies and client results. We Are Presta is available to review discovery artifacts and provide a scoped estimate aligned to business milestones.