WooCommerce to Shopify
WooCommerce to Shopify migration for Australian stores
If your WooCommerce store has turned into a pile of plugins, patches and hosting bills, Shopify gives you one supported platform, one bill and a checkout that Australian shoppers already trust. We move the catalogue, customers and order history, and we map every old URL so your Google rankings carry across.
Why brands leave WooCommerce
- Plugin sprawl. Ten or fifteen plugins from different authors means every update is a small gamble, and nobody owns the problem when checkout breaks.
- Hosting and security are yours to manage. Slow servers, expired PHP versions and patching fall on you or your developer.
- Peak-day performance. A sale on Black Friday or Boxing Day can push a shared host over, right when you want the traffic.
- Editing is fragile. Page builders layered on a WooCommerce theme tend to break when something updates.
- Payments and fraud tooling are stitched together. Shopify Payments, Afterpay, Zip and PayPal sit natively in one checkout.
What moves, and how
Products and variants
Titles, descriptions, SKUs, prices, weights, images and variants move cleanly by CSV or migration tool. Attribute-heavy variable products are mapped to Shopify options, and we flag any product with more than three option types before we start.
Collections
Product categories become Shopify collections. Manual categories become manual collections, and rule-based ones become automated collections using tags, type or price.
Customers
Names, emails, addresses, marketing consent and order counts move across. Passwords do not. Shopify cannot import WooCommerce password hashes, so customers get an account invite email on launch.
Order history
Past orders can be imported as historical records so customers and your team can look them up. They are records, not live orders, so you cannot refund or fulfil them inside Shopify.
Reviews
Product reviews are exported and imported into a reviews app such as Judge.me, with star ratings and dates preserved where the app supports it.
Gift cards and store credit
Outstanding balances are recreated as Shopify gift cards with the same value. We reconcile the total before and after so the liability matches.
Blog and pages
Posts and pages are exported and rebuilt in Shopify's blog and pages, with images re-hosted and internal links rewritten.
Subscriptions
WooCommerce Subscriptions does not transfer directly. Active subscribers need to be recreated in a Shopify subscription app, and some payment tokens may require customers to re-enter a card.
What changes in your URLs
WooCommerce usually builds product addresses as /product/product-name/ and category addresses as /product-category/category-name/. Shopify uses /products/product-name and /collections/collection-name, and you cannot change those prefixes. So nearly every product and category URL on your site changes.
That is fine, as long as each old address sends visitors and Google to the right new page with a permanent 301 redirect. We build that map from your sitemap, your Search Console data and a crawl of the live site, not from a guess. Shopify redirects work one path to one path, so we create them for every URL that matters.
| WooCommerce | Shopify |
|---|---|
| /product/linen-shirt/ | /products/linen-shirt |
| /product-category/shirts/ | /collections/shirts |
| /product-tag/summer/ | /collections/summer or a tagged collection |
| /shop/ | /collections/all |
| /blog/post-title/ | /blogs/news/post-title |
| /cart/ and /checkout/ | /cart and Shopify checkout |
What needs real work
Most of a WooCommerce migration is mechanical. The parts that need judgement are the ones that live in plugins.
- Shipping rules. Table-rate plugins and Australia Post plugins are replaced by Shopify shipping profiles and carrier rates. See our guide to Australia Post and StarTrack on Shopify.
- GST. Prices and tax settings need to match what you charge now. Our GST setup guide covers how Shopify handles tax-inclusive pricing.
- SEO plugin data. Yoast or Rank Math titles and meta descriptions are exported and loaded into Shopify's SEO fields so you do not lose tuned snippets.
- Custom fields. Advanced Custom Fields data becomes Shopify metafields, and we design the theme to show them.
- Email. Klaviyo or Mailchimp connections are rebuilt, and abandoned cart and welcome flows are tested before launch.
How the migration runs
Step 1
Audit
We crawl your site, pull your top landing pages from Search Console, list your plugins and decide what each one becomes in Shopify.
