How to Migrate to WooCommerce from Another Platform
Before You Start: Migration Planning
A successful migration requires planning before you touch any data. First, inventory everything you need to move: products (including images, descriptions, variants, and categories), customer accounts and addresses, order history (important for customer service and accounting), blog posts and pages, and any custom URL structures or redirects on your current platform. Second, decide what to improve during migration rather than replicating exactly. If your current product descriptions are thin, write better ones as you migrate rather than importing the same weak content. If your category structure is disorganized, redesign it before importing.
Third, set up your WooCommerce store completely before migrating data. Install WordPress and WooCommerce, choose and configure your theme, install essential plugins (SEO, security, caching, backup), and configure payment gateways, shipping, and tax settings. You want the store infrastructure ready so that imported data lands in a functioning store. See our WooCommerce setup guide for the complete installation process.
Step-by-Step Migration
From Shopify: Go to Settings, then Data and Privacy in your Shopify admin to request a full data export (delivered as CSV files for products, customers, and orders). You can also export products directly from Products, then Export. Shopify's product CSV includes title, description, vendor, type, tags, variant information, prices, inventory, and image URLs. From BigCommerce: Use the built-in export under Products, then Export for products, and Customers, then Export for customer data. BigCommerce provides well-structured CSVs. From Magento: Use the native Data Transfer tools under System, then Export for products and customers, or use the Magento REST API for order data. From Squarespace: Products export as CSV from the commerce panel. Blog posts export as WordPress XML, which imports directly into WordPress.
For the smoothest migration, use a dedicated migration plugin rather than trying to manually format CSV files for WooCommerce's importer. Cart2Cart ($69 starting, price based on data volume) is the most widely used automated migration service. It connects to your source platform's API, maps data fields to WooCommerce, migrates products, categories, customers, orders, and reviews, and preserves relationships between products and categories. Cart2Cart offers a free demo migration of up to 10 products so you can verify the results before paying. LitExtension ($69 starting) provides a similar automated service with support for 85+ source platforms. Both services handle product images by downloading them from your old platform and uploading them to your WooCommerce media library. For smaller stores (under 100 products), WooCommerce's built-in CSV importer (Products, then Import) works well. Format your source data to match WooCommerce's CSV structure (download a sample export from WooCommerce to see the expected column headers).
After import, check a representative sample of products: open 10 to 20 products across different categories and verify that titles, descriptions, images, prices, variants, and inventory counts imported correctly. Check that product categories and tags mapped to the correct WooCommerce categories. Verify that customer accounts imported with correct email addresses and order history. Look for common migration issues: duplicate products (some tools create duplicates if run twice), missing images (check that all product images loaded and display correctly), incorrect variant prices (variable products are the most common migration data error), and broken HTML in product descriptions (formatting from the source platform may not translate cleanly).
This is the most important step for maintaining your search rankings. Every URL on your old platform needs to redirect to its equivalent on WooCommerce. Shopify uses URLs like /products/product-name and /collections/category-name. WooCommerce uses /product/product-name and /product-category/category-name by default (configurable in permalink settings). Create a redirect map in a spreadsheet: old URL in one column, new URL in the other. Install the Redirection plugin (free) or use your SEO plugin's redirect manager (RankMath includes one) and add every redirect. For stores with hundreds of products, bulk import redirects from a CSV file. Test a sample of redirects by entering old URLs in your browser and verifying they reach the correct new pages. Google Search Console will show 404 errors for any old URLs you missed, so monitor it for 2 to 4 weeks after migration and add redirects for any stragglers.
Set up the operational features that your old platform handled. Payment gateways (connect Stripe, PayPal, and any other processors you used). Shipping zones and rates (recreate your shipping configuration, or improve it). Tax settings (configure automated tax calculation or manual rates). Email notifications (brand your transactional emails and set up SMTP delivery). Install and configure any additional plugins that replace features from your old platform (abandoned cart recovery, reviews, loyalty programs, etc.).
Test the entire customer experience on your new WooCommerce store before switching your domain. Browse products, add to cart, complete checkout (in test mode), verify order confirmation emails, check the My Account page, and test on both desktop and mobile. When everything works, switch your domain. If your WooCommerce store is on the same domain as your old store (which it should be for SEO preservation), update your domain's DNS records to point to your WooCommerce hosting server. DNS propagation takes 1 to 48 hours, though most visitors will reach the new site within a few hours. During propagation, some visitors may see the old site and some the new site, so keep your old store active (in read-only mode if possible) until propagation completes. After going live, submit your updated sitemap to Google Search Console and monitor for crawl errors.
Platform-Specific Migration Notes
From Shopify: Shopify does not export customer passwords, so all migrated customers will need to reset their passwords on their first login to your WooCommerce store. Send a bulk email notification before migration explaining the switch and providing a password reset link. Shopify blog posts export as HTML that can be pasted into WordPress posts, but images will need to be re-uploaded.
From Magento: Magento migrations are the most complex because Magento's data model supports features (configurable products, attribute sets, multi-store configurations) that map differently in WooCommerce. Budget extra time for variable product mapping and custom attribute migration. For large Magento stores (5,000+ products), consider hiring a WooCommerce migration specialist rather than attempting it with automated tools.
From Squarespace: Squarespace's product data is relatively simple and migrates cleanly. The main challenge is design: Squarespace stores often rely on Squarespace's proprietary design system, so your WooCommerce store will look different even with a premium theme. Plan for design customization time after migration.