In this article, I’m going to share with you on how you can migrate Shopify blog to WordPress or WooCommerce, using a couple of migration tools, or even manually.
Shopify
Shopify is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that provides you with tools that help you start, run, and grow your business. It has a wide range of themes to meet the needs of retailers of all sizes.
Shopify has inbuilt email support and live chat to help customers solve their queries. It can also be operated by both technical and non-technical people. On the flip side,
WordPress
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) licensed under GPLv2. WordPress makes building a website accessible to anyone – even people who aren’t developers. WordPress offers a wide range of themes and plugins that allow users to extend the features and functionality of their websites or blogs.
To be able to migrate your Shopify store and run it on WordPress, you need the WordPress built-in eCommerce platform called WooCommerce; a flexible, open-source commerce solution built on WordPress. Since 2017 WooCommerce has been focusing exclusively on eCommerce.
It is committed to democratizing commerce and putting empowering anyone to sell anything, anywhere.
Why would you want to migrate Shopify blog to WordPress (WooCommerce)?
Much as Shopify offers you everything you need to start an online business, you might be one of those users who would still prefer to move to WooCommerce.
Let’s look at some of the reasons you might want to migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce.
Cost Effectiveness
As a beginner, the Shopify user interface seems attractive and easy to operate. However, as your business starts to grow it becomes highly difficult to manage Shopify because you’re imposed to pay the transactional and additional fees within a specified time duration.
In case, you fail to pay the fees then Shopify can freeze your account and you can’t do anything about that!
On the other hand, WooCommerce is more flexible and cost-effective for all sizes of businesses. It is free and doesn’t charge any monthly/yearly fees. All you need to do is pay for the services you opt for to enhance your store performance, and for hosting and domain to make your site visible on the internet.
Customization
Since Shopify is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)-based platform, you can’t access and modify its code. You can only add functionalities to your store by paying a monthly fee for your app.
With WooCommerce however, you can customize the source code according to your business specifications. It also provides more control and flexibility to users because it is open-sourced.
More Features
To add more features to your Shopify, you would need to buy more apps that add up to the overall cost of your online store. Also, only a few themes are available for free, but you can’t customize them!
Additionally, if you buy plugins or themes from a third-party, then Shopify is not responsible for your website security.
With Woocommerce on the other hand, you have a wide range of free and paid features and themes that you can use to customize your online store even more.
There are also additional benefits of having your store on WooCommerce instead of Shopify, for example, you can choose your own hosting provider, and there’s a community of professional developers you can connect to whenever you want.
Things You Need Before You Migrate Shopify Blog To WordPress (WooCommerce)
1. Domain Name (URL)
For your customers to access your online store Make sure you have a domain name; that’s the name of your website that is universally recognized by Web Servers across the world.
There are companies like Hostinger, BlueHost, HostGator, and many others that can help you select and register your domain name.
Note – If you wish to use your Shopify domain name, make sure that it is not registered under any other user. And it must be available on the hosting platform which you’ve selected for building your eCommerce store.
2. Hosting Plan
To be able to save your website files, you need a hosting plan. Purchase one based on your requirements. There are a number of popular hosting companies in the market. While selecting your hosting provider, consider factors like speed, uptime, support, and price. Most domain name registrars over hosting as well.
3. Extensions
WooCommerce extensions will help you enhance your store’s appearance and functionality. There are multiple extensions available in the market to solve a specific problem using different approaches and prices. You can select the enhancement and marketing extension that can fulfil your business objective.
Here are some extensions you can consider adding;
- Yoast to improve your SEO performance.
- Mailchimp to automate your email marketing.
- Google Analytics for analyzing your store activities.
- Google Ads to retarget your lost customers.
- Facebook for WooCommerce to connect with your target audience.
- Coupon Referral Program to leverage the concept of coupons and referrals together.
- Save Cart Later to optimize your cart for better usability.
4. Themes
Shopify to WooCommerce migration is the best time to renovate your store using your niche-oriented theme.
WooCommerce allows its users to select their preferred theme from different marketplaces, and just like the platform, the themes are fully customizable.
There’s an enormous variety of paid and free themes, most of which provide compatibility with page builders, meaning you can customize the pages with a drag-and-drop interface.
When choosing a WooCommerce theme to use, ensure the following:
- The theme must compatible with the latest version of WooCommerce.
- The design is clean and responsive.
- The theme has been developed using the latest technology available in the market.
- The code is clean and well-commented.
- Customer support is available.
- Is SEO-friendly and provides drag-and-drop functionality.
- Has positive reviews.
- Most importantly, keep away from nulled plugins and themes.
Lastly, if you’re not migrating your site yourself or if you consider yourself non-technical and can’t migrate your Shopify store to WooCommerce yourself, then contact a developer or agency that can perform Shopify to WooCommerce migration in your budget line.
