Magento to Shopify Migration

We've never built a client project on Magento.

That's worth saying at the outset, because it shapes how we approach this.

We didn't spend years on the platform accumulating a loyalty to it.

We came to Magento migrations because our clients arrived needing to leave it — and we learned quickly that doing this well requires understanding exactly where Magento's architecture creates problems for a migration, not just following a standard process.

Magento migrations are among the most technically complex we handle. They're also consistently among the most commercially significant for the clients we work with.

The businesses that have been running on Magento or Adobe Commerce for several years typically have established search rankings, substantial customer data, complex product configurations and customisations that have accumulated over time. Getting all of that safely to Shopify, with nothing lost and nothing broken, is the job.

Why Magento Merchants Are Moving

The economics of running Magento have shifted considerably. Magento 1 reached end-of-life in 2020, leaving a significant number of retailers on an unsupported platform with known security vulnerabilities and no official patch path. The upgrade to Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce is effectively a full replatform — the effort involved often makes moving to Shopify the more sensible choice.

For those already on Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce, the pattern we see most often is a combination of escalating costs and diminishing returns. Hosting, security, extension licences, developer time for upgrades and compatibility fixes — the total cost of ownership is consistently higher than merchants expected when they chose the platform.

The extension ecosystem promised flexibility and delivered compatibility problems. Customisations that were straightforward on a clean install became increasingly difficult to maintain as the platform evolved.

Meanwhile, Shopify has matured significantly. The gap in capability between Shopify Plus and Magento 2 — particularly for B2B, international commerce and checkout customisation — has closed to the point where it's no longer a meaningful barrier for most UK retailers.

What Makes Magento Migrations Complex

Magento's data model is fundamentally different from Shopify's, and the gaps don't always map cleanly. Configurable products in Magento become variants in Shopify, but the relationship between them — attributes, options, pricing rules — requires careful transformation rather than a straight export and import. Complex product configurations, customer group pricing, layered navigation structures and deeply customised attribute sets all need to be resolved before a single product goes live.

Custom modules are another common complication. A Magento store that has been running for several years will typically have accumulated a mix of commercial extensions and bespoke development. Every custom module needs to be assessed: can its functionality be replicated in Shopify natively, covered by an app, or rebuilt as custom development? The answer determines a significant part of the project scope.

URL structures differ between platforms, which matters enormously for SEO preservation. A Magento store with years of accumulated rankings and backlinks has link equity that needs to be mapped and redirected precisely — not approximately.

How We Approach It

Pre-Migration Audit: We start with a comprehensive audit of your current Magento store. Product catalogue structure and attribute sets, customer and order data volumes, URL architecture and existing search rankings, custom modules and their functionality, third-party integrations and APIs. This isn't a checkbox exercise — it's the work that determines what the migration actually involves and surfaces risks before they become problems.

Data Migration: Products, variants, customer records, order history, blog content — migrated in full. For the complex product configurations and data volumes typical of Magento stores, we use a structured export–transform–validate–import approach. Magento's configurable product structure is converted to Shopify's variant model with data cleaned and validated throughout. For large catalogues we build custom AI Tools to scrape and manipulate data with Matrixify the Shopify App handling complex data structure imports where precision is critical.

SEO Preservation: Magento and Shopify use different URL conventions. Every URL on your current store — product pages, collection pages, content pages, blog posts — is mapped to its Shopify equivalent, with 301 redirects built and verified before launch. Existing metadata is migrated and reviewed. We're direct with you: even a carefully executed migration may see a short-term dip in organic traffic. With proper redirect mapping and post-launch monitoring, most sites recover within 4–8 weeks and often exceed previous performance within three to six months.

Custom Functionality Assessment: Every custom module and bespoke integration is assessed against what Shopify handles natively, what the app ecosystem covers, and what needs to be rebuilt. We give you an honest view of what can be replicated, what can be improved upon, and what, if anything, represents a genuine capability trade-off.

Shopify Store Design and Development: While the data migration is being prepared, we design and build your new Shopify store in parallel. We select a high-performance theme matched to your catalogue and commercial requirements, customise it extensively — your brand, your UX, your section and template layouts — and test every page, product template and collection layout across devices before launch.

Launch and Post-Migration Monitoring: Magento migrations don't launch in Q4. The risk to peak-season revenue is too high, and the recovery window if something goes wrong is too short. We plan launch timing carefully, with a minimum four-week post-launch monitoring period covering search rankings, crawl errors, redirect performance and site speed. Rollback procedures are in place for the unlikely scenario that something goes fundamentally wrong.

Cloudberry Living — Magento to Shopify

Cloudberry Living came to us running a Magento store with established organic search rankings they couldn't afford to lose. The migration combined a full platform move with a brand refresh and a complete store rebuild.

We audited every URL carrying meaningful organic traffic or inbound link equity before writing a single redirect. The product data migration used a structured export–transform–validate process, converting Magento's configurable product structure into Shopify's variant model with data cleaned throughout. Every redirect was validated before launch. The site launched significantly faster than its Magento predecessor, the team could manage routine tasks without developer involvement, and the search rankings held.

→ Read the Cloudberry Living case study

Is the Timing Right?

Magento migrations aren't always straightforward to time. If you're mid-contract on hosting or extensions, approaching a peak trading period, or in the middle of other significant business changes, it may make sense to plan the migration window rather than rush it. We'd rather have that conversation with you early than inherit a project that was started at the wrong time.

If the timing is right, we know how to do this properly.

→ Get in touch to talk through your Magento migration