Augustijn Snoep

Shopify Migration Checklist: Data, SEO & Launch

shopifymigrationchecklist

A Shopify migration is not complete when the new storefront looks right. Products need to be accurate, integrations need to recover from errors, redirects need to work and the team needs to know how to operate the new setup.

Use this checklist to identify the work before committing to a launch date.

1. Discovery and scope

  • Define the commercial goals of the migration.
  • Inventory storefront templates and custom functionality.
  • Document markets, languages, currencies and domains.
  • Identify B2C and B2B requirements.
  • List all apps, integrations and external systems.
  • Separate launch-critical requirements from phase-two improvements.
  • Assign an owner to every major data source and business process.

2. Platform architecture

  • Select the appropriate Shopify plan.
  • Define the product, variant, collection, metafield and metaobject model.
  • Decide which system owns products, pricing, inventory, customers and orders.
  • Determine whether native Shopify features, apps or custom development will be used.
  • Document API limits, automation and failure-handling requirements.
  • Confirm the environments and release workflow.

If these decisions are still unclear, a focused Shopify consulting engagement should happen before implementation.

3. Product and content migration

  • Export representative source data before building the complete importer.
  • Map categories to Shopify collections.
  • Map product attributes to options, metafields and metaobjects.
  • Validate handles, SKUs, barcodes, prices and inventory identifiers.
  • Preserve image quality and useful alt text.
  • Migrate pages, articles and relevant metadata.
  • Decide how translations will be managed.
  • Record rejected or incomplete records instead of silently skipping them.

4. Customers and orders

  • Map customer profiles and addresses.
  • Preserve marketing consent accurately.
  • Decide how account activation will work.
  • Determine how much order history needs to be available in Shopify.
  • Validate tax-exempt and B2B customer data.
  • Document how customer service can access legacy records.

5. Integrations

  • List inbound and outbound data flows.
  • Define the source of truth for each field.
  • Map identifiers between Shopify and external systems.
  • Implement authentication and secret management.
  • Add retry behaviour, logging and alerts.
  • Test duplicate, delayed and out-of-order events.
  • Define who responds when an integration fails after launch.

For more detail, see my approach to custom Shopify integrations.

6. Storefront and checkout

  • Build reusable sections and templates.
  • Validate navigation, search and filtering.
  • Test variants, selling plans and product availability.
  • Check cart behaviour, discounts, shipping and taxes.
  • Configure payment methods.
  • Test customer accounts and order communications.
  • Check accessibility and mobile behaviour.
  • Measure Core Web Vitals using realistic content and apps.

7. SEO

  • Crawl and export every indexable URL on the old platform.
  • Identify pages receiving organic traffic or backlinks.
  • Map old URLs to the closest relevant new URLs.
  • Avoid redirecting unrelated pages to the homepage.
  • Transfer titles, descriptions and important on-page content.
  • Validate canonical tags, robots directives and XML sitemaps.
  • Check structured data.
  • Create a custom 404 page.
  • Prepare Search Console and analytics monitoring.

8. Analytics and marketing

  • Configure analytics and consent management.
  • Validate ecommerce events and revenue attribution.
  • Connect advertising platforms and product feeds.
  • Test email, CRM and automation flows.
  • Record a pre-launch baseline for traffic and conversion.

9. Quality assurance

  • Test on representative browsers and devices.
  • Test every payment, shipping and tax scenario.
  • Compare migrated record counts with the source.
  • Place end-to-end test orders.
  • Validate cancellation, refund and fulfilment flows.
  • Complete stakeholder acceptance testing.
  • Resolve launch-blocking issues and document accepted limitations.

10. Launch and aftercare

  • Freeze or control changes on the old platform.
  • Run the final data migration or delta import.
  • Lower DNS TTL where appropriate.
  • Activate redirects and verify them after launch.
  • Submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
  • Monitor orders, payments, integrations, crawl errors and analytics.
  • Keep a rollback and incident-response plan available.
  • Prioritise post-launch fixes based on business impact.

A migration is an operational change

The strongest migrations involve the people who will use the platform after launch. Ecommerce, customer service, fulfilment, finance and content teams should validate the workflows that affect them.

The goal is not simply to reproduce the old store. It is to leave the business with a cleaner system that the team can actually operate.

Written by Augustijn Snoep — Shopify developer and technical consultant. I have worked across Shopify themes, custom apps, platform integrations, B2B and migration architecture since 2020.

CTA: Planning a migration? See how I deliver Shopify migrations from discovery and data mapping through development and launch.