Step 2
Build and import
We build the Shopify theme, import the catalogue, customers and orders to a staging store and compare counts line by line.
Step 3
Redirect map and test
We build the 301 map, test checkout with Afterpay, Zip and PayPal, and run a mobile speed check.
Step 4
Launch and monitor
We switch the domain, submit the new sitemap and watch Search Console for crawl errors and ranking changes for the following weeks.
Migration is included in our Custom package ($18,500 ex GST) and quoted within Plus for larger or more complex stores. See pricing or the Shopify migration service for what is covered.
Protecting your Google rankings
- Step 1Crawl the live WooCommerce site and export every indexable URL, then cross-check against Search Console so the redirect map covers the pages that earn clicks first.
- Step 2301 redirect /product/ addresses to /products/ and /product-category/ addresses to /collections/, one path to one path, with no redirect chains.
- Step 3Check WordPress permalink settings, since a custom shop base or category base changes the patterns above.
- Step 4Handle paginated, filtered and tag URLs (such as ?orderby= or /page/2/) deliberately: redirect the useful ones, let junk parameters drop.
- Step 5Carry over page titles, meta descriptions and image alt text from Yoast or Rank Math into Shopify's SEO fields.
- Step 6Keep the same domain, submit the new sitemap in Search Console, and monitor crawl errors and 404s after launch.
When to stay on WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the right home if your store is really a content site with a shop attached. If WordPress drives most of your traffic through long-form editorial, memberships or courses, and your developer knows the stack well, moving may cost more than it returns. The same goes for heavily customised product logic, such as complex bundle pricing or booking rules built as bespoke plugins. Shopify can usually replicate these, but sometimes only with an app subscription or custom development, so the saving is smaller than it looks. If your store turns over modestly, runs cleanly and your team is happy, leave it alone. We will tell you this on the first call. Our comparison of Shopify and WooCommerce in Australia sets out the trade-offs plainly.
WooCommerce to Shopify: common questions
Will I lose my Google rankings moving from WooCommerce to Shopify?
Rankings usually wobble for a few weeks after any platform change. A complete 301 redirect map, carried-over titles and descriptions and a clean sitemap keep that wobble small. We monitor Search Console after launch and fix any missed URLs quickly.
Can my customers log in with their old passwords?
No. Shopify cannot import password hashes from WooCommerce. Customer records move across, and each customer gets an account invite email to set a new password. Shopify's checkout also works without an account, so nobody is locked out of buying.
Do I keep my order history?
Yes, as imported historical records. They show in the customer's profile and your admin, but they are not live orders, so refunds on old orders are handled outside Shopify.
What happens to my WooCommerce subscriptions?
They need to be rebuilt in a Shopify subscription app. Card tokens depend on your payment gateway, and in some cases customers have to re-enter payment details. We plan this early because it is the riskiest part for subscription stores.
Can I keep my WordPress blog?
Yes. Some stores keep WordPress for content on a subdomain or subfolder and move only the shop. Others move the blog into Shopify to keep everything in one place. We will tell you which suits your traffic.
How long does a WooCommerce migration take?
3 to 8 weeks depending on catalogue size, the number of plugins to replace and how much custom design you want. A straightforward catalogue on a premium theme sits at the short end.
Further reading
Comparison8 min read
Shopify vs WooCommerce for Australian stores
WooCommerce is free software you host yourself. Shopify is a hosted service you rent. Which one suits an Australian store depends less on features and more on who you want looking after the machinery.
Checklist9 min read
The Shopify migration checklist: from old platform to launch day
A migration goes well when the boring work is done early: a complete URL list, a redirect map, clean data and a test plan. Here is the order we follow.
Guide9 min read
Shopify SEO for Australian stores: a practical checklist
Shopify gives you a decent technical base. The rankings come from how you structure collections, write product pages and fix the handful of quirks every Shopify store has.
Ready to leave WooCommerce?
Send us your store address. We'll crawl it, count what needs to move, and come back with a fixed quote and a date.