Moving client stores from Shopify to your own platform: a migration plan

Moving one shop off Shopify is a project. Moving ten for your clients is a process. This plan shows agencies how to migrate Shopify stores in order, what comes across automatically, and what to check before the domain switches.

Agencies usually decide to move clients off Shopify for business reasons: they want their own brand in front of the client, their own monthly price, and one platform for everyone. We compare those reasons in Shopify Partner Program vs a white-label platform. This article is about the next step: how to migrate Shopify stores for your clients without losing products, sales or trust.

It is part of our series on platforms for client stores; the overview is the best ecommerce platform for agencies. The steps use DripFunnel as the destination, but the order works for any platform.

Step 1: Decide who moves first

Don’t move every client in one month. List your Shopify clients and score each one:

• Size: how many products and versions, and how many orders a week.
• Payments: which payment methods the shop uses, and whether the new platform supports them in the client’s country.
• Apps: which apps the shop depends on. Our guide to Shopify app costs includes an audit sheet you can reuse.
• Domain: where the client’s domain was bought, and who can sign in there.
• Contract: when the client’s Shopify plan renews. Shopify has a strict no-refund policy on subscriptions, so time the switch near a renewal.

Start with two or three simple shops. You will learn more from them than from any plan, and you’ll have a tested checklist before the busy clients move.

Talk to each client before you start. Explain what moves, what changes for their customers, and the date their domain switches. A migration the client didn’t expect feels like a problem, even when it goes well.

Step 2: Export everything from Shopify

Before you touch the new store, take a full copy of the old one. Shopify’s help centre explains how to export products, customers and orders as CSV files from the admin. Large exports are emailed to you and to the store owner.

• Products: Shopify notes that the images aren’t included in the CSV file. They are fetched from the live store during an import, so keep the Shopify store online until the new store has its photos.
• Customers: names, emails, addresses, marketing consent and tags. Passwords don’t come across, so customers sign in afresh on the new shop.
• Orders: the full order history, for the client’s records and their accountant.

Save the files in the client’s folder with the date. If the client bought a theme, Shopify suggests downloading a backup too.

Step 3: Create the client’s new store

In DripFunnel’s partner console, open Stores and create a store for the client: store name, owner’s name and email, country, the plan you’ve chosen and a trial if you want one. The owner gets an invitation to set their password, and a tracker shows the store being set up. See Look after your stores.

The client owns their store and its data. You see the account, plan and figures; to work inside the store, ask the client to invite you as a member of their team.

Step 4: Bring the products across

DripFunnel can connect to the client’s Shopify store with read-only access and copy their products, depending on the plan. The store owner approves the connection in Shopify, picks products (up to 250 by hand, or all of them), checks the result and imports. Full steps: Bring your products from Shopify. Shopify’s own product CSV also works with the spreadsheet import.

Products are matched by product code, so you can import in several goes and update what is already there. Customers and orders don’t come across: the client keeps the exported files, and new customers create accounts as they buy.

Step 5: Build the storefront, payments and delivery

• Storefront: the store owner describes the shop in plain words (you can write the description together) and the AI designs the homepage, pages, menus and product pages. Preview on desktop, tablet and phone before you publish, and go back to an earlier version if needed. See Describe a change to your storefront.
• Collections and search details: recreate the collections and the most important search titles from your export.
• Offers: rebuild any discount codes the client still uses.
• Payments: connect the client’s own payment account. Today that is Razorpay, Cashfree, PhonePe, cash on delivery or bank transfer in India, and Stripe, PayPal or bank transfer in the United States. Payments for UAE shops are not available yet, so leave UAE clients on Shopify for now. See Connect a payment method.
• Delivery and tax: set delivery charges and couriers, and check the tax settings.

Step 6: Test, then switch the domain

Place a real test order, from cart to payment to the confirmation email, and refund it. Check the bestsellers on a phone. Then switch the domain:

1. If the domain was bought through Shopify, the store owner transfers it to a domain provider first. Shopify says to transfer it before deactivating the store. Domains such as .com can’t move until 60 days after they were bought or last transferred, and a transfer can take up to 7 days, so start early.
2. Connect the domain to the new store by adding the two records DripFunnel shows. The secure certificate is set up automatically. See Connect your own domain.
3. Protect search traffic: list the client’s most-visited Shopify addresses before the switch. Talk to us about the old product addresses before you switch.

Step 7: Close the Shopify store properly

Only close the old store when the new one has taken real orders for a week or two. Shopify’s help centre lists what to do before deactivating: export your data, back up purchased themes, deal with the domain, and cancel any apps billed outside Shopify. On deactivation, apps are uninstalled and pending charges, such as app usage and transaction fees, are charged. Shopify keeps the store’s information for 2 years.

One business point: if you earned a Shopify revenue share on that store, it ends, because it is calculated on the fees the merchant pays Shopify. Your income now comes from your own monthly price. See agency margin maths to price it well.

Running many migrations at once

Once a few stores have moved, the work becomes routine. Keep one checklist per client, a shared folder for exports, and a fixed switch day each week. In the partner console, the store list shows every client’s plan, status and domain in one place, which makes it easy to see who is done; read how to run dozens of client stores from one console. If some clients are on WooCommerce too, the steps are in moving a client off WooCommerce, and why agencies standardise on one platform explains the case for putting everyone on one.

DripFunnel’s white-label partner programme gives you the portal, plans and console under your own brand, and more than 75 partners across the globe already use it. Compare the platforms on DripFunnel vs Shopify, and talk to us about becoming a partner before your first client moves.

Questions