Shopify Migration

We offer a comprehensive range of Shopify development solutions, from foundational theme builds to advanced Headless builds for enterprise and tech consulting. Whether you're replatforming from more legacy systems like Magento, Salesforce, BigCommerce, Centra, Lightspeed, Shopware, VTEX or unifying multiple brands under one platform, or enhancing performance, we’re the Shopify development agency built to deliver.

Every migration runs through five steps. Same structure across every engagement, regardless of tier.

1. Explore: Every engagement begins with a working session. We learn what you actually do, what your buyers expect, and what your current platform is preventing. We define realistic scope, talk through indicative budget ranges across our three tiers, and agree on a rough timeline. Mutual fit is the only output that matters at this stage. If the project does not match what we do well, or if the budget and timeline are not realistic for the scope, we say so. No proposal goes out before we are both confident this is the right engagement.

2. Discover: The migration audit is where the wrong decisions get caught. We map your current platform end-to-end: themes, apps, integrations, custom code, content, SEO, third-party services, data volumes. We identify the 20% of requirements that will drive 80% of the build complexity. Custom checkout logic, ERP synchronization, B2B catalogs, multi-region tax handling, headless rendering. Whatever is structurally hard for your specific business surfaces here. The deliverable is an architecture decision document with the recommended approach, the integration map, and performance and SEO targets. Roughly one in four migrations gets reframed at this stage. We would rather pause a deal in week two than ship a wrong-fit migration in month six.

3. Design: Solution architecture before pixels. Shopify gets modeled for scalability first: catalog structure, customer segmentation, internationalization, content architecture, app stack, performance budgets per page type. Once the structure is locked, UI and UX work begins. Component library, design system tokens, key user flows, and interactive prototypes for the most-trafficked pages. Performance budgets get committed at this stage, not after development. Designing within a performance ceiling is the only way to ship a fast site at launch.

4. Develop: Multiple workstreams run in parallel. Back-end integration with your ERP, OMS, PIM, CRM, or other systems of record. Front-end build in either a native Shopify theme or a Headless Hydrogen application. Data migration scripts get written, tested on staging, then rerun until the data lands clean. SEO migration is treated as its own workstream: every URL gets a 301 redirect, structured data gets reimplemented, sitemaps and meta data are validated against the source site. Continuous testing throughout: visual regression, integration tests, performance audits, security checks. Nothing reaches launch that has not been tested.

5. Go-live: Launch is a switch, not a journey. The new store has been running on a staging domain for weeks. The cutover window is short, sometimes phased by region or by traffic percentage. DNS switches to the new store. Redirects activate. From there, two weeks of hypercare: our team monitors Core Web Vitals, conversion rates, SEO indexing, and bug reports in real time. The first round of post-launch optimization starts in week three.

Five steps look simple on a page. The discipline is in not skipping any of them, especially when budget pressure or a launch deadline starts pushing on the schedule. The migrations that succeed are the ones where every step gets its full attention before the next one starts.

Migration scope drives investment. We work in three tiers: No-Code, Accelerator, and Enterprise. Picking the right one is part of Discover. Each tier is a real product with real boundaries, not a price negotiation tactic. If your scope sits between two tiers, we tell you.

1. No-Code

The fastest path to a live Shopify store. No-Code uses existing Shopify themes, native features, and the Shopify app ecosystem. No custom code. We configure, style, and migrate your data; you go live within three months. This tier is best for brands moving from a simpler platform, launching a smaller catalog, or prioritizing speed and cost efficiency over design uniqueness. The trade-off is real: you get the design and feature ceiling of the theme you choose, and we do not recommend adding custom code to a theme-based build because it compromises scalability and breaks on theme updates. For brands where time to market matters more than bespoke design, No-Code is the right tier.

• Timeline: 3 months.
• Budget: EUR 20-60k.

2. Accelerator

Our most-shipped tier and the one most mid-market migrations should consider first. Accelerator is built on our custom-developed Shopify Accelerator theme: a low-code foundation that gives you full design freedom and custom extensibility without the cost or risk of a fully bespoke build. Every Accelerator project is backed by a performance guarantee on speed and Core Web Vitals, and runs on a fixed-fee structure so the budget does not drift. Your team gets zero technical overhead because we own the complexity. The 20% of your business that needs custom logic (business unique features, sales rep workflows, B2B catalog rules, bespoke checkout behavior) is built on top of the foundation through Shopify Functions, app extensions, and Admin UI extensions. What Accelerator does not cover is headless. The framework runs on Shopify's native storefront. For headless storefronts using Hydrogen or Next.js, you need to go custom.

