WordPress to Shopify Migration: The Complete Guide for Philippine Stores

Most store owners do not leave WooCommerce because it is bad. They leave because the store has become a pile of plugins, every update is a small gamble, and the checkout depends on three extensions that were never meant to work together. Shopify takes most of that maintenance off your plate, but only if the move itself is done carefully.

This guide walks through the whole switch in the order it should happen. It covers what moves across automatically, what has to be rebuilt, how to protect your search rankings, and when it is smarter to stay where you are.

Should you move at all?

A migration is worth it when the cost of staying is higher than the cost of moving. Look at your own store for these signs:

• You spend real time each month on plugin updates, backups and fixing things that broke after an update.
• Your checkout is slow or has failed at a bad moment before.
• You want inventory, orders, discounts and shipping in one admin that your team can learn in an afternoon.
• You sell mostly physical or digital products rather than running a content site with a small shop attached.

If your site is mainly a blog or a brochure site with two or three products, a move to Shopify may be more than you need. We cover that comparison in Webflow vs WordPress vs Shopify.

What moves and what does not

Shopify can import most of the data that makes up a store. The design and the plugin behaviour are what you rebuild.

Moves across

• Products: titles, descriptions, images, prices, SKUs, stock levels, variants and categories.
• Customers: names, emails, addresses and order history. Passwords cannot be transferred, so customers receive an invitation to set a new one.
• Orders: past orders can be imported so your reports and customer histories stay intact.
• Pages and blog posts: your content comes across and is re-formatted for the Shopify theme.

Rebuilt, not copied

• The design: a WordPress theme does not run on Shopify. The look is rebuilt as a Shopify theme, so this is also your chance to fix what you never liked.
• Plugin features: each plugin becomes either a built-in Shopify feature, an app, or a small custom section. Make a list before you start.
• Checkout customisations: anything custom in WooCommerce checkout is reviewed one by one.

The product, customer and order step has enough detail to deserve its own article, so we wrote it up separately: how to move WooCommerce products, customers and orders to Shopify.

The migration in seven steps

1. Audit what you have

Export a list of every URL on the site, your top pages by traffic, every active plugin, and every payment and shipping method. This list drives every later decision, and it is the part people skip.

2. Choose your plan and market settings

Set up the Shopify store with your currency, tax and shipping zones. For stores selling in the Philippines, confirm which payment gateways and couriers you can use before you design the checkout, because availability changes over time and depends on your business type.

3. Import products and customers

Products and customers go in first, in a test batch, so you can check variants, images and prices before importing everything. Fix problems in the source data rather than in Shopify one by one.

4. Rebuild the design as a theme

This is the longest step. A good theme build keeps your branding but simplifies the layout, so pages load faster and the product pages are easier to edit. If you only have a design file, Shopify theme development turns it into an editable theme.

5. Set up redirects

This is where rankings are won or lost. Shopify uses fixed URL patterns such as /products/, /collections/ and /pages/, so almost every old WordPress address changes. Each old URL needs a 301 redirect to its new equivalent. The full process is in WooCommerce to Shopify SEO and redirects.

6. Test like a customer

Place real test orders with every payment method. Check emails, shipping rates, discount codes, mobile layout and the account login flow. Do this on the new store while the old one is still live.

7. Switch the domain

Point your domain at Shopify, confirm the redirects, submit the new sitemap to Google Search Console, and watch the first two weeks closely.

Protecting your SEO during the move

Rankings usually dip briefly after any platform change, and a well-run migration keeps the dip small. These are the habits that matter:

• Redirect every old URL that has traffic, backlinks or rankings, not just the main ones.
• Keep titles and meta descriptions on your highest-traffic pages unless you have a reason to change them.
• Keep the same page content where it already ranks. Rewrite after the dust settles, not during the move.
• Check Search Console daily for crawl errors in the first fortnight.

How long it takes and what it costs

A store with a few hundred products and a standard design can often move in days rather than weeks. Stores with complex plugins, subscriptions or custom checkout logic take longer because each of those needs its own solution. The cost depends on the number of products, the amount of design work and the plugins involved, which is why we quote each move individually rather than pricing by a table. The factors are listed in what a WordPress to Shopify migration costs.

If you would rather hand the whole thing over, our WordPress to Shopify migration service covers the data, the theme, the redirects and the go-live check.

A simple checklist before you start

Gather these in one folder before anyone touches the new store. It saves days of back-and-forth later.

• Admin access to your current WordPress site, your domain registrar and your payment accounts.
• A full backup of the current site, stored somewhere other than the server it lives on.
• Your logo, brand colours, fonts and any design files you already have.
• A list of the plugins you rely on, with a note on what each one does for you.
• The decision maker's name, so approvals do not stall the launch.

With that list in hand, the technical work is predictable. Without it, most delays come from waiting on a login or a missing file rather than from the migration itself.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Switching the domain before testing. Test on the Shopify preview first.
• Forgetting the blog. Old posts often carry a large share of your traffic.
• Importing messy data. Duplicate SKUs and empty variants cause errors that are tedious to fix later.
• Leaving the old site running forever. Keep a backup, but do not leave two live stores competing with each other.

Frequently asked questions

Will I lose my Google rankings if I move to Shopify?

Not if the URLs are redirected properly. Expect small movement in the first few weeks, then recovery. Missing redirects are the most common cause of a real drop.

Can I keep my customers' passwords?

No. Passwords are stored in a way that cannot be moved between platforms, so customers are invited to set a new password the first time they log in.

Do I have to rebuild my design?

Yes, because WordPress themes do not run on Shopify. The look and branding carry over, and the build is rebuilt as a Shopify theme.

Can I keep selling during the migration?

Yes. The new store is built and tested alongside the old one, and you switch the domain only when everything has been checked.

What if I only have a few products?

Then a lighter setup may fit better. Compare options in our platform comparison before deciding.