How to migrate from Magento to Shopify in 5 steps in 2023? Complete guide

Magento and Shopify are among the most popular CMS (Content Management Systems). However, more and more companies are migrating from Magento to Shopify for a variety of reasons, including ease of use, cost, security and customer support. In this comprehensive guide, we'll show you how to switch from Magento to Shopify in just 5 steps.

We'll also look at why you might want to consider migration, what data you can and can't move, and the costs involved.

What is Magento?

Introduced in 2008, Magento is an open source e-commerce site renowned for its flexibility, advanced features and dynamic developer community. Whether designing a small shop or a large-scale e-commerce enterprise, Magento offers a powerful, scalable solution to meet every requirement. In 2018, Adobe acquired Magento, giving birth to a new name: Adobe Commerce.

What is Shopify?

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Founded in Canada in 2006, Shopify has established itself as a leading e-commerce player, attracting thousands of businesses who have chosen this infrastructure to sell their products online. Thanks to its dazzling success, this CMS is now recognized as one of the most popular and influential e-commerce platforms worldwide.

If you'd like to find out more about these two tools and know when to use CMS rather than the other, we've written a comprehensive comparison on the subject.

Why migrate from Magento to Shopify?

• Ease of use: Shopify is renowned for its ease of use, with a user-friendly interface and simplified navigation. It also offers attractive, pre-built design templates, making it easy to create an aesthetically pleasing website.

• Pricing: Shopify offers a range of pricing plans, starting at €5 per month, which can be more affordable than Magento, especially if you're using the Adobe Commerce Pro version of Magento, which can cost from $22,000 to $125,000 per year.

• Templates: Shopify offers a wide selection of templates (74 in total), giving you more choice than Magento, which only offers 15.

• Extensions and applications: Shopify offers over 8,000 applications via its App Store, which is more than the 5,700 extensions offered by Magento.

• Security: Shopify is a hosted CMS, which means it is responsible for the security of the underlying infrastructure and security updates. The CMS also uses advanced security measures to protect its users' websites.

• SEO: Shopify has many built-in features and offers over 200 applications to improve SEO.

• Payment methods: It offers an integrated payment solution called Shopify Payments and is compatible with a multitude of third-party payment gateways. Shopify also offers in-person sales.

• Customer support: Shopify offers comprehensive customer support, with 24/7 assistance via live chat, e-mail and telephone. They also have a dedicated help center with support articles and videos, as well as a merchant community where you can chat and share experiences.

If you'd like to delve deeper into the subject, find out more about the advantages and disadvantages of the two CMS.

What data can be migrated?

Here is a table summarizing the data you can transfer from Magento to Shopify:

What data can't be migrated?

• Collections and product categories
• Blogs and page content
• Discounts
• Customer passwords

Since your users' passwords cannot be imported directly into Shopify because they are encrypted. You need to invite your existing users to reactivate their account via e-mail and choose a new password, or you can use a third-party application available on the CMS App Store.

How to migrate from Magento to Shopify in 5 steps?

Step 1: Create a Shopify account

Registration

Registration is a quick and easy process. To get started, go to the website and click on "Get started" or "Try for free". You'll then need to create an account. Next, answer a few questions about your business and goals to customize Shopify's services to your needs. Choose a domain name for your store, select the plan that suits you best, and configure payment options for your online site.

Here are the 5 plans available for Shopify : 

• Shopify Starter: €5 per month
• Basic Shopify: €36 per month
• Shopify: €105 per month
• Advanced Shopify: €399 per month
• Shopify Plus : Variable price

For more details on the plans, please see our comparison.
What's more, the first 3 months cost just €1/month.

Customize your home page

Once you've entered the basic information, you can start customizing your theme. Once you've chosen your template from the 74 on offer, you can add the sections required to create the look and feel you want for your store.

Add new pages

Once you've created and customized your home page, it's time to add other pages to your website. For each of these pages, make sure you fill in the required fields, add your content, insert relevant multimedia files such as videos and images, and include any necessary links.

Step 2: Backup your Magento site

To make a backup of your Magento site, follow these steps:

1. Access your Magento administration dashboard by logging into your account.

2. In the top menu, click on "System", then select "Backups".

3. On the save page, you can select the items to be saved.

Here are the 3 types of backups:

System Backup: This option backs up the entire system, including your source code and database.

Database and Media Backup: This option will synchronize the contents of the database and media folder only. Other elements, such as store themes, will not be included in this backup.

Database Backup: This option backs up your shop's database only.

4. Finally, select the items you wish to save, then click on the "Create backup" button at the bottom of the page.

An important point:

During this backup, your site will be automatically put into maintenance.

In this way, you should inform your visitors of the maintenance in progress on the website. Maintenance mode will be deactivated automatically when the backup process is complete.

Step 3: Export your data from Magento

To export data to Magento, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Magento administration dashboard.
2. In the top menu, click on "System", then select "Data export".
3. On the data export page, you can choose the type of data you wish to export, such as items, users, orders, etc.

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4. Select specific criteria for your export, such as "Entity Type" and "Export file format". We recommend CSV format for manual import into Shopify.
5. Finally, click on the "Export" button to start the export process.

Important to know:

If you wish to export products, the main user file and user addresses, you'll need to repeat the process for each of them. Once you've completed this step, you'll now have your data in a table that's easy to use, making the overall migration effortless and hassle-free.

Step 4: Import your data into Shopify

There are 3 ways to import your data onto the platform.

