BigCommerce to Shopify Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide for Merchants

What moves from BigCommerce to Shopify, and what doesn't

Here is how the main BigCommerce records usually land in Shopify.

• Products, SKUs, prices, stock and images: Yes. Options become Shopify variants. Shopify allows up to 2,048 variants per product but still only three options, so products with more than three options need restructuring.
• Modifiers (engraving text, add-ons, file uploads): Not as variants. They become line-item properties through the theme or an app, or metafields.
• Categories: Yes, as collections. Nested categories become collections plus menu structure, because Shopify collections are flat.
• Brands: Yes, into the vendor field, a collection or a metaobject if brands need their own pages.
• Custom fields: Yes, as product metafields, once you define the metafield types.
• Customers and addresses: Yes.
• Customer passwords: No. They are stored as one-way hashes. Customers activate their accounts or sign in with a one-time code.
• Order history: Yes, through an import app or the API, linked to customers and products.
• Customer groups and price lists: With mapping. They become Shopify B2B companies and catalogues, customer tags with discounts, or app-based pricing.
• Reviews: Yes, into a Shopify review app such as Judge.me or Yotpo.
• Blog posts and web pages: Yes, as Shopify blog articles and pages. Layouts are rebuilt in the theme.
• Coupons and promotions: Recreated as Shopify discounts. Rules don't copy across.
• Gift certificates and store credit: Partly. Balances are recreated, and gift codes may need reissuing.
• Stencil theme and Script Manager scripts: No. The storefront is rebuilt and scripts are re-added as theme code, app embeds or Shopify customer events.

Pre-migration checklist

Do this before anyone imports a single product. It takes a week or so and saves far more later.

1. Crawl the live site. Use Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to list every indexable URL, with titles, meta descriptions and canonicals.
2. Export your traffic data. Pull the top landing pages from Google Search Console and GA4 for the last 12 months, plus the pages that earn backlinks.
3. Record your URL settings. In BigCommerce, check Settings for the URL structure used for products, categories and web pages. It decides every redirect pattern later.
4. Count everything. Products, variants, categories, customers, orders, reviews, blog posts and pages. These numbers are your reconciliation baseline.
5. List every option and modifier type in use, plus every custom field.
6. Document customer groups and price lists, including who sees which price and any tax-exempt accounts.
7. Inventory apps and integrations. ERP, 3PL, marketplace feeds, email, reviews, search, analytics and anything in Script Manager. Give each one a Shopify replacement or a retirement decision.
8. Decide on history. How many years of orders do you need, and why? Customer service, reporting and returns have different needs.
9. Agree the freeze window for content and catalogue changes before launch.

How to migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify, step by step

1. Set up Shopify and the data model first

Create the store, then define metafields, metaobjects, collections and markets before importing. Importing into a store without its structure means doing it twice.

2. Choose your tools

For a simple catalogue, migration apps such as Cart2Cart and LitExtension connect to BigCommerce and copy common records. Matrixify imports prepared spreadsheets into Shopify and gives you more control over the mapping. For complex stores we use these where they fit and script the rest against the Shopify API. Our BigCommerce to Shopify migration service page sets out when an app is enough and when it isn't.

3. Import in the right order

Products first, then customers, then historical orders, so each order links to the right customer and variant. Shopify's own migration guidance recommends the same order.

4. Turn off notifications before importing orders

Staff who receive new-order notifications will get an email for every historical order you import. Switch those off and make sure imports don't send customer emails, capture payments or change stock.

5. Run a test import and reconcile

Import a representative sample: your most complex products, a B2B customer, refunded and partially refunded orders. Compare counts, totals and relationships against the BigCommerce baseline. Fix the mapping, then run it again.

6. Build the storefront and reconnect integrations

Rebuild the theme, reconnect the ERP, 3PL, feeds and email platform, and set up analytics and pixels. Test checkout, shipping, tax and payment end to end.

7. Rehearse the cutover

Do a full dress rehearsal: final delta import, redirects, DNS change and smoke tests, with a named owner for each step.

8. Launch and run the final delta

Import orders and customers created since the last sync, switch DNS, then watch checkout, redirects and Search Console closely for the first few weeks.