• Timeline: 3 to 6 months.
• Budget: EUR 50-180k.

3. Enterprise / Custom

Full custom code. Maximum flexibility and control. Custom covers headless storefronts (Hydrogen or Next.js) and custom Liquid theme's; fully bespoke admin tooling, multi-brand and multi-region architectures, and any project where the technical scope justifies a custom build. This is the tier for brands that need full ownership of their technology vision and have the internal capability (or the willingness to maintain an agency retainer) to operate a custom application after launch. The trade-offs are equally real. The highest investment, the longest timeline, independent hosting and CMS in many cases, and ongoing maintenance requirements that do not exist at the other tiers. Custom is the right choice when there is a clear technical or strategic reason for it. It is the wrong choice when "we want it custom" is the only reason on the table.

• Timeline: 7+ months.
• Budget: EUR 150-500k.

The right tier is usually obvious before Discovery. The same brand can fit different tiers depending on integration complexity, team technical capacity, and the priority on time-to-market versus design uniqueness.

A note on these numbers. The budget ranges above are indicative. Real pricing depends on scope, technical architecture, the division of work between our team and yours, and the integration complexity that surfaces during Discovery. We do not quote a final number before doing the work that makes the quote credible.

The migration path is different for every source platform. We have shipped each route below.

From Magento: Custom Magento 1 and 2 builds are the most common migration source in our pipeline. The architecture work is meaningful: products, customers, orders, attribute sets, custom modules, and SEO redirects all need a deliberate plan. For D2C brands outgrowing the operational cost of running custom Magento, see 5 reasons why Shopify Plus is better than Magento for D2C e-commerce. For the feature-by-feature comparison between Shopify Plus and Magento 2, see our Shopify Plus vs Magento 2 breakdown.

From Salesforce Commerce Cloud: SFCC is the enterprise platform our migrations replace most often. The Denham project moved off SFCC onto headless Shopify and delivered a 3x site speed improvement. See our Shopify Plus versus Salesforce Commerce Cloud comparison for the full architectural and commercial breakdown.

From WooCommerce: WordPress with WooCommerce is one of the most common starting points for D2C brands. Migrations are straightforward when WooCommerce is operating as a standard catalog with WordPress handling the CMS layer, more involved when there is heavy WordPress customization or plugin sprawl. The migration usually unlocks meaningful performance and security improvements. Detailed comparison article in development.

From BigCommerce: BigCommerce migrations are a growing category as brands evaluate platform consolidation and the wider Shopify app ecosystem. The architecture is closer to a like-for-like move than the Magento or SFCC migrations, so the work is more about content, design, and integration than reconstructing the data model. Detailed comparison article in development.

From Adobe Commerce: Adobe Commerce (the enterprise version of Magento 2) migrations follow the broader Magento pattern with additional considerations for B2B, multi-store, and the ERP integration scope that often comes with enterprise Adobe deployments. Detailed comparison article in development.

From a custom platform: PHP, Node, Rails, or any bespoke build is something we migrate regularly. There is no off-the-shelf export tool, so we build custom migration scripts as part of Discover. The audit decides whether the migration is feasible at the proposed budget. Get in touch for a tailored discovery call.

Shopify covers around 80% of what an commerce operation needs. Companies, catalogs, checkout, payments, integrations. Native, scalable, well-engineered. The remaining 20% is the part that is specific to how your business actually runs, and Shopify cannot ship it for you. That is where we come in.

We extend Shopify with custom logic using its native extensibility primitives.

Shopify Functions run custom rules at checkout, in discounts, in delivery, and in payment, so things like minimum order values per company, tiered shipping logic, or dynamic payment terms operate as if they were built into the platform.

Theme and app extensions add bespoke storefront sections, account-specific reorder pads, or campaign banners that your team can configure in the editor like any native block.

Admin UI extensions drop custom workflows directly into the Shopify admin: approval flows, onboarding wizards, credit-limit warnings on the company detail page.

