WooCommerce competes with several high-powered e-commerce and shopping cart platforms. Shopify is one of them. As one of the world’s leading e-commerce solutions, Shopify is not a plugin for a content management system. It is a purpose-built e-commerce solution created from the ground up to sell products online.

Perhaps you find yourself in a position of having to migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify. Regardless of your reasons for doing so, the most important thing is to get it right. So how do you make the move? You have three choices:  use a migration app, use an external service, or use the free migration tool that now comes with all Shopify plans.

External Apps and Services

We won’t spend a lot of time discussing external apps and services now that Shopify offers free migration for all plans. But these two options do warrant at some mention as there are certain Shopify users who would prefer to not use the free migration tool.

If you search the Shopify app store, you’ll see a couple of apps that make migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify easy. At least one of the apps is free to install but may include additional charges depending on the scope of your migration. Another is a paid app. Just install the desired app, run it, and follow the on-screen prompts.

Your second external option is to use a third-party service. You pay a fee based on the size of your migration. Everything is done online for you, and you can always contact support if you run into problems. The big downside here is that third-party migration isn’t free.

Shopify’s Free Migration Tool

Your best bet is to do the migration right from within Shopify. That way, everything always remains within your control. Note that you can migrate this way even if you’re using Shopify’s free plan. Here is a step-by-step process:

1. Export your WooCommerce data. You do this by logging in to WooCommerce, going to the admin area, and clicking on Tools>Export. Next, make sure you select All content. Then just click the download link to create an XML file that will be downloaded to your computer. Make a copy of this file just in case something goes wrong.
2. Install the importer tool. Next, you will need to go to the Shopify app store and install the free importer tool. Without this tool, you cannot complete the migration.
3. Import to Shopify. With the importer tool installed, navigate to the Shopify admin and click the link to Import from WooCommerce. Next, click Add file and point the tool to the XML file on your hard drive. Click Import to begin the process. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete.
4. Review your data. Finally, review your store data for accuracy. Most of the data should transfer fine without any problems. But depending on how your WooCommerce store was set up, some data might be missing or changed. You may have to go through and change product numbers for example. You might also find that some products imported but have not yet been made public.

Some of the third-party services claim they can do a complete migration without any errors or missing information. However, be prepared to pay for these kinds of services. The more effortless you want your migration to be, the more likely you are to pay a higher price. If you want to save money and you do not mind manually updating your data, using Shopify’s free import tool is your best bet.