How to Migrate from Shopify to BigCommerce

Merchants outgrow Shopify for a handful of concrete reasons: they hit hard limits on product variants (Shopify caps you at 100 variants and 3 options per product), they get tired of paying Shopify's transaction fees on every sale unless they use Shopify Payments, or they need native B2B pricing, larger catalogs, and more built-in features without stacking paid apps. BigCommerce answers most of those pain points directly: up to 600 variant combinations, no platform transaction fees on any plan, and native features (faceted search, customer groups, multi-storefront) that would each be a separate Shopify app.

But a replatform is not a button you click. Shopify and BigCommerce structure data, URLs, and themes differently, so a careless migration can tank your organic traffic overnight and break the customer experience. This guide walks through what actually changes, what breaks, and the exact sequence to move from Shopify to BigCommerce while protecting the rankings and revenue you already have.

Why Businesses Move from Shopify to BigCommerce

The motivation matters because it shapes what you prioritize during the build. The most common drivers we see:

• Transaction fees. Shopify charges 0.5%-2% per order if you use a third-party gateway like Authorize.Net or PayPal instead of Shopify Payments. BigCommerce charges 0% platform fees on every plan and supports 65+ gateways natively.
• Variant and catalog limits. Shopify's 100-variant / 3-option ceiling is a dealbreaker for apparel, print, and configurable products. BigCommerce supports up to 600 variants and 250 options per product.
• Built-in features vs. app sprawl. Faceted (filtered) search, customer-group pricing, product ratings, and gift certificates are native in BigCommerce but require paid Shopify apps that add monthly cost and page-speed bloat.
• B2B and wholesale. BigCommerce's customer groups, price lists, and quote workflows are stronger out of the box for mixed B2C/B2B sellers.

What Changes and What Breaks

Understanding the gaps up front prevents nasty surprises on launch day. Here is what moves cleanly, what needs rebuilding, and what silently breaks.

• URL structure changes. This is the single biggest SEO risk. Shopify forces the /products/, /collections/, and /pages/ path prefixes. BigCommerce uses / for products by default (fully customizable) and /categories/ for category pages. Every indexed URL will differ, so a 301 redirect map is mandatory, not optional.
• Theme and design. Shopify themes are built in Liquid; BigCommerce uses Stencil with Handlebars templating. Your theme cannot transfer. You rebuild the design in a BigCommerce theme or hand it to a developer.
• Apps do not migrate. Every Shopify app (reviews, subscriptions, upsells, email) must be replaced with a BigCommerce equivalent or native feature. Reviews, wishlists, and loyalty data often need separate export/import.
• Checkout and customer passwords. Customer records transfer, but hashed passwords do not. Customers will need to reset passwords on first login.
• Blog content. Shopify blog posts don't export via the standard CSV. You migrate them via the API or by rebuilding in BigCommerce's blog, and the URL path changes from /blogs/news/ to /blog/.
• Discount codes, gift cards, and metafields generally need manual recreation or API scripting.

Step-by-Step: The Migration Process

Run the migration in a staging environment first. Never build directly against your live domain. A structured build like the one we use in our website migration services keeps the moving parts sequenced so nothing gets lost.

• 1. Audit and inventory. Export a full list of your Shopify URLs (products, collections, pages, blog posts) and pull your current top-performing pages from Google Search Console and Analytics. This becomes both your redirect map and your priority list.
• 2. Export your Shopify data. Use Shopify admin CSV exports for products, customers, and orders. For anything the CSV misses (metafields, blog posts, redirects, reviews), use the Shopify Admin API or a migration app like Cart2Cart or LiteXtend.
• 3. Set up BigCommerce. Start your BigCommerce trial, configure store settings, tax, shipping zones, and payment gateways. Choose and customize a Stencil theme to match your brand, or commission a custom build.
• 4. Import products and catalog. Import the product CSV into BigCommerce, then verify variants, images, SKUs, inventory, and category assignments. BigCommerce's category structure differs from Shopify collections, so rebuild collection logic as categories with the right nesting.
• 5. Recreate what doesn't transfer. Rebuild blog posts, discount codes, customer groups, and app-driven features (reviews, subscriptions) using BigCommerce native tools or replacement apps.
• 6. Build the 301 redirect map. Map every old Shopify URL to its new BigCommerce URL. BigCommerce has a built-in 301 redirect manager and supports bulk CSV import of redirects, which makes this far less painful than editing server files.
• 7. Test everything. Place test orders end to end, verify checkout, tax, shipping rates, email notifications, and mobile rendering. Crawl the staging site with Screaming Frog to catch broken links, missing meta tags, and orphaned pages.
• 8. DNS and launch. Point your domain to BigCommerce, deploy the redirects, and go live during a low-traffic window. Keep the Shopify store accessible briefly in case you need to reference data.

Preserving SEO and Rankings with 301 Redirects

Because every URL path changes between the two platforms, your redirect strategy is the difference between a smooth transition and a traffic collapse. A single missed high-value URL can drop a money page out of the index. Follow a disciplined approach documented in our 301 redirect map guide:

• Map one-to-one wherever possible. Point each old product URL to the exact new product, not a generic category or homepage. Bulk redirects to the homepage are treated as soft 404s by Google and pass no ranking equity.
• Use permanent 301s, never 302s. Only 301 (permanent) redirects consolidate link equity to the new URL.
• Preserve on-page SEO. Carry over title tags, meta descriptions, H1s, image alt text, and structured data. Import them from your Shopify export rather than retyping.
• Keep canonical tags and internal links clean. Update internal links to the new URLs so you aren't chaining redirects, which slows crawling and dilutes equity.
• Resubmit and monitor. Regenerate and submit your XML sitemap in Google Search Console, then watch Coverage and Performance reports for 404 spikes and indexing drops for at least 4-6 weeks.

Working through a full website migration SEO checklist before launch catches the redirect gaps, missing metadata, and analytics tracking that most DIY migrations overlook.

Design, Development, and Custom Work

Since the theme has to be rebuilt anyway, a replatform is the natural moment to modernize the storefront rather than clone the old one pixel for pixel. Many merchants pair the move with a website redesign to improve conversion, page speed, and mobile UX at the same time. BigCommerce's Stencil framework and its Open Checkout give developers meaningful control, and its robust REST and GraphQL APIs make headless builds and custom CRM and ERP integrations more accessible than Shopify's more locked-down checkout. If you sell B2B, integrate with an accounting or fulfillment system, or need custom pricing logic, plan the development work alongside the data migration rather than bolting it on afterward.

Realistic Timeline and Cost

Timelines depend almost entirely on catalog size and how much custom design and integration work is involved. Rough expectations:

• Small store (under ~200 products, off-the-shelf theme): 2-4 weeks.
• Mid-size store (a few thousand SKUs, light customization): 4-8 weeks.
• Large or B2B store (large catalog, custom theme, ERP/CRM integrations): 2-4 months.

On cost, BigCommerce plans run from roughly $39/month (Standard) up to $399/month (Pro), with Enterprise pricing quoted based on sales volume, plus revenue thresholds that force plan upgrades. Migration labor is where budgets vary most. At an $80/hour agency rate, a straightforward migration with redirect mapping and a themed storefront typically lands in the low-to-mid four figures, while a custom-designed store with integrations and data cleanup scales from there. The reliable way to avoid overspending is a clear scope up front: known catalog size, a finalized redirect map, and a fixed list of features to rebuild. That planning discipline is exactly what keeps a Shopify-to-BigCommerce move on schedule and your rankings intact.