Customer Account and Checkout UI extensions tailor the buyer experience with PO numbers, delivery date selectors, credit balance widgets, multi-location pickers.

Shopify Flow handles process automation: top-customer alerts, draft-order routing, payment-overdue chase sequences.

API integrations connect Shopify into the systems your business actually runs on: ERP, PIM, OMS, accounting, custom CRM. Shopify is rarely the only system of truth. Done right, it is the commerce layer that synchronizes with everything else.

The pattern across all of these: Shopify provides the framework, the native commerce objects, and the rendering surfaces. We build the workflows, the rules, and the integrations that make Shopify behave like a system designed for your specific business. The 20% that nobody else can build for you, because nobody else knows how your operation works.

This is the framing every brand should evaluate Shopify with. Not what is missing, but what becomes possible when you stop fighting platform constraints and start building on a stable foundation.

Most agencies treat launch as the finish line. The brands that succeed after a migration treat it as the start. The first three months after going live decide whether the migration was worth it. Conversion rates do not always match pre-launch projections on day one. Search rankings do not transfer instantly. Bugs surface that did not appear in staging. The work in those first weeks is where the migration earns its ROI or loses it.

We stay with our clients post-launch through four distinct workstreams.

• Performance monitoring. Core Web Vitals tracking, traffic stability checks, and conversion rate monitoring against pre-migration baselines. We watch the same dashboards your team watches, and we surface issues fast.
• SEO continuity. Redirect map validation, indexing pace tracking, organic traffic recovery monitoring. Most SEO loss in a migration shows up in weeks 2 to 6 as Google re-crawls. Active monitoring catches drops before they compound, and we make redirect corrections in real time when patterns emerge.
• Iteration cycle. Once real data starts flowing, the optimizations get specific. Cart abandonment improvements based on actual funnel behavior. Checkout flow tuning based on real conversion data. Content updates that did not make the launch scope. The two weeks of hypercare included in every Go-live phase cover the immediate fixes; the iteration cycle handles the strategic work that follows.
• Continuous development. Ongoing bug fixes, security updates, small features, integration updates, and proactive performance reviews. The same team that built the store keeps it healthy. Continuous, not transactional.

How we structure the partnership

The four workstreams above are delivered through a retainer model designed to make ongoing partnership the default after launch, not the exception.

Retainer terms: We start with a 3-month retainer to establish working rhythms and prove the value of ongoing collaboration. From there, you extend to 6 or 12 months based on what you need. Longer engagements get more competitive rates. The notice period is one month, so you stay in control of the commitment level.

Team structure: Every retainer comes with a dedicated team: a Product Owner, a Tech Lead and Developers. As your needs grow, we scale the team with specialized consultants in Design, Shopify expertise, or Klaviyo and retention work. The same people who built the store keep building on it.

Cadence: Bi-weekly sprints for execution. Quarterly strategic sessions for direction setting. A comprehensive kick-off at the start with clear objectives and KPIs that get tracked through delivery. We use Productive for project and budget management with monthly reports; Slack, Notion, and Figma for day-to-day work.

Pricing: Day-rate-based with a 15% Product Owner and Quality Assurance management surcharge. Real budgets, real KPIs, no surprise overages.

Flexibility: Many of our clients combine a retainer with on-demand project work. The retainer handles ongoing optimization, maintenance, and small features. Larger initiatives (a B2B build, a Klaviyo overhaul, a multi-region rollout) get scoped as separate projects on top of the retainer.

This is the structure that turns a successful migration into compounding business value over years, not months. We architect for launch AND for the year that follows. The first 90 days set the trajectory; the retainer sustains it.

Over 200 Shopify migrations completed. Shopify Platinum Partner status. Ten years of building, migrating, and operating Shopify stores for brands across fashion, lifestyle, and beauty. We are Amsterdam-based and EU-focused, with clients across the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, France, and the broader European market.

We run every phase in-house. Strategy and discovery, design and prototyping, native and headless development, data migration, SEO and performance engineering, Klaviyo retention and email lifecycle, and post-launch development. The same team that scopes the project ships it, and the same team that ships it maintains it.

Migration is our most-shipped category of work. Across those 200+ projects we have built a working understanding of what makes the difference between a migration that compounds and one that stalls. The pattern is consistent: the brands that grow fastest after launch treat migration as a strategic investment rather than an IT project, commit to a Discovery phase honest enough to reframe scope when the architecture is wrong, and continue the partnership past go-live.

