Moving a store from BigCommerce to Shopify is a well-trodden path, and the projects that go wrong go wrong in the same three places: variants and options that do not map one to one, customer passwords that cannot move, and URLs that change without a complete redirect map. This guide is the plan we use, with the cost and timeline from our own migrations. If you have not decided yet, the comparison is in BigCommerce vs Shopify; for the general playbook that applies to any platform, see the zero-downtime migration guide and the SEO migration checklist.
Why brands move from BigCommerce to Shopify
The reasons we hear most: the app ecosystem (a tool the team wants exists for Shopify first or only), Shop Pay and checkout conversion, a theme market with more choice and more developers, consolidation of DTC and wholesale on Shopify Plus, and simply that the team knows Shopify. None of these are BigCommerce failures; BigCommerce remains the better fit for some stores, particularly those that need a specific gateway without transaction fees or code-level checkout control on a mid-tier plan. If those are your reasons for being on BigCommerce, re-read the comparison before you migrate.
What moves, what changes, what does not move
| Data | Moves? | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Products, images, SKUs, prices, inventory | Yes | BigCommerce options and modifiers become Shopify variants and options; products with very many option combinations need checking against Shopify’s variant limits, and modifiers that were not variants (engraving text, add-ons) need an app or line-item properties. |
| Categories | Yes, as collections | Nested categories flatten into collections plus navigation; build the menu to preserve the hierarchy shoppers know. |
| Customers | Yes, without passwords | Passwords cannot be exported. Customers get a reset or welcome email after launch; plan the message and timing. |
| Orders | Yes, as historical records | Imported for reference and customer account history; they do not re-trigger fulfilment or payments. |
| Reviews | Depends on the app | Export from the BigCommerce reviews app or native reviews and import into the Shopify reviews app you choose, keeping the product mapping. |
| Blog posts and pages | Yes | Content moves; layouts are rebuilt in the Shopify theme. |
| Theme | No | Stencil themes do not run on Shopify. Choose a Shopify theme or commission a custom one; treat it as a redesign opportunity. |
| SEO metadata | Yes | Titles, descriptions and alt text carry over; URL structure changes and must be redirected. |
| Discount codes, gift cards | Partly | Codes are recreated; gift card balances need a specific import; test both before launch. |
| Apps and integrations | No | Each has a Shopify equivalent or replacement; list them all in the audit. |
Choose a migration method
- CSV export and import. BigCommerce exports products, customers and orders as CSV; Shopify imports products and customers natively and orders through apps such as Matrixify. Good for small, clean catalogues; every mapping is manual.
- Migration apps. Services such as Cart2Cart and LitExtension connect both stores and move data automatically. Fast and inexpensive for standard catalogues; they do not build the theme, the redirect logic for edge cases or the integrations, and complex variants still need review.
- Agency migration. Scripts against both APIs, custom mapping for variants and metafields, the redirect map, theme, integrations and QA in one project. This is what we do for stores where the catalogue or the integrations make the first two options risky.
The ten steps
- Audit and baseline. Crawl the BigCommerce site and export every URL; export Search Console performance and analytics baselines; list apps, integrations, payment and shipping settings; decide what is in and out of scope.
- Set up the Shopify store. Plan, currency, markets, taxes, shipping zones, payment gateway (Shopify Payments where available), legal pages, email notifications. Keep it password-protected.
- Design the catalogue mapping. Options to variants, modifiers to line-item properties or apps, custom fields to metafields, categories to collections. Write it down before any import.
- Export from BigCommerce. Products, customers, orders, reviews, content, and the full URL list. Export images at full size and map file names to product handles.
- Test import. Import everything into the password-protected store; compare counts (products, variants, customers, orders) with the source; spot-check fifty products for price, images, inventory and metafields.
- Build the theme. Templates, navigation, filters through Search & Discovery, metafield-driven content, and the apps that replace BigCommerce features. Our theme development team builds this stage for our migrations.
- Build the redirect map. Every BigCommerce URL (products, categories, pages, blog posts, and the filtered and paginated variants that carry traffic) mapped to its Shopify URL and loaded as 301 redirects. This step protects your rankings; do not shorten it.
- Reconnect integrations and test everything. ERP, email marketing, subscriptions, shipping, accounting, analytics and pixels. Test orders on every payment and shipping combination; test customer accounts and the reset flow; run the crawl of the redirect map. The long checklist is our store testing checklist.
- Cut over. Lower DNS TTL in advance, freeze content and announce the order freeze, run a final delta import of new orders and customers, connect the domain, switch DNS, remove the password, submit the new sitemap to Search Console and Bing, send the customer email.
- Post-launch. Watch Search Console for 404s and coverage daily for two weeks, compare rankings and conversion with the baseline, fix missing redirects as they surface, confirm integrations are syncing, and keep BigCommerce reachable but not indexable until the data is confirmed complete.
BigCommerce features that need a plan of their own
- Modifiers. BigCommerce separates options (which create SKUs) from modifiers (which do not, such as engraving text or a checkbox add-on). Shopify variants are options only; modifiers become line-item properties captured on the product page, or an app for priced add-ons. Decide per product before import, or the importer will either drop them or explode them into variants.
- Customer groups and price lists. BigCommerce customer-group pricing maps to Shopify Markets pricing for regions, to discount rules and tags on standard plans, or to native B2B catalogs and price lists on Shopify Plus. Which one depends on why the groups existed; see our Shopify B2B cost comparison if they were wholesale tiers.
- Faceted search. Built into BigCommerce; on Shopify, turn on filters in the free Search & Discovery app and map BigCommerce filter attributes to product options, tags or metafields so the same filters exist on launch day.
- Product options with many combinations. Check the products with the most options against Shopify’s variant limits and split or restructure them before import rather than after.
- B2B Edition. Quoting, buyer portals and sales-rep tools do not map one to one. Native B2B on Shopify Plus covers company accounts, price lists and net terms; quoting workflows need an app or draft-order process. Scope this separately.
- Multi-storefront. BigCommerce storefronts become Shopify Markets on one store or expansion stores on Plus, depending on how different the catalogues are.
Keeping the team and customers informed
A migration is a communication project as much as a data one. Internally, agree the content and order freeze window with marketing and operations, brief customer service on the password reset flow and the new order-history view, and give the warehouse and finance teams the cutover date so their integrations are switched on time. Externally, send the account email on launch day with a one-line reason and a one-click reset, keep the old URLs redirecting for at least a year, and watch reviews and support tickets for the first two weeks for the things the tests missed.
Cost and timeline from real projects
Our BigCommerce to Shopify migrations typically range from $8,000 to $25,000, driven by catalogue complexity (variants, modifiers, metafields), the number of integrations and the theme scope. Smaller stores with straightforward data launch in 3–5 weeks; larger stores with integrations or heavy customization take 8–12 weeks. A migration app for a simple store costs far less and takes days, with the theme and integrations on top. The Shopify migration service page has the full breakdown.
The mistakes that cost sales and rankings
- Missing redirects for filtered category URLs and old blog paths. These carry more traffic than owners expect.
- Forgetting that customers need new passwords, and sending the reset email a week late.
- Products with modifier combinations imported as hundreds of variants nobody wanted.
- Launching before the reviews import, so products show zero reviews for a week.
- Copying the BigCommerce app stack one for one instead of using Shopify’s native features and a leaner set of apps.
- Leaving the BigCommerce store live and indexable, creating duplicate content against your own new site.
After the move: what to do in the first quarter
Use the migration as the moment to fix what was always wrong: product page structure, speed (our speed guide), checkout completion (the checkout optimization guide), and the email flows now running on Shopify data. Rankings typically stabilize within weeks when the redirect map is complete; if traffic drops beyond a few weeks, the map is the first thing to check. If you want the project scoped against your actual catalogue, send us your BigCommerce store URL and we will return an estimate and a mapping plan.
