Overview: Steps of the Migration Process

Moving a store from WooCommerce to Shopify can take weeks or longer, depending on the requirements and stakeholders.

Ablestar WooCommerce Importer allows you to use unlimited re-imports, delete previously imported items, and export CSV summaries of your imported products.

While each store is unique, generally, the migration process will include the following steps:

• Initial product import
• Initial orders/customers import
• Theme, content, design and product updates
• Create URL redirects
• Create activation links for new passwords
• Point your old domain to Shopify

1. Configure API Settings

Before the migration process can begin, you have to configure some settings:

1. Create CS and CK keys: From your WooCommerce dashboard, create the required keys and save them somewhere safe for a future procedure.
2. Add keys to dashboard: Return to Ablestar WooCommerce Import dashboard and enter the keys and WooCommerce site address into the migration widget:

3. Click Begin migration to import the first 20 products
4. A download / processing view will appear while the app starts processing the products currently on your WooCommerce store. Allow the process to continue or click to Cancel at any time

2. Start Product Migration

Once processing is finished, the 'Manage import' view will reflect the number of WooCommerce products detected and prompt you to upgrade if you have more than (20) products:

Click the Import All Products button if you choose to continue.

Once the product import is complete, you have the option to download a CSV summary of the import.

3. Import Orders and Customers

Once the products are imported to Shopify, you can import customers and orders. Depending on the number of orders you have, this might take a while as the app needs to retrieve each order from the WooCommerce API and upload it to Shopify.

Fortunately, this process can run in the background, so you can work on other things while the data is loading.

4. Modify Theme and Add Content

This step usually takes the longest, and is where you will set up your theme, design preferences, add additional content, and make modifications to your products.

5. Import the Latest Products and Orders

Now that your Shopify site and theme are updated, we need to pull in the latest data from WooCommerce.

If any products have been added to your WooCommerce store since the initial migration, you can specify to only import new products to your store.

You also have the option to import only new customers and new orders to your store. If you re-run the import for customers and/or orders, it will not create duplicates; it will just update existing items.

6. Create URL Redirects

Now that you have all your products in Shopify, you could create URL redirects for your old store.

Shopify redirects previous URLs by processing the route path of the URL (not the actual domain name), so you can create the redirects before you point your domain to Shopify.

7. Send Activation Links

Since your customers were previously using diffierent login information, you will need to send them new activation links to set new passwords for the new site.

You can generate a CSV of the activation links and then use your email marketing provider to send them out. The activation links are only valid for seven days, so plan to take this step close to the launch date for your store.

8. Point your Domain to Shopify

Once the site is ready to launch, you are ready to point your existing domain to Shopify

It may take several hours for the domain to transfer, so we recommend doing this during a slow period.

Tips and Troubleshooting ✅

• See why most store owners import both orders and customers together.
• Learn how to import orders only in the case that some orders have come in after migration and you need to import orders after a specific date.