Shopify to Magento Migration Checklist: Step-by-Step Guide with Benefits, Challenges, and Key Features

Growing brands often hit a “glass ceiling” with Shopify’s standardized environment. When your business needs complex B2B workflows, multi-store international management, or total ownership of your data, switching to Magento is the logical next step.

However, moving between these platforms is a major architectural shift. To ensure a seamless transition without losing SEO rankings or customer trust, many businesses leverage professional Magento 2 migration services.

This guide provides a detailed roadmap to help you navigate the benefits, challenges, and technical steps of the process.

Why Migrate? The Benefits

By 2026, the ecommerce landscape has shifted toward agentic commerce and hyper-personalization. Magento is uniquely built to handle these demands:

• Total ownership: unlike Shopify, where you "rent" your store, you own the Magento codebase. You have 100% control over hosting, security, and updates.

• Complex catalog management: Magento natively supports over 100,000 SKUs and complex product types (bundled, grouped, and configurable) that often slow down Shopify stores.

• Native B2B features: Magento includes built-in tools for negotiated pricing, corporate sub-accounts, and bulk ordering – features that usually require expensive third-party apps on Shopify.

• International expansion: you can manage dozens of localized stores with different currencies and languages from a single admin panel.

Key Challenges to Consider

Migration is a technical project that requires precision. So it demands:

• Data restructuring: Shopify uses a flat data model. Magento uses an EAV (Entity-Attribute-Value) structure. This makes manual data mapping complex.

• Higher technical barrier: Magento requires specialized PHP knowledge. You cannot DIY a Magento build as easily as a Shopify site.

• Infrastructure responsibility: you are responsible for PCI compliance, server uptime, and security patches (unless using Adobe Commerce Cloud).

• Initial investment: while Magento Open Source is free, the cost of hosting and expert development means a higher upfront investment.

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Key Features of Magento

With wide Magento capabilities, you have:

• Multi-store management: manage ten different international stores with unique currencies and languages from one admin panel

• Advanced SEO tools: edit your robots.txt, create custom URL rewrites, and manage canonical tags without needing extra apps

• Flexible API: the robust REST and GraphQL APIs allow seamless syncs with any ERP, CRM, or PIM system

• Hyvä Themes: a modern frontend toolset that helps Magento stores achieve 90+ Google PageSpeed scores

Step-by-Step Migration Checklist

1. Audit Your Shopify Store

Don't move "dirty" data. Use this time to declutter your digital assets.

• Data cleanup: delete old customer tags and discontinued products. Note that Shopify variants must be rebuilt as simple products grouped under a configurable product in Magento.

• Feature mapping: the majority of brands find that one Magento module can replace three or more Shopify apps. Document which functions are critical.

• SEO baseline: export your top-performing URLs. You must have a plan to protect the traffic on these pages.

2. Define Magento Requirements

Magento needs a high-performance environment to stay fast.

• Specialized hosting: avoid cheap shared hosting. Use dedicated hosting or bare-metal servers that offer environments optimized for Magento's PHP and MySQL needs. They should provide at least 8 vCPU and 16 GB RAM.

• Core configuration: install the latest version of Magento. Set your base currency, tax rules, and time zones before importing any data.

3. Recreate Theme and Design

You cannot copy-paste a Shopify design. You must rebuild it.

• Theme choice: you can choose traditional Luma theme, modern Hyvä frontend or PWA (Progressive Web Apps) for an app-like mobile experience

• Mobile-first UX: 77% of EU internet users now shop online. Use this chance to fix design flaws in your old store. Ensure the new buttons and menus are easy to use on small screens.

4. Rebuild Functions and Apps

Magento uses extensions instead of apps.

• Extension selection: find modules for additional features you need, like advanced search, loyalty programs, and reviews

• Custom development: if an extension doesn't fit your specific requirements, hire developers to build a custom module

5. Connect Integrations

Your store must talk to your other business tools.

• ERP/CRM sync: re-establish connections to your back-office systems. Magento’s API is more flexible than Shopify’s, allowing for real-time inventory and order updates.

• Logistics: configure live shipping rates from carriers like FedEx, UPS, or DHL.

• Payments: set up Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, etc. Ensure you enable Vault features so returning customers can save their cards securely.

6. Back Up Your Data

Crucial: Perform this step immediately before the data transfer.

• The final snapshot: a backup ensures you don't lose the last-minute orders that happened while you were building the new site.

• Scope: export your full database (orders, customers, products) and your media library (images and videos).

• Security: store this backup on a separate, secure server to prevent any data loss during the migration window.

7. Migrate Data and Content

This is where the actual move happens:

• Export products, customers, orders, coupons, and reviews

• Import them into Magento using CSV files or automated tools such as Cart2Cart

• Manually adjust complex product types or custom fields if required

• Transfer static pages and blog content with proper formatting

• Validate inventory, pricing, and customer segmentation accuracy

8. Map SEO and URLs

Don't let your search rankings drop to zero.

• URL mapping: Shopify uses /products/name, but Magento often uses /name.html. Create a spreadsheet to map every old link to a new one.

• 301 redirects: implement these redirects at the server level (using .htaccess or Nginx) so users and Google bots find the new pages instantly.

• Metadata: transfer meta titles, descriptions, canonical tags, and structured data.

• Sitemap: generate and submit a new XML sitemap via Google Search Console.

9. Testing & Quality Assurance (QA)

Never launch without a stress test.

• Functional testing: test navigation, filters, checkout flow, payment processing, and integrations

• Performance testing: run performance and load tests under simulated traffic

• Data integrity check: validate customer login, password reset, and order history visibility

10. Launch Preparation

The final steps to go live.

• Final data sync: run one last import to catch orders placed in the last hours

• Cache setup: turn on Varnish for page caching and Redis for session storage

• Go live: update your DNS settings to point your domain name to the new Magento server

Conclusion

Migrating from Shopify to Magento is a move toward total ownership of your brand's future. It replaces monthly app fees and platform restrictions with a scalable, high-performance asset. While the technical steps are detailed, the result is a store that can grow as fast as you need.