Steps To Migrate Your Shopify Blog To WordPress
Download and install WooCommerce
Log into your WordPress account and on your dashboard go to Plugins > Add New, upload the WooCommerce plugin you downloaded
Or you can just search in the plugins for WooCommerce and then install and activate it.
With your WooCommerce installed and ready to use, it’s now time for you to decide which method to use for the migration process. You can either do it manually or use some tools I’m going to share with you.
Manually Migrate From Shopify To WooCommerce
If you do not want to spend any money on migration tools you can just manually migrate your site. This is a relatively simple process.
First, you need to export and download your CSV file for customers, orders, and products. You’ll import these CSV files to WooCommerce later.
Log into your Shopify Account.
Go to Products and click on the Export button at the top of the page.
A pop-up window will appear with the export options.
Select the All Products option under the Export section and CSV for Excel, Numbers, or other spreadsheet programs under the Export As section, then click the Export Products button.
Your CSV file will be sent to your Shopify registered email address. Log into your email and download the file.
After downloading your CSV file, you can modify its structure accordingly to match the predefined structure of the WooCommerce CSV file.
On your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce → Products.
Select Import at the top. You’ll find a built-in product CSV importer that will make the process easier. Click Choose File and select the CSV file that you want to import (the file you downloaded).
Click Continue, and you’ll see the Column Mapping screen where WooCommerce automatically attempts to match the column name of your Shopify CSV file to WooCommerce product fields.
You may need to map some of these yourself, and you can do this using the dropdown menus to the right of each row.
Select Run the Importer and wait for the import process to finish, then you should have the products migrated from Shopify to WooCommerce.
Migrate From Shopify To WooCommerce Using Tools
If you don’t want to manually migrate your store from Shopify to WooCommerce, there are various plugins you can easily access to help you with this.
Let’s look at some popular ones:
Cart2Cart
WooCommerce itself recommends the use of this too to migrate data from Shopify. Cart2Cart helps you effortlessly, securely and accurately migrate all your Shopify data (products, orders, customers, coupons, content, and other relevant data) without losing any of it.
You can download the Cart2Cart plugin.
Steps to migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce with Cart2Cart:
- Go to the Cart2Cart page and sign in using your existing Google or Facebook account
- From the dropdown menu, select Shopify as your source cart and WooCommerce as your target cart.
Enter your source store URL and your Shopify API password.
- To get your API password:
Log in to your Shopify store.
Navigate to Apps > App and sales channel settings > Develop apps for your store > Create an app.
Go to the Configure Admin API scopes option, tick all the checkboxes, and click the Save button.
Install the App and copy the Admin API access token that you’ll use in the migration wizard.
Select WooCommerce as your target cart from the drop-down menu and enter your target cart URL, enter your WooCommerce details then click the next step; Choose Entities.
- Select the entities you would like to migrate. You can either select the specific entities you want to migrate or check the Select All checkbox for full data migration.
You can also set additional options, and map your order statuses and customer groups that are set in your source cart.
When you’re done, click the start free demo button.
Your Shopify to WooCommerce migration will start immediately.
When the migration process is completed, check your data by visiting your target store.
After checking your entities, you can transfer your full data by clicking on start full migration.
There are also other tools you can use to Migrate your data from Shopify to WooCommerce:
S2W – Import Shopify to WooCommerce
This is a free migration plugin you can use to import all products from your Shopify store to WooCommerce. You just need to enter your API key, and your domain name, and you can make some changes (if you want).
You can also import all product variations, categories, images, and more for free.
However, the basic plan offers limited migration facilities, therefore, for full-store migration, you would have to use the premium version.
If you choose to purchase the premium version, you can import your products via CSV file or id. And you can do a lot more because you get access to more features.
LitExtension Plugin
LitExtension is super easy to use and doesn’t involve any human intervention, it’s especially great for beginners.
With this migration tool, you can migrate Shopify to WooCommerce in four easy steps.
You can automate the migration of your products, product categories, customers, orders, coupons, CMS pages, blogs, and much more. You’ll even be able to clear the remaining data in your source cart.
Additional Questions About Shopify and WordPress
Can I use the same domain for Shopify and WordPress?
Not exactly. A WordPress blog can’t be set up on a Shopify domain due to DNS limitations. However, you can put either Shopify or WordPress on a subdomain of the other.
For example, you’d have your Shopify store as blahblah .com and then your blog as a sub-domain as blog.blahblah .com.
How much does migration from Shopify to WooCommerce cost?
The exact pricing of the migration depends on the size of your Shopify store and the data you want to be migrated. The starting price though is $69.00, it includes migrating up to 1000 products, 500 customers, and 500 orders. This price can increase depending on the size of your store.
There are other upgrades available that provide any additional functionality you want, like 301 redirects and blog post-migration.
In conclusion
That’s how you can migrate your Shopify store to WordPress (WooCommerce), either manually via CSV file export/import, or with the recommended tools, depending on the size of your store and how much data you want to migrate.
