Moving from Wix to Shopify, step by step.

Why stores move from Wix to Shopify, and when to stay

Wix gets many stores started. The strain shows later, when the catalogue, order volume or number of sales channels grows and the store, not the website, becomes the business.

The usual reasons owners move:

• An admin built around selling. Products, stock, orders, discounts and customers are the centre of Shopify.
• Apps and integrations. The Shopify App Store covers reviews, subscriptions, loyalty, wholesale, shipping and accounting.
• More ways to sell. Point of sale and international selling run from the same admin as the online store.
• Payments. Shopify Payments is available in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.

The trade-offs are real:

• Shopify's URL prefixes are fixed (/products/, /collections/, /pages/, /blogs/), so almost every Wix URL changes and needs a redirect.
• A Shopify product can have up to 2,048 variants but only three options. Wix allows six options.
• Your Wix design doesn't transfer. The storefront is rebuilt on a Shopify theme.
• Bookings or a members area usually come from apps on Shopify, and many apps charge monthly.
• With a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, third-party transaction fees apply.

When staying is fine: a small catalogue, a mostly content or services site with a few products, or a business that runs on Wix Bookings. A migration costs time and carries some SEO risk, so move for a concrete reason.

What moves, and what doesn't

Shopify's Wix migration guide recommends importing products, then customers, then historical orders, so each order links to the right records.

Product data needs checking

Store Migration takes Wix's files unedited and adds products as drafts. Shopify's product CSV import needs the file reshaped first: Wix keeps product and variant rows separate, puts several image URLs in one cell, can record stock as InStock rather than a quantity, and prices variants as surcharges. Shopify's Wix guide covers each column. Either way:

• A Wix product with four or more options imports with no options or variants. Restructure it first.
• Each product's handle becomes its URL. Match the old Wix slugs where you can; it keeps the redirect map simple.
• Product CSV files must be 15 MB or smaller. Untick Publish new products to all sales channels so products hidden on Wix stay hidden.

Customers, passwords and consent

Passwords can't be migrated, but Shopify's current customer accounts don't use them: customers sign in with their email and a one-time code. The older password-based legacy accounts are deprecated.

Your contact list is wider than your customer list: Wix adds anyone who fills in a form, signs up, buys or joins your members area. Import the people you need, and set Accepts Email Marketing to no for anyone who unsubscribed; Shopify's customer import guide says to email only those who opted in.

Order history

Shopify's Wix guide names Wix Data Import by Cart2Cart, LitExtension Store Migration and EZ Importer for past orders. Wix exports order times in UTC. Turn off staff new-order notifications first, or every historical order sends an email.

Keeping your rankings: URLs and redirects

Nearly every address on your store changes. Without redirects, old links and search results land on a 404 page, and the rankings those pages earned fade.

• Products: /product-page/blue-mug becomes /products/blue-mug
• Categories: /category/mugs becomes /collections/mugs
• Blog posts: /post/how-to-glaze becomes /blogs/news/how-to-glaze (News is Shopify's default blog)
• Pages: /about becomes /pages/about

Those are Wix defaults. Wix lets you change the product and blog prefixes, so work from your live URLs.

Build the redirect map

1. Collect every old URL. Save your Wix sitemap (your domain plus /sitemap.xml) before the domain moves, and add pages from Google Search Console and any URLs with backlinks.
2. Match each to the closest new page. Product to product, category to collection, post to article. Send discontinued products to their collection, not the home page.
3. Import the list. In Shopify, go to Content > Menus > View URL redirects > Import and upload a CSV based on Shopify's sample template.
4. Test after launch, starting with your highest-traffic pages.

Shopify's redirect rules to know:

• A redirect only fires from a broken URL. If a live page exists at the old path, it won't work.
• Paths starting with reserved prefixes such as /cart, /apps or /shop can't be redirected. If an important Wix page lives at /shop, update the links you control.
• URLs with query strings may not redirect as expected.
• A store can hold up to 100,000 redirects (20 million on Shopify Plus).

Carry over the on-page SEO

For every page that brings in search traffic, copy the title tag, meta description, headings, body copy and image alt text. In Shopify these sit in each item's search engine listing; titles can be up to 70 characters, and Shopify suggests about 60. Shopify generates sitemap.xml for you.

Your domain: point it or transfer it

Keep your existing domain. Changing domain and platform at once gives search engines two moves to process.

