Common Challenges in Shopify Plus Migration and How to Overcome Them

Shopify Plus migration can be a game-changer for growing ecommerce businesses. One of the fastest-growing ecommerce platforms in the world for enterprise-level players, there has been a sharp rise in brands that migrate to Shopify Plus in recent years.

The reason behind this? As businesses scale, they often outgrow their current plan or platform, leading them to migrate to Shopify Plus. When your platform can’t keep up and is putting constraints on your growth as a business, you need to make the switch. That’s why more and more businesses are making the strategic decision to migrate to Shopify Plus to unlock new growth opportunities.

Shopify Plus is a commerce platform engineered for enterprise-level business, allowing brands all the space and support they need to operate at their full potential. The platform offers ahead-of-the-curve enterprise-level features, superior scalability, and unmatched customization potential for brands that want to stand out or do things their way. 

But Shopify Plus migration isn’t without hurdles. Whether you're migrating from Magento, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce, you’ll likely have a few concerns in mind, like whether migrating your data will somehow impact your brand’s performance, hard-earned SEO ranking, and customer experience.

If you’re having doubts and are considering the challenges of migration, this article explores some of the most common challenges and concerns that might come up when you migrate to Shopify Plus. We’ll show you how Shopify helps you overcome each hurdle, ensuring a seamless transition, with near-zero downtime to your business’s day-to-day operations.

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1. Data Migration Strategy

Problem:
One of the first and most significant concerns when you migrate to Shopify Plus deals with data migration. You want customer records, product details, order history, reviews, and even discount codes to be migrated accurately and completely. Failing to migrate your essential data can disrupt business operations and frustrate you and your loyal customers. 

Solution:
Before you migrate to Shopify Plus, a detailed data audit ensures that nothing gets left behind. Identify the types of data you need to migrate and categorize them by importance. From here, you can export your data into CSV files and import them into your new Shopify store. Not all data can be migrated this way, but you can use third-party migration apps from the Shopify App Store, like Matrixify. You can also hire a Shopify Plus Expert and migration expert to manage and complete your Shopify Plus migration. When you hire a Shopify Expert, they can create a custom migration solution using the Shopify API, leading to faster and more accurate data transfer while minimizing disruptions to your business operations.

Tip: The order in which you import certain data matters. It's recommended to import products first, then your customers, and then any of their historical orders. Other data outside these categories can be imported in any order.

2. Maintain SEO Rank

Problem:
SEO ranking preservation is a major concern for brands that migrate to Shopify Plus. SEO ranking is hard-earned, and there are steps to take when making the switch to Shopify Plus, steps like possibly handling URL structure changes, URL redirects, metadata, and site architecture. If not managed well, it can lead to issues like broken links and errors that lead to a drop in organic traffic and search rankings.

Solution:
Just like in data migration, SEO audits are necessary before you migrate to Shopify Plus. To not lose your hard-earned ranking, your URLs, metadata, and keywords need to be carefully documented. From here, it’s easier to create a detailed redirect plan that maps the pages on a one-to-one basis.  SEO consultants, or Shopify Plus Migration Experts, can also help prepare an SEO audit or checklist specific to your site, making sure you won’t miss a thing.

It’s important to note that Shopify has a different URL structure from platforms like Magento, so setting up 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones is crucial if you don’t want a page to lose all SEO value.  Setting up URL redirects helps make sure that when a customer attempts to visit the old link after migration, they're redirected straight to the new site.

You can use tools like Ahrefs SEO Checker to monitor crawl errors post-migration.

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3. Theme and Design Limitations

Problem:
Your existing site might have a custom design with unique functionalities that aren’t readily available in Shopify’s theme selection in the Theme Store. Shopify’s Theme Store does come with a limited selection of free and premium one-time payment themes, but there seems to be a misconception that all Shopify stores look the same—this isn’t true, because you can always go bespoke when it comes to theme design in Shopify Plus migration. You can even recreate your store’s old look when you migrate to Shopify Plus.

