How to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify (2026 Guide)

Most people don’t leave BigCommerce because it stopped working. They leave because they’ve outgrown it.

They want more themes, a bigger app store, and the freedom to change their storefront without a developer on call.

If that sounds like you, Shopify is a natural next step. But the move itself is where things get tense. Your products, customers, orders, content, and search rankings all have to come across, and a rushed move can cost you sales for weeks.

This Blog shows you how to migrate BigCommerce to Shopify the right way.

You’ll pick the best method for your store, organize each type of data, and set up redirects so Google doesn’t drop your rankings. Let’s start.

Get your store ready before you move