How to Transfer Your Shopify Store to WordPress in 2024: Step-by-Step Guide
As businesses grow, the limitations of platforms like Shopify often become apparent. Shopify is user-friendly and provides a great starting point for new online businesses, but it can fall short in terms of customization, flexibility, and scalability as your business needs evolve. Moving from Shopify to WordPress with WooCommerce offers a level of control that helps businesses scale their online presence more effectively.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover how to transfer your Shopify store to WordPress, detailing every step you need to take to ensure a smooth migration. WordPress, combined with the powerful WooCommerce plugin, gives you greater flexibility in design, control over your data, better SEO options, and limitless scalability.
If you’re ready to take the leap, Dellos specializes in CMS migration services, including moving from Shopify to WooCommerce, as well as migrations from Wix to WordPress, Webflow to WordPress, and Squarespace to WordPress.
1. Why Migrate from Shopify to WordPress?
Before diving into the migration process, it’s important to understand why businesses opt to transfer their Shopify store to WordPress.
a. Customization and Flexibility
Shopify, while easy to use, limits the customization options available to store owners. On WordPress, you can install thousands of themes, plugins, and custom code to create a completely unique storefront that aligns with your branding and specific business needs.
b. Full Ownership of Data
Shopify is a closed platform, meaning they host your website and own the infrastructure. On WordPress, you own your website and have full control over your data and hosting environment. This means you can optimize your website’s speed, performance, and SEO without platform restrictions.
c. Advanced SEO and Marketing
Shopify’s SEO capabilities are limited compared to the vast range of SEO tools available on WordPress. Plugins like Yoast SEO allow for complete control over meta descriptions, titles, image alt tags, and other critical SEO factors. WordPress also integrates with email marketing platforms, CRMs, and third-party tools with ease.
d. Lower Long-Term Costs
Though Shopify charges monthly fees, WordPress is free to use. The costs come from hosting and premium plugins, but in the long run, you can save more and have greater control over these expenditures by customizing your setup.
2. Preparing for the Migration
a. Choose a Hosting Provider
Before migrating, you’ll need a hosting provider for your WordPress website. Popular WordPress hosting providers include Bluehost, SiteGround, and WP Engine. These providers offer optimized environments for WordPress, meaning your WooCommerce store will run smoothly and load quickly.
b. Set Up WordPress and WooCommerce
Once you’ve chosen a host, install WordPress. Most hosting providers offer one-click WordPress installations to make the setup easy. After installing WordPress, install and activate the WooCommerce plugin to handle your store functionality.
3. Migrating Product Data from Shopify to WordPress
Migrating your product catalog from Shopify to WordPress is a critical step in the migration process.
a. Export Shopify Products
Shopify allows you to export your product data into a CSV file. Go to Shopify Admin > Products > Export, and choose the format and data you wish to export (All Products or selected data).
b. Import Products into WooCommerce
WooCommerce comes with a built-in CSV importer, making it easy to import the product data you exported from Shopify. Navigate to WooCommerce > Products > Import and upload your CSV file. During the import process, map the columns from your CSV file to WooCommerce fields such as product title, price, and SKU.
c. Migrating Product Variations and Images
Make sure to also migrate product variations, such as sizes, colors, and other attributes. You may need to manually re-add images, as Shopify doesn’t include image URLs in the CSV export. Plugins like WP All Import can help automate this process, but manual verification is recommended.
4. Migrating Customer Data and Order History
a. Export Customer and Order Data from Shopify
To maintain continuity with your customers, you’ll want to migrate your customer data and order history. Shopify lets you export customer data (email addresses, names, and purchase history) through the Admin dashboard. For order history, navigate to Orders > Export Orders.
b. Import Data into WooCommerce
WooCommerce provides plugins like Customer/Order CSV Import Suite to help import customer information and order history. This plugin allows you to map fields from your exported Shopify data into WooCommerce, ensuring a seamless transition without losing key information about your past customers.
