Shopify to WooCommerce migration 
51 five-star reviews
51 five-star reviewsConvert your Shopify store to WordPress
I’m Spencer, a freelance web designer based in Brighton. I move Shopify shops onto WordPress and WooCommerce — products, variants, customers, URLs and payments — so you stop paying a platform fee to sell your own products.
This is a bigger job than moving a brochure site, and I’d rather say so than pretend it’s a button press. Some of it copies across cleanly, some has to be rebuilt. Below is which is which — including when you’re better off staying.
Products & variants moved Customers imported 301 redirects mapped Payments reconnected You own the store
10+Years of web development experience
100+WordPress sites across Sussex & the UK
£1,500Starting price for a WooCommerce store
51Five-star reviews from clients
Shopify is a genuinely good ecommerce platform, and I’ll say that first. Most people who ask about this move aren’t unhappy with how Shopify works — they’re unhappy with what it costs each month, or what it won’t let them change. If it’s the look of the shop you want fixing rather than the platform underneath, that’s a website redesign, and a cheaper conversation.
Talk it through → Why move
Why stores move off Shopify
Shopify does a lot right. Hosting, security, PCI compliance and updates are handled for you, and it will run a shop turning over serious money without you thinking about servers. For plenty of businesses that’s the right answer.
The reasons people actually give me when they ask about converting a Shopify store to WordPress are almost always one of these six:
The monthly platform fee never stops, and it rises as you move up plans
Per-transaction fees apply on top of card processing unless you use Shopify Payments
App subscriptions stack up — every feature you add is another monthly bill
You don’t own the platform, so theme and checkout customisation is constrained
Blogging and content marketing are weaker than WordPress by some distance
Product and collection URLs are fixed and can’t be restructured
The fees are the obvious one: a platform fee, a per-order fee and a handful of app subscriptions arrive whether you had a good month or not. The checkout surprises people — outside Shopify Plus you can style it but not rebuild it. And the content point matters more than most expect: if your plan for getting found is publishing, WordPress is the better home by a wide margin, with the shop inside the same site rather than bolted on beside it.
What WooCommerce changes
WooCommerce is the ecommerce side of WordPress, and it powers around 30% of online stores worldwide. No monthly platform fee, no transaction fee on top of card processing. You own the files, the database, the products and the customer list outright — change host, change designer, or hand it all over without asking permission.
You’re also not capped on design or functionality. The honest trade is that hosting, updates and backups become your responsibility.
You keep an admin you can use
This is the worry I hear most — the Shopify admin is clear and quick, and nobody wants to swap it for something needing a developer. You won’t be. WooCommerce has its own products, orders and customers screens, and the rest is built with a visual builder, so editing text and adding pages works much as it does now.
I train you at handover and you keep every login. If you’d rather not touch the technical side at all, hosting and support starts at £10 per month and I do the maintenance.
The migration
What carries over, and what gets rebuilt
Shopify exports products and customers as CSV files, and that’s the whole of what leaves cleanly. The theme, apps, checkout and reviews are rebuilt, and redirects mapped by hand because the URL structures don’t match.
Products
Titles, descriptions, SKUs, prices, images and tags come across from the product export, and collections become WooCommerce categories. I check the catalogue against the live shop rather than trusting the file.
Variants and stock
Sizes, colours, options and per-variant pricing transfer, but the platforms model them differently, so variants are mapped rather than dropped straight in. Stock counts are re-synced immediately before go-live.
Customers
Your customer list, addresses and marketing consent flags import from the customer export. Passwords cannot come across — no platform exports them — so account holders set a new one on first login. Email your list before the switch.
Orders and history
Past orders can be imported so refunds, reorders and reporting still work, but they arrive as records rather than live orders. Many shops import a year or two and keep Shopify read-only.
URLs and redirects
Shopify fixes products under /products/ and categories under /collections/. WooCommerce doesn’t, so every old address is mapped to its new one with a 301 redirect, and titles, meta descriptions and alt text carry across with the content.
Payments and checkout
Shopify Payments doesn’t exist off Shopify, so the store is reconnected to Stripe, PayPal or whichever provider suits you. Tax rules and shipping zones are rebuilt, then tested with real test transactions before a customer sees the checkout.
Design rebuild
Shopify themes are written in Shopify’s own template language, so the design is rebuilt rather than transferred. Match it closely to what you have, or treat the move as the moment to modernise — both take about the same work.
Apps and integrations
Every app you rely on needs a WordPress equivalent finding and configuring — reviews, subscriptions, loyalty, email marketing, accounting sync. Most have one, a few behave differently, a couple are easier on Shopify. I go through your app list before quoting.
Reviews and user content
Product reviews usually live in a third-party app rather than Shopify itself, so moving them depends on that app’s own export. Where there isn’t one, they’re gone — a real cost to weigh if reviews sell for you.
What the new shop is built on is set out on my WooCommerce web design page — product setup, payment gateways, shipping and tax, mobile checkout and training.
Get a quote Be honest
When Shopify is the right choice
I turn this job down fairly often, because for a good number of shops the move costs more than it saves. If you recognise yourself in any of the four below, stay where you are.
You’re doing serious volume
High order volumes need infrastructure, and on Shopify that’s included in the fee. On WooCommerce it becomes your responsibility — hosting, caching, database tuning, someone watching it. At real volume that bill starts closing the gap with the platform fee you were escaping.
You sell across several channels
If stock is syncing to Amazon, eBay, Instagram and a physical till, Shopify is doing an enormous amount of unglamorous work well. That can be replicated on WooCommerce, but it means several plugins where you have one system — and more places for a sync to break.
