Complete guide to migrating from Shopify to a custom e-commerce platform. When to migrate, how to plan, data migration, and avoiding common pitfalls. We've helped clients migrate.
Shopify is great for many businesses, but there comes a point where it's limiting your growth. Here are signs it's time to migrate:
Shopify struggles with complex variant logic, 10,000+ SKUs, and B2B workflows. If you're hitting these limits, it's time to migrate.
Shopify fees scale with revenue. At high volumes, custom platforms are more cost-effective long-term.
Shopify's customization is limited. If you need custom workflows, integrations, or features, custom is better.
Shopify can slow down with large catalogs. Custom platforms can be optimized for your specific needs.
Document everything: products, variants, customers, orders, content, apps, and customizations. You need a complete inventory before migrating.
Design your custom platform architecture. What features do you need? What integrations? What workflows? Plan this before building.
Develop your new platform. This typically takes 8-16 weeks depending on complexity. Build it right—this is your long-term solution.
Export data from Shopify, clean and transform it, then import into your new platform. This is critical—data quality matters.
Test everything: products, variants, pricing, checkout, integrations. Test with real data. Don't skip this step.
Launch your new platform. Monitor closely for issues. Have a rollback plan. Support your team during transition.
Missing products, variants, or customer data. This breaks your store and frustrates customers.
Solution: Audit thoroughly. Export everything. Test imports. Verify data completeness.
Changing URLs breaks SEO and bookmarks. Customers can't find products they've saved.
Solution: Maintain URL structure or set up 301 redirects. Preserve SEO value.
Forgetting to rebuild features that existed in Shopify. Customers expect the same functionality.
Solution: Document all features. Rebuild everything. Don't assume anything.
Launching without thorough testing. Bugs break the customer experience.
Solution: Test everything. Use real data. Test edge cases. Have others test too.
If something goes wrong, you need to rollback. No plan means extended downtime.
Solution: Keep Shopify running during migration. Have rollback procedures. Test rollback.
We've helped manufacturing clients migrate from Shopify to custom platforms. We understand the challenges: data migration, URL preservation, feature rebuilding, and testing.
We also run our own custom e-commerce store (CNC tool store). We chose custom from the start because Shopify couldn't handle our complexity. We understand why you might need to migrate.
We can help you migrate successfully because we understand both platforms and the challenges of migration.
Learn more about e-commerce platforms and migration