If you bought the domain through Wix

• Keep it at Wix and point it to Shopify. In Wix, open Domains, then Manage DNS Records. Set the root A record to 23.227.38.65 and the www CNAME to shops.myshopify.com, and delete the old A and CNAME records (see Wix's external site guide and Shopify's manual connection steps). MX records aren't touched, so email keeps working.
• Transfer it away. Choose Transfer away from Wix and Wix emails an authorisation (EPP) code to the registrant contact. A domain can't move within 60 days of being bought, transferred or having its contact details changed. Wix says transfers usually take up to 7 days, and you'll need to add your MX records again afterwards.

If the domain is registered elsewhere

Update the A and CNAME records at your registrar. Shopify advises disconnecting the domain from Wix first, or you may hit SSL certificate errors.

Moving the domain to Shopify

You can also transfer the domain to Shopify. Shopify doesn't copy custom DNS records or host email, and some extensions, including .co.uk, can't be transferred. A transfer can take up to 20 days, so connect the domain first to avoid downtime.

Whichever route you take, save every DNS record (MX, SPF, DKIM and verification records) before you change anything.

Replacing Wix apps and features

List every Wix app and feature the store relies on, then decide what each becomes on Shopify: built in, an app, or nothing.

• Contact forms: built in. A page using the page.contact template adds a contact form.
• Newsletter sign-ups and email marketing: Shopify Forms and Shopify Messaging, or connect the email platform you already use.
• Chat: Shopify Inbox for storefront chat.
• Reviews: a reviews app. Shopify's Wix guide mentions Judge.me, Loox and Yotpo for importing them.
• Bookings and appointments: a booking app from the Shopify App Store.
• Members area: customer accounts handle sign-in and order history. Members-only pages or paid memberships need an app.
• Subscriptions: Shopify Subscriptions or a third-party subscription app.
• Multilingual: Translate & Adapt.
• Blog: built in.

Check each app's monthly charges and theme compatibility. Fewer apps means fewer moving parts.

A step-by-step migration plan

1. Audit. Export products, contacts and orders, save the sitemap, and list apps, integrations, DNS records and your top pages by traffic and revenue.
2. Set up Shopify in private mode. New stores start in private mode (Online Store > Preferences), hidden from visitors and search engines while you build.
3. Import products, then customers, then orders. Switch off staff new-order notifications before the order import.
4. Clean the catalogue. Check options, variants, prices, weights, stock and images. Rebuild collections: Store Migration brings Wix collections in as tags, and automated collections can select products by tag.
5. Build the theme and content. Navigation, pages, policies, blog posts, and the SEO titles and descriptions you saved.
6. Set up the back office. Payments, shipping, taxes, notifications and staff accounts, then place test orders.
7. Replace apps and tracking. Install the apps you chose and reconnect analytics and ad pixels.
8. Load the redirects and check them against your URL list.
9. Run a final import of orders and customers created on Wix since the first import, then stop making changes on Wix.
10. Launch. Point the domain to Shopify, make it the primary domain, switch off private mode and work through the checklist below.

Launch checklist and the first 30 days

On launch day

• Private mode is off and the store loads on your domain, with and without www, over HTTPS. A newly connected domain can take up to 48 hours to be fully live.
• A real order goes through on live payments and the confirmation email arrives.
• Your 20 most-visited old URLs each redirect, in one step, to the right page.
• Forms, newsletter sign-ups, customer sign-in, analytics and ad pixels all work.
• Email on your domain still sends and arrives.

The first 30 days

• Verify the domain in Google Search Console and submit your Shopify sitemap.
• Check Search Console's indexing reports for 404s on old Wix URLs every few days, and redirect any that still get visits or links.
• Track organic traffic and rankings for your top pages weekly. Some movement is normal while search engines recrawl; a steady fall on one page often means a missing redirect or lost content.
• Fix internal links in copied posts and pages that still point to old Wix paths.
• Keep the redirects in place for good.
• Cancel the Wix plan only when nothing else needs exporting, and check that a domain still registered at Wix keeps renewing.

What affects the cost and timeline

No two migrations are alike. The main drivers:

• Catalogue size and shape. Thousands of products, or many with more than three options or custom text fields, take longer to clean.
• How much history moves. Products and customers can use Shopify's free app. Order history and gift cards need a third-party app, usually priced by store size or number of records, or manual work.
• Content moved by hand. Wix can't export blog posts, and page copy is usually moved manually, so a large blog adds real time.
• Design. Adapting an existing Shopify theme is quicker than a custom design.
• Apps and custom features. Bookings, subscriptions, memberships, wholesale pricing, and links to stock, accounting or marketplace systems.
• SEO scope. How many URLs to map, and how many pages need titles and descriptions carried over.
• Domain route. Pointing DNS is quick; a transfer takes days, and waits if the domain changed hands or contact details in the last 60 days.
• Markets and languages. Each extra currency, language or country adds setup and testing.

Questions