Manual import

For a manual import, take the CSV file previously downloaded from Magento and here are a few recommendations before importing the CSV:

• Your CSV file must not exceed 15 MB.
• You can't export your images to a CSV file, so you need to export your image URLs instead.
• To obtain the URLs of your images, go to Shopify administration > Settings > Files > upload your images and retrieve the image URLs in the Link column.

Now follow these instructions for a simple, trouble-free import:

1. Log in to your account and access your administration dashboard.
2. Click on "All products" in the left-hand menu, then select "Import".

3. On the product import page, select the type of data you wish to import, such as products, users, orders, etc.
4. Download the data file you wish to import.
5. Check and match the columns in the data file with the corresponding fields in Shopify.
6. Click on the "Go online and continue" button to start the import process.
7. Once the import is complete, you'll receive a report indicating the status of the import and any errors that may have occurred.

Import by an agency

A specialized agency has in-depth expertise in website migration, which will help you save precious time and limit potential errors following the migration of your store. After all, this is a complex and time-consuming task, especially if you have no experience in this field.

By entrusting this task to a competent agency, you'll be able to concentrate on developing your core business, while the agency takes care of all the technical aspects of the migration.

Once the migration is complete, the agency can also help you optimize your site to increase your visibility and improve your conversion rate. Thanks to effective SEO and digital marketing techniques, you'll be able to achieve your sales and growth objectives.

At Alegria.solutions, we have extensive experience in migration management, so don't hesitate to contact us for professional, personalized assistance.

Import with extensions

BedExtension

LitExtension is an automated and secure solution, offering seamless migration in just a few simple steps for users.

However, it's important to note that some essential features may incur additional costs. These include transferring images, migrating category and product URLs, and creating 301 redirects after migration.

That's why it's essential to assess your specific needs and take these costs into account when making the decision to migrate your online store.

Cart2Cart

Cart2Cart is a migration extension that facilitates the transfer of all data, including items, users, orders, categories and images, fully automatically. And the cost of migration starts at €29 and can increase considerably depending on the number of items, users and orders to be transferred.

Matrixify

Finally, there are also applications on Shopify for migrating from Magento to the new platform. We recommend using Matrixify, and you'll find all the steps you need to take to complete your migration on their site.

Step 5: Post-migration checklist

Here is a checklist to follow after migration:

1. Check data: Ensure that all data has been correctly migrated, including products, users, orders, categories, images, etc.

2. Test features: Review all the features of your online store to make sure they're working properly.

3. Check links: Check all internal and external links to make sure they point to the right pages and are working properly.

4. Optimize for SEO: Check meta tags, descriptions and URLs to make sure they're optimized for SEO.

5. Configure payment and shipping options: Check that your payment and shipping options are correctly configured to enable your users to place orders without problems.

6. Test orders: Place test orders to ensure that the ordering process is working properly.

7. Update redirect links: It's crucial to check all the URLs on your new site and set up 301 redirects for any pages on your old Magento site whose address has changed. This will ensure that visitors accessing your old site will be automatically redirected to the corresponding pages on your new Shopify site.

8. Check notification e-mails: Check that notification e-mails for users, such as order confirmations and shipping notifications, are correctly configured and sent.

9. Performance testing: Run performance tests to ensure that your online store loads quickly and smoothly.

Magento to Shopify migration: how much does it cost?

The cost of migration can vary considerably, depending on a number of factors.

• Store size: The larger and more complex your online store, the more expensive the migration process will be. This includes the number of items, users and orders.

• Customization: If your Magento store is highly customized, it may be necessary to recreate these customizations on Shopify. This may require hiring specialized developers, which can increase the cost.

• Integrations and extensions: If you're using Magento-specific extensions, you may need to find Shopify-compatible alternatives or develop custom solutions.

• SEO: Migration can affect your SEO. So it's important to plan an SEO-focused migration strategy to minimize the impact on your search engine rankings.

• Training and support: There may be costs associated with training your team to use the new software, as well as technical support during the transition period.

Taking all these factors into account, the cost of a Magento to Shopify migration can vary from a few thousand to €80,000. If you want to save money, you can buy a pre-designed theme that will cost you between €100 and €350, or a free template may suffice depending on the needs and complexity of the site.

We recommend consulting an e-commerce migration expert or agency for an accurate estimate.

Our methodology at Alegria.group

At Alegria.solutions, we have implemented a 5-step methodology for a smooth migration:

Step 1: Planning

All project tasks are evaluated and prioritized according to their value to the company. You let us know your requirements and the desired outcome, and we propose a detailed plan with a list of tasks and their deadlines.

Step 2: Migrating data from Magento to Shopify

At this point, we transfer your database and export the data from Magento to Shopify. There's no need to worry about data security - we use an approved migration application to rule out any possible errors or problems.

Step 3: Feature implementation

All the features you're used to on Magento will be migrated to the new platform. We'll also transfer any custom features that are important both for the smooth running of the store and for the convenience of your users.

Step 4: Customize design and theme

Together, we can choose the most suitable design from the ready-to-use templates, or develop a new design from scratch. In both cases, the UX and UI will be adapted to the needs of your online store.

Step 5: Quality assurance and performance testing

Our Quality Assurance (QA) specialists carefully test all site functionalities. Particular attention is paid to site performance and speed to ensure that your site's speed and performance are optimal.

Conclusion

Migrating from Magento to Shopify may seem like a daunting task, but by following our advice, it can be achieved without any nasty surprises. Whether you choose to do it yourself, hire a specialized agency or use an extension, it's essential to plan and test your new site carefully before launching it. 

At Alegria.solutions, we have extensive experience in migration management and would be delighted to help you make your migration a success.