SEO: mapping BigCommerce URLs to Shopify

Shopify uses fixed URL prefixes. Products sit under /products/, collections under /collections/, pages under /pages/ and blog posts under /blogs/<blog-name>/. BigCommerce URLs are usually flatter, so almost every indexable URL changes.

Typical BigCommerce patterns and their Shopify destinations:

• Product: /blue-linen-shirt/ becomes /products/blue-linen-shirt. If your store uses a category-based product URL setting, products may sit under a category folder instead, such as /shirts/blue-linen-shirt/.
• Category: /shirts/ or /mens/shirts/ becomes /collections/shirts.
• Brand: /brands/acme/ becomes /collections/acme or a brand page.
• Blog post: /blog/how-to-choose-linen/ becomes /blogs/news/how-to-choose-linen.
• Web page: /shipping-returns/ becomes /pages/shipping-returns.

How to handle it:

1. Keep handles where you can. Use the same slug for the Shopify handle so redirects are one-to-one and easy to check.
2. Map every indexable URL, not just products. Category, brand and blog URLs often carry more search traffic than individual products.
3. Redirect to the closest match, never the homepage. A discontinued product should go to its collection.
4. Import redirects by CSV in Shopify's URL redirects admin. Stores outside Plus can have up to 100,000 redirects.
5. Know the rules. Shopify only redirects URLs that would otherwise return a 404, so a live page will override a redirect. You also can't redirect from fixed paths such as /products and /collections.
6. Test trailing slashes. BigCommerce URLs usually end in a slash. Spot-check a sample with and without it after import.
7. Carry the metadata. Move titles and meta descriptions into Shopify's SEO fields, and check canonicals and internal links in content.

After launch, submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch the coverage and 404 reports weekly. Rankings can move for a few weeks during any replatform. A clean redirect map keeps that short.

Apps and integrations that replace BigCommerce features

• Faceted search and filters: Shopify's free Search & Discovery app, or a search app such as Searchanise or Boost for large catalogues.
• Product modifiers and personalisation: Line-item properties in the theme, or a product options app.
• Customer groups and B2B pricing: Shopify B2B on Shopify Plus, which has its most complete B2B toolset, or a wholesale pricing app on other plans.
• Abandoned cart and email: Shopify Email or Klaviyo.
• Reviews: Judge.me, Yotpo or Okendo.
• Subscriptions: Shopify Subscriptions, Recharge, Skio or Loop.
• Multi-storefront: Shopify Markets for regions and languages, or Shopify Plus expansion stores for separate brands.
• Script Manager tags: Shopify customer events, app embeds or theme code.
• Workflow automation: Shopify Flow.

Pick the minimum. Every app you add is another bill, another script on the page and another thing to maintain.

Timeline and team

Most BigCommerce to Shopify migrations we run take 4 to 6 weeks. Larger catalogues, B2B requirements, a full redesign or complex ERP work push that out. A rough shape:

• Week 1: Discovery, crawl, data inventory and mapping decisions.
• Weeks 2 to 4: Store setup, test imports, storefront build and integrations.
• Week 5: User acceptance testing and cutover rehearsal.
• Week 6: Launch, final delta and monitoring.

On our side, that's a project lead, Shopify developers, someone owning data and SEO, and QA. On yours, you need a decision maker, someone who knows the catalogue, someone who owns operations and fulfilment, and whoever runs marketing and tracking. The migrations that slip are usually waiting on decisions, not code.

For larger or multi-market stores, a phased approach helps. Our MOD Lighting Shopify Plus migration ran in four checked phases with a gradual rollout.

Common BigCommerce migration mistakes

• Treating modifiers as variants. Turning every modifier into a variant multiplies SKUs and breaks stock. Decide which options carry stock and which are just inputs.
• Redirecting everything to the homepage. It throws away the relevance each old URL had built.
• Forgetting brand and blog URLs in the redirect map.
• Importing orders with notifications on. Your team gets an inbox full of old orders, or worse, customers do.
• Skipping reconciliation. If you don't compare counts and totals against BigCommerce, you find the gaps when a customer complains.
• No plan for customer accounts. Passwords don't move. Tell customers how to sign in before launch, not after.
• Leaving tracking until launch week. GA4, ad pixels and consent need testing before the DNS switch.