Most Australian stores that migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce are leaving for the same two reasons: the monthly cost of the platform plus the app stack has quietly become a serious number, and the checkout cannot be changed no matter how much it is costing in abandoned carts. Both are fixable on WooCommerce, and neither is a good reason to move if you are not prepared for what you take on instead.
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The store is rebuilt alongside the live one and switched over at the end, in roughly this order. We list every Shopify app and what it actually does for you, since that decides which plugins are needed. Products, customers and orders are extracted through Shopify's exports and API, and imported into a WooCommerce staging site. The theme is rebuilt, and payments, Australia Post shipping and GST are configured and tested with test orders. The redirect map is built and checked URL by URL. Just before launch, orders and customers created since the first import are brought across again so nothing is missed, then the domain is pointed at the new store. Keep Shopify accessible for a few weeks afterwards as a reference.
Shopify owns the checkout. You cannot add a field, change the flow, or apply logic to it without being on the top plan, which is why ABN capture, trade pricing and unusual shipping rules all end up as awkward workarounds. On WooCommerce the checkout is yours. That is the substantive difference; everything else is preference.
Add the plan, the apps, the transaction fee if you are not on Shopify Payments, and the theme. Then set against it WooCommerce hosting, the plugins that replace those apps, and maintenance you now own. For a lot of Australian stores the migration pays for itself inside a year, but not all of them, and we would rather tell you that before the work than after.
Shopify allows three options per product; WooCommerce attributes work differently and more flexibly, which sounds like an upgrade and means the mapping needs thought. Metafields, collections built on automated rules, and digital products all need a decision rather than an import. Getting this wrong is what produces a catalogue that technically transferred and is unusable.
Order history moves. Passwords do not: Shopify will not export them, so every customer will need to reset on first login, and how you handle that email is the difference between a smooth migration and a support inbox full of confused regulars. We plan that communication as part of the job.
Buy-now-pay-later is close to mandatory for Australian retail, and the WooCommerce integrations for Afterpay and Zip are configured differently from their Shopify equivalents. This needs to be live and tested at launch, not afterwards, because a missing BNPL option at checkout is immediately visible in conversion.
Shopify uses fixed URL structures (/products/, /collections/) that WordPress does not share. Without a complete redirect map you will drop every ranking product page on launch day. This is the single most damaging thing that goes wrong in a Shopify migration and it is entirely preventable.
Recurring orders are the hardest part of any store migration, because the payment tokens usually cannot move between platforms. Sometimes existing subscribers must be re-authorised, which is a commercial decision as much as a technical one. If you run subscriptions, raise it in the first conversation: it changes the shape of the project.
Each Shopify app needs one of three answers: a WooCommerce plugin that does the same job, a feature WooCommerce already has, or nothing, because nobody was using it. Reviews can usually be exported from the review app and imported against the matching products. Email marketing platforms such as Klaviyo have WooCommerce integrations, so the lists and flows stay where they are. Product filters, upsells and wishlists all have plugin equivalents. The audit at the start often removes a third of the stack, and every plugin you do not install is one less thing to update.
Promotions are the part of a store migration most often forgotten until a customer complains. Active discount codes need to be recreated as WooCommerce coupons with the same rules and expiry dates. Outstanding gift card balances need a plan: a gift card plugin on the new store, the balances imported against the same codes, and a test redemption before launch. Store credit held against customer accounts needs the same treatment. List them early, because they are money your customers believe they have.
Move when Shopify is stopping you from doing something that costs you money: a checkout you cannot change, B2B or trade pricing that needs workarounds, a catalogue the variant model does not fit, or app fees that keep climbing. Stay when the store works, the team is happy, and the main attraction of WooCommerce is a lower monthly bill, because hosting, plugin licences and maintenance on WooCommerce are real costs too. We will say so if your numbers point to staying. If you do move, a monthly care plan means someone looks after the new site after launch.
No. The new store is built and tested in parallel while Shopify keeps trading, and we cut over by DNS once you have signed off. The only visible moment is the switch itself.
It is fixed-quoted after a scoping call, because catalogue size, subscriptions and how much of the design you want reproduced change the work substantially. Content pages are priced on our standard migration rate of $250 AUD a page; products, customers, orders, apps and integrations are scoped on top, and you get one fixed number before work starts.
Usually. Most Shopify review apps can export reviews to a spreadsheet, and those can be imported into WooCommerce against the matching products by SKU or handle. Reviewer names, ratings and dates come across. Some details, such as verified-buyer badges or review photos, depend on what the app exports and may not survive.
No. Historical orders are imported into WooCommerce so customers can see their order history and you can look things up, but your books already hold those sales. Any accounting integration on the new store should start from the launch date, otherwise past sales are recorded twice.
Updates to WordPress, WooCommerce and plugins, backups, security monitoring and hosting that someone has to look after. You can do that yourself, or put the store on a care plan from $159 AUD a month. It is worth including in the cost comparison before you decide to move.
We can rebuild it closely, and often should, since your customers know it. It is a rebuild rather than a transfer: Shopify themes are Liquid and cannot run on WordPress, so it is worth deciding whether to reproduce the design or improve it while it is being rebuilt anyway.
Tell us what is happening and we will come back with a fixed quote and a timeline, usually within one business day.
Get in touchMigrate from Shopify to WooCommerce with products, customers, orders, reviews and redirects intact, plus Afterpay, AusPost and GST set up. Fixed quote.
Get in touchEvery CloudyWP project runs the same way, whether it is a one-page site or a store with a thousand SKUs. Here is exactly what happens.
A single scoping call, then a written plan: what gets built, what it costs, and when it ships. No discovery-phase invoices, no moving targets.
48 hrs to your quote
Custom WordPress or Shopify on clean code you own outright. Every build ships fast, passes Core Web Vitals, and is handed over documented.
95/100 average PageSpeed
Your site talks to the tools you already run: CRM, invoicing, email, stock. The repetitive admin stops being someone's job and starts running itself.
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