Notable migrations across our portfolio include Denham from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to headless Shopify with a 3x speed improvement, Veloretti's headless Shopify build with a 100+ combination configurator across four languages, Tony's Chocolonely on unified commerce serving both B2B and DTC from a single Shopify backend, Nike x Corteiz running 100,000 concurrent visitors at launch on native Shopify Plus, and Filling Pieces with first-party data tracking and Klaviyo integration delivering 80% growth in attributed revenue.

Different architectures, different industries, different commercial models. Same delivery discipline.

1. How long does a Shopify migration take?

Around 3 months for a No-Code migration on a smaller catalog, 3 to 6 months for an Accelerator engagement, and 7+ months for Enterprise builds with custom code or headless storefronts. The biggest timeline drivers are catalog size, integration complexity, and whether the move is to native Shopify or headless. We define the realistic timeline in Discover, before any build work begins.

2. How much does a Shopify migration cost?

Our tiers are EUR 20-60k for a No-Code migration (3 months), EUR 50-180k for Accelerator (3 to 6 months), and EUR 150-500k+ for Enterprise builds (7+ months). All ranges are indicative. Real pricing depends on scope, technical architecture, the division of work between our team and yours, and integration complexity. The Shopify subscription is a separate cost paid directly to Shopify.

3. Will my SEO rankings drop after migrating to Shopify?

They should not, if the migration is done right. The risk is real but manageable. Every URL needs a 301 redirect to its new equivalent, structured data needs to be reimplemented, and Core Web Vitals usually improve, which helps rankings. We build and test redirect maps before launch, not during, and monitor organic traffic actively for the first 60 days after going live.

4. What data gets migrated to Shopify?

Products with variants, customer accounts and addresses, order history, content (pages, blog articles, images), inventory levels, gift cards, customer reviews where the new review platform supports import, tax configurations, shipping zones, payment provider connections, and SEO metadata. We define the full scope in Discover. Anything custom, like loyalty point balances, requires a specific integration plan.

5. Will my apps and integrations still work after migration?

Most will. The Shopify app ecosystem is one of the largest in commerce. For each existing integration, we either find the direct Shopify equivalent (often the same vendor with a Shopify version), use Shopify's native feature if one now exists, or build a custom integration. The integration map is part of Discover so there are no surprises in the build phase.

6. Do I need to be on Shopify Plus to migrate?

It depends on your scale and feature needs. For enterprise migrations with B2B, multi-region selling, custom checkout, or higher API rate limits, Plus is the right tier. For brands with simpler operations, the Advanced plan now covers a lot of what used to require Plus, including most B2B features as of 2026. We help you choose the right plan in Discover.

7. How do you handle the launch without downtime?

We use a staged rollout. The new Shopify store runs in parallel with the existing site during build, configured against a temporary domain. Final data migration happens in a short cutover window, typically off-peak hours. DNS switches to the new store. Redirects activate. The old store stays live as a read-only fallback for 30 days in case of recovery needs. Most clients see zero customer-facing downtime.

8. What is the difference between migrating to native Shopify and headless Shopify?

Native uses Shopify's built-in storefront with Liquid themes. It is faster to launch, easier to maintain, and covers 80% of needs. Headless replaces the storefront with a custom React application, often Shopify Hydrogen, connected to Shopify's commerce backend via APIs. It costs and takes 2 to 3 times more, and unlocks deeper customization. Most brands should choose native. See our complete guide to headless on Shopify Plus for the full decision framework.

9. Can I migrate from a custom-built platform?

Yes. Custom legacy platforms are common migration sources, including custom Magento builds, custom PHP or Node platforms, and edge cases. The work is harder than migrating from a major platform because there is no off-the-shelf data export tool, so we build custom migration scripts. Discover is critical here: the audit decides whether the migration is feasible at the proposed budget.

10. What happens after launch?

Migration is not the finish line. The first three months after launch are where the real value gets realized. We provide structured post-launch support including Core Web Vitals monitoring, SEO continuity tracking, conversion optimization, and an active iteration cycle. Most clients continue with us through a retainer that turns the migration project into an ongoing partnership, with a dedicated squad and a flexible scope that adapts as your business grows.