5. Migrating Content: Pages, Blogs, and SEO
Shopify stores often have more than just products. Many stores feature blog content, About pages, and FAQs that are integral to the brand’s voice and SEO performance.
a. Manual Content Transfer
One way to transfer your content is by manually copying and pasting your Shopify page and blog content into WordPress. For smaller stores, this method works fine, though it can be time-consuming.
b. Using RSS Feeds to Migrate Blog Content
For larger blogs, use Shopify’s RSS feed to migrate blog posts to WordPress. Once you have the RSS feed URL, you can import it into WordPress using the built-in RSS importer.
c. Migrating SEO Metadata
You’ve likely invested time in optimizing your Shopify store’s SEO, so it’s essential to migrate your metadata (like meta titles, descriptions, and alt tags) to WordPress. While Shopify doesn’t allow you to export this data directly, you can use a plugin like Yoast SEO on WordPress to replicate your SEO settings.
6. Setting Up 301 Redirects
Migrating from Shopify to WordPress will likely change your URL structure. To preserve your search engine rankings and avoid broken links, set up 301 redirects from your old Shopify URLs to your new WordPress URLs.
a. Use a Redirection Plugin
The Redirection plugin allows you to easily set up 301 redirects on your WordPress site. This ensures that users and search engines are automatically redirected to the correct pages when they visit your old Shopify URLs.
b. Submit New Sitemap to Google
After setting up your new store, submit the updated sitemap to Google Search Console to notify search engines of the changes. This helps your new WordPress URLs get indexed quickly and avoid any temporary drops in SEO rankings.
7. Designing and Customizing Your WordPress Store
One of the greatest advantages of WooCommerce over Shopify is the design flexibility. You’re no longer limited by Shopify’s theme restrictions, and with WordPress, you can create a completely unique storefront.
a. Select a WooCommerce-Compatible Theme
Choose a responsive, WooCommerce-compatible theme from the WordPress repository or marketplaces like ThemeForest. Popular themes like Astra, OceanWP, or Divi allow you to easily customize your store’s layout and functionality.
b. Use Page Builders
WordPress page builders, such as Elementor and Beaver Builder, allow you to create custom layouts using drag-and-drop functionality. This makes it easy to build product pages, landing pages, and custom category pages that showcase your products.
8. Optimizing Website Performance
A fast, high-performing website is critical for eCommerce success. Unlike Shopify, where performance is managed for you, WordPress gives you complete control over site speed and performance.
a. Use a Caching Plugin
Install a caching plugin like WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache to speed up your website by reducing server load. Caching stores static versions of your website’s pages, leading to faster loading times for visitors.
b. Optimize Images
Large images can significantly slow down your store. Use image optimization plugins like Smush or ShortPixel to automatically compress and resize images without sacrificing quality.
c. Choose a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Using a CDN like Cloudflare helps deliver your website’s content quickly by storing copies of your site on servers around the world. This reduces latency and improves load times for users, no matter where they’re located.
9. Final Testing and Launch
Before launching your new WordPress store, conduct thorough testing to ensure everything works properly.
a. Test Payment Gateways
Make sure your payment gateways (like Stripe, PayPal, or Square) are correctly set up and working. Place test orders to ensure the checkout process functions smoothly.
b. Test Contact Forms
If your new store includes contact forms, test these to make sure they deliver inquiries correctly. Plugins like Contact Form 7 or WPForms are widely used for creating and managing forms.
c. Check for Broken Links
Use a broken link checker tool to ensure that all internal and external links work properly. This is especially important after setting up your 301 redirects from Shopify.
10. Post-Migration SEO and Performance Monitoring
Once your new WordPress store is live, use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your website’s performance. Pay close attention to metrics like bounce rate, page speed, and mobile usability. Regularly monitor for issues and continue to optimize your site’s SEO for better rankings.
Conclusion
Migrating from Shopify to WordPress with WooCommerce can be a game-changer for your eCommerce business. With greater control over customization, SEO, and scalability, WordPress offers a more flexible and powerful platform for online stores. Although the migration process can be complex, following a structured approach ensures that your products, customer data, and SEO efforts are successfully transferred.
At Dellos, we specialize in CMS migration services to help businesses transition from Shopify to WordPress, Wix to WooCommerce, and other platforms like Squarespace to WordPress and Webflow to WordPress. Our expert team ensures a seamless migration with minimal downtime so you can focus on growing your business.
Let us help you take your online store to the next level with a smooth and professional migration to WordPress!