Solution:
Your brand has a unique persona, and your Shopify Plus store needs to reflect that. When it comes to theme design, you have a couple of options, the first being installing a theme template that you can acquire from the Shopify Theme Store and customize and extend it to your liking. Alternatively, you can hire a Shopify Expert to go fully bespoke. Shopify Plus offers merchants access to Liquid (Shopify’s templating language), so customizations are possible with developer support. You can even customize the checkout experience through checkout.liquid.

Note that a Shopify Expert can also help you rebuild your previous theme if you prefer to maintain a sense of continuity in brand identity.

Read Now: How To Recover Your Traffic After a Web Migration

4. Third-Party App Compatibility

Problem:
Using third-party apps in your old platform? Chances are, you can still use them on the Shopify Plus platform as they may very well be available on the Shopify App Store. However, depending on the apps you were using, or if you were using exclusive tools on your old platform, then there may be a chance that they might not integrate directly with Shopify Plus. This could disrupt operations like store analytics, fulfillment, marketing, or even inventory management.

Solution:
Evaluate all your current integrations and check whether those tools are available in Shopify’s App Store. If they aren't, there are probably alternatives available—alternatives that are optimized to work at the Shopify Plus level of performance. Note that Shopify Plus also provides access to the Shopify API, allowing for powerful custom integrations. This means that, in cases where no direct replacement exists, you can hire a Shopify Expert and developer to create custom apps to maintain a specific functionality your online business relies on.

5. Preserving Customer Experience & Loyalty Programs

Problem:
Your customers are the driving force behind your business, and a poorly handled Shopify Plus migration can result in a lot of inconveniences for them. Issues like having to reset passwords, losing loyalty points, or facing broken user journeys cause disruptions, disruptions that can lead to a drop in repeat purchases and loyalty.

Solution:
When it comes to migrating customers to the new platform, as with all things Shopify and Shopify Plus migration, there’s an app for that. The most popular Shopify Plus migration app is called Matrixify, a Shopify app that lets you migrate data in bulk. You can also export/import using a customer CSV file. When it comes to migrating points, apps like Appstle Loyalty & Rewards allow you to migrate your store’s loyalty program, and they also have a dedicated team to help you with migration details involving loyalty programs and points. Alternatively, there are Shopify apps like smile.io and Yotpo, which are also popular options for loyalty and rewards.

6. Team Training & Operational Preparedness

Problem:
Even after a successful Shopify Plus migration, your team has to face the learning curve of adapting to Shopify Plus’s ecosystem. This can slow down operations for a bit and lead to some avoidable mistakes.

Solution:
Plan for adequate training well in advance. Shopify Plus migration offers its stores a wealth of resources, including a dedicated launch manager and 24/7 priority support. Before launch, schedule training sessions for your key departments, including customer service, inventory management, marketing, and fulfillment teams. Take some time to get your team used to Shopify’s admin, analytics, and reporting tools before your store goes live. Shopify Plus is famed for being user-friendly, and you and your team are going to learn the ropes in no time.

Bonus Tips for Shopify Plus Migration

If you're ready to make the switch, remember: migration isn't just about moving data—it's about future-proofing your brand. Here are some quick bonus tips that are just as important as everything else mentioned above:

• Staging Environment Testing: Before you fully migrate to Shopify Plus, always test everything—from theme to app behavior—in a staging environment.

• Set a Go-Live Date: Choose a quiet sales period for launch to minimize risks.

• Backup Everything: Even though you're moving to a new platform, keep backups of your old store just in case anything goes wrong.

• Hire Shopify Plus Experts: Don't underestimate the complexity of a Shopify Plus migration. Working with certified Shopify Plus Experts can reduce downtime and ensure best practices are followed.

Conclusion

A successful Shopify Plus migration requires thoughtful planning and the right technical resources. While the process might be daunting at first, the long-term benefits of migrating to Shopify Plus—enhanced scalability, better performance, and rich customization—far outweigh the short-term challenges. Future-proof your business, migrate to Shopify Plus.

Shopify Plus isn’t just an upgrade—it’s a game-changer. Make the most of it with our expert migration services!

Get in touch with Ecommerce Pro.