Fulfilment and POS are wired in
Shopify POS, logistics integrations and warehouse workflows are often the deepest part of a shop and the least visible from outside. If your staff and your picking process depend on that plumbing, unpicking it is the real project — the website is the easy half.
The shop is the whole business
If you sell products, publish nothing and have no plans to, WordPress’s content advantage doesn’t apply to you. A shop that’s purely a shop, running fine, with an app bill you can live with, isn’t a problem that needs solving.
The clearest case for moving is the opposite of all four: a smaller or mid-sized catalogue, one or two sales channels, an app bill that’s crept up, and a content strategy you want to take seriously. Send me your Shopify address and app list and I’ll tell you which you are.
Pricing
What a Shopify to WooCommerce migration costs
A migration is priced as the WooCommerce build it really is, with a fixed quote agreed before work begins. As a guide:
Starter WooCommerce store From £1,500
For smaller catalogues (under 50 products), standard shipping and a simple payment setup.
- Custom design built around your brand
- Products, variants and categories imported
- Customer list imported
- Stripe or PayPal checkout, tested end to end
- 301 redirects from your old Shopify URLs
- Training so you can run it yourself
Custom ecommerce website From £2,500
For larger catalogues, order history, app replacements, integrations or complex shipping.
- Everything in the starter store
- Order history imported
- Subscriptions, bookings, memberships or wholesale pricing
- Accounting, CRM and email marketing integrations
- Speed and performance optimisation
What moves the price is the shape of the job, not an hourly rate: how many products and variants you have, how much order history comes across, and how many apps need replacing. Send me your Shopify address and I’ll look at the real shop before quoting.
Optional ongoing costs: hosting and support from £10/month, SEO retainers from £250/month. No platform fee and no per-order fee on top.
Other platforms
Moving from another platform?
Shopify isn’t the only platform people outgrow. I do the same migration for Wix, Squarespace and Webflow sites, with the same care over redirects and rankings.
Wix to WordPress
Wix gets a business online quickly, then hits a ceiling on SEO control, customisation and ownership. There’s no full export, so the site is rebuilt and every old URL redirected.
Squarespace to WordPress
Squarespace looks great out of the box but keeps you inside its own templates and billing. Moving to WordPress gives you the plugins, the SEO control and the ownership.
Webflow to WordPress
Webflow is a designer’s tool, and that’s the catch — editing it day to day often means going back to whoever built it. WordPress hands the content back.
The process
How the migration works
Four stages, and your Shopify shop keeps trading through every one. Nothing switches over until the new store has been tested with real transactions and you’ve signed it off.
First
Audit the shop
I go through your catalogue, variants, app list and URL structure and work out what exports cleanly, what needs replacing and what can’t come. That list comes before the quote.
Then
Build and import
The new store is built on a staging address, the design rebuilt, and products, variants and customers imported and checked against the live shop.
After that
Payments and testing
Payment gateway, tax rules and shipping zones are configured, then tested with real test orders — card, refund and confirmation emails. Redirects are mapped product by product.
Finally
Go live and hand over
Stock is re-synced, the domain pointed at the new hosting, redirects go live and I train you on the admin. Only then do you cancel Shopify — never before.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Still unsure about something? Ask me directly — I answer every enquiry personally.
Get a free quoteWill I lose my SEO when I move off Shopify?
Not if the redirects are done properly, and on a shop that’s the biggest single piece of work. Every old address is mapped to its new one with a 301 before go-live, and titles, meta descriptions, headings and alt text carry across with the content. Rankings can wobble for a few weeks while Google re-crawls — that’s normal — then settle. I won’t promise you’ll rank better; I’ll promise nothing you’ve earned gets thrown away. Pushing further is ongoing SEO.
Do my products and customers transfer across?
Yes — they’re the two things Shopify exports cleanly, as CSV files. Titles, descriptions, SKUs, prices, images, tags, collections, variants and stock levels come across, along with your customer list. Variants get mapped rather than dropped straight in, and I check the import against your live shop. Passwords can’t transfer, so account holders set a new one on first login.
What happens to my past orders?
Order history can be imported, and it’s usually worth it so refunds, reorders and reporting still work from one place. Be clear what you’re getting, though: imported orders are records, not live orders. Some shops import everything, some a year or two, some keep Shopify read-only as an archive.
How long does a store migration take?
Longer than a brochure site, and I’d be wary of anyone quoting you a week without looking at your catalogue. What drives it is the number of products and variants, how much order history comes over, and how many apps need replacing. You’ll get a realistic timeline in your written quote once I’ve seen the shop, and your Shopify store trades throughout.
Can I run the shop myself afterwards?
Yes, and it’s the part people worry about most unnecessarily. WooCommerce has its own products, orders and customers screens doing the same jobs as the Shopify admin, and the rest is built with a visual builder. I train you at handover and you keep every login. Hosting, updates and backups do become your responsibility — so if you’d rather not, support from £10 per month covers it.
What about my domain and my payment gateway?
The domain stays yours and your web address doesn’t change. If it’s registered with Shopify it can be transferred out; if it’s elsewhere I point it at the new hosting. Payments are different: Shopify Payments only exists on Shopify, so the store is reconnected to Stripe, PayPal or whichever provider suits you — worth checking your new processing rates first.
Do you only work with businesses in Sussex?
No. I’m based in Brighton, Sussex, but a migration is done entirely remotely — I work with businesses across the UK over email, phone and video calls. See finished builds in my portfolio, and more on how I build shops on my WooCommerce page.
Recent work
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A few of the projects in my portfolio. Every one is a custom WordPress build, owned outright by the client.
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