Most WooCommerce → Shopify migration guides skip the parts that actually break in production. This one doesn't.
We cover the WC REST API quirks, how to map variable products to Shopify variants, the metafield strategy for ACF + post meta, the 301 redirect plan, and how to QA the migration before DNS flip.
1. Inventory your data
Use the WC REST API to count products, variants, customers, orders and coupons. This number becomes your reconciliation target on the Shopify side.
2. Map taxonomy
Categories become Shopify collections. Decide manual vs smart per category — smart collections need consistent product tags.
3. Migrate, idempotently
Every entity should carry (source_id, target_id, hash) so re-runs skip unchanged items and only retry failures.
4. Redirects
For every old URL, write a 301 to its Shopify equivalent. Push to Shopify URL Redirects via urlRedirectCreate. This is the single most common reason migrations lose SEO.
5. QA before DNS
Spin up a staging Shopify dev store, do a full migration, walk the checkout, place an order, run Lighthouse, run Search Console URL Inspection on a sample of old → new URLs.
We do all of the above for clients on a fixed-price quote, and our self-serve tool runs the same pipeline.