You have already decided to move. This guide is not another comparison — if you are still weighing the platforms, read our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison or the decision guide on Shopify vs WooCommerce for UAE payments, COD and Arabic first.
The short answer: the migration order, and the three things that cannot move automatically
Move products first, then customers, then historical orders — Shopify links orders to products and customers that already exist. Build the redirect map before you touch DNS. Three things cannot move automatically: customer passwords (Shopify states that passwords encrypted outside Shopify cannot be migrated, so plan the sign-in conversation), plugin-carried behaviour — subscriptions, reviews, gift cards, bundles, wholesale rules — which must be rebuilt in an app or dropped deliberately, and your URLs, whose structure changes, so rankings survive only where a 301 redirect waits.
The problem: the move is delayed by three specific fears — all of them justified
Owners postpone for three reasons. Product data: years of variants — blank SKUs, expired sale prices and page-builder shortcodes included. Customer accounts: the records import, the passwords do not, so a careless launch locks out loyal buyers. Rankings: different URL structures mean every unredirected old address becomes a dead end for Google and old links. what damages stores is a rushed import that discovers all three live.
Step 0 — inventory first: products, plugins, integrations and your top URLs
Write down what you own. Count products by type — simple, variable, grouped, digital, subscription, bundled — and note options per variable product. List every store plugin: subscriptions, add-ons, wholesale pricing, reviews, wishlists, loyalty, shipping rules, gift cards. For each, decide: app replacement, built-in feature, or dropped. List integrations — accounting, inventory, shipping, email marketing — and export top URLs by traffic and revenue from Search Console and analytics: those get the most careful redirect and Arabic checks.
Choosing the transfer route: CSV, Store Migration app, migration app or partner
| Route | What it moves | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Manual copy or CSV import | Products and customers, reformatted to Shopify's templates | Small catalogues, no order history |
| Store Migration app (Shopify, early access) | Products only, from your WooCommerce product CSV upload | Simple catalogues; orders/reviews separate |
| Third-party migration app | Products, customers, orders and, depending on the app, coupons, posts, pages and redirects — Matrixify's own tutorial covers all of these, with a dry run | Stores needing order history moved too |
| Migration partner | The full move, including plugin replacement, integrations and launch QA | Large catalogues, subscriptions, custom behaviour, heavy integrations |
Two limits apply everywhere. The Store Migration app imports products only: customers are a separate CSV job, order history needs a third-party app or the Order API, and Shopify states you can't export or migrate reviews from WooCommerce to Shopify — they import only manually through a reviews app.
Products first: cleaning the export, variants, options and collections
WooCommerce has a built-in product exporter — Products, Export, then Generate CSV. Shopify's import uses its own column names, so edit the export into Shopify's template: Name becomes Title, Description becomes Body (HTML), attributes become Option1, Option2 and Option3, SKU becomes Variant SKU, the regular price becomes Variant Price, and weights convert to grams.
Clean before importing. Give every product and variant a unique SKU. Check the price mapping: WooCommerce's regular and sale prices correspond to Shopify's price and compare-at price, and reversing them invents discounts. Strip shortcodes and page-builder markup from descriptions — Shopify imports them as visible text. Shopify allows three product options per product, so a product built on size, colour, material and length needs restructuring, an app or metafields first.
Customers and order history: what imports, and the password conversation you must have
Customer records move by CSV. Shopify's guide covers exporting customers from WooCommerce and reformatting against its customer template, mapping fields such as user_email to Email and billing fields to default address columns. Carry marketing consent exactly as recorded; never import everyone as subscribed.
Passwords are the exception to plan around. They cannot be migrated, so decide the conversation before launch: an email before cutover, and a clear sign-in or password-reset path on day one.
Order history comes last, once products and customers exist for orders to link to. Historical orders do not import by CSV — they move through a third-party migration app or Shopify's Order API. Decide how far back you need; keep the full history as an archived export for accounting. Before an order import, turn staff order notifications off, so your team is not emailed about every historical order, then turn them back on.
The plugin-replacement map: subscriptions, reviews, gift cards and custom behaviour
Nothing a WooCommerce plugin did for you moves by itself; assign each behaviour a destination from your inventory. Subscriptions are the highest-risk item: WooCommerce Subscriptions does not map onto a Shopify subscription app automatically, and saved payment details generally cannot be carried across — plan the cutover with your new app and gateway so nobody is billed twice or not at all. Reviews, as Shopify states, cannot be exported or migrated from WooCommerce — export them from your reviews plugin and import them manually into a reviews app such as Judge.me, Loox or Yotpo, Gift cards need balances exported and reissued; an unrecorded balance is money customers will rightly chase. Bundles, wholesale pricing, wishlists and loyalty points each need an app or a written decision to retire them.
URLs and redirects: building the 301 map before you touch DNS
WooCommerce addresses look like /product/name/ and /product-category/name/; Shopify uses /products/name and /collections/name, with pages under /pages/ and blog posts under /blogs/. Every changed address needs a redirect to its closest equivalent — never a blanket redirect to the homepage. Build the map as a spreadsheet with two columns, old path and new path starting from your Step 0 top URLs.
Shopify lets you create redirects in advance under Content, Menus, URL redirects, and import them in bulk by CSV. Google's site-move guidance is to test redirects and keep them in place for at least a year. After launch, submit your new sitemap — Shopify generates sitemap.xml automatically — in Search Console, and watch the Pages report for 404s daily in the first weeks. Our website redesign SEO migration checklist covers redesign moves in general.
UAE launch specifics: payment gateways, COD and Arabic content re-checked
This is where US guides stop helping. Payments first: Shopify lists the United Arab Emirates among the countries where Shopify Payments can be used, and its changelog records that UAE availability was extended to the Advanced plan — but eligibility and onboarding verification still apply. Check your own eligibility in the Shopify admin; if you are not eligible, connect a third-party gateway serving UAE-registered businesses instead, and test it before launch.
Cash on delivery needs its own plan. If COD is a meaningful share, set it up as a manual payment method on Shopify, and test a full COD order through to courier and reconciliation. Arabic is the third check: re-read every Arabic title, description and collection name after import, confirm your theme displays Arabic correctly right-to-left, and check Arabic notifications and invoices.
Test import, cutover and the first 30 days: the launch checklist
Never let the first import be the real one. Run a test import — a dry run if your app offers one, — then check counts, prices, variants and images against the old store. Fix mapping errors in the file or tool settings, not by hand-editing hundreds of products.
At cutover: freeze catalogue edits on WooCommerce, run the final import, import the redirect CSV, and place test orders for every payment method including COD. Lower your domain's DNS time-to-live a day ahead, and keep the WooCommerce store and a full backup accessible for months — our website handover and ownership checklist. In the first 30 days, monitor Search Console 404s, payment errors and sign-in questions daily. If the new store feels slow once live, that is a store-speed troubleshooting job, not a migration problem.
Common mistakes
The most damaging mistake is importing before cleaning: the tool copies your catalogue faithfully, including its errors. Next is treating the Store Migration app as a full migration — it moves products, and stores discover the missing orders and reviews after launch. Owners forget the password conversation, so loyal customers meet a login wall with no warning; build the redirect map only after switching DNS; and test only the card gateway while COD fails silently. Do not delete the WooCommerce store at launch: keep it and its exports until the new store has traded a full cycle cleanly.
FAQ
Do customer passwords transfer from WooCommerce to Shopify?
No. Shopify states that customer passwords cannot be migrated because they are encrypted outside Shopify. The records themselves import by CSV, but you must plan the sign-in conversation: warn customers before cutover and make the reset or new sign-in path obvious on day one.
Can I migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify for free?
Partly. Products can move with Shopify's free Store Migration app or a CSV import, and customers by CSV, using Shopify's templates. Order history needs a third-party migration app or the Order API, and reviews can only be imported manually through a reviews app, so stores with history and reviews should expect at least one paid tool or a partner.
Will I lose my Google rankings when I move to Shopify?
Not if the redirect work is done properly. The two platforms use different URL structures, so build a 301 map from every important old URL to its closest new equivalent, import it before cutover, submit the new sitemap in Search Console and monitor for 404s. Google's guidance is to keep redirects in place for at least a year.
How do I move my WooCommerce order history to Shopify?
Import products first, then customers, then orders, so each order links to records that already exist. Historical orders cannot be imported by CSV; use a third-party migration app or Shopify's Order API. Turn off staff order notifications during the import, and decide how many years of history to bring.
What happens to my subscriptions, reviews and gift cards?
None of them moves automatically. Subscriptions must be rebuilt in a Shopify subscription app with a planned cutover agreed with your gateway. Shopify states that reviews cannot be exported or migrated from WooCommerce, so export them from your plugin and import them manually into a reviews app. Gift card balances must be exported and reissued.
Want the migration run for you? (CTA)
If your inventory shows active subscriptions, order history you cannot lose, custom plugin behaviour or integrations your team cannot reconnect alone, the move is a project, not an import. WebStackRank's Shopify development team in Dubai plans and runs migrations in this guide's order as part of our ecommerce web development services. Tell us your product count, plugin list and launch deadline for an itemised proposal within 24 business hours. Reach us on WhatsApp at +971 52 595 3174 or hello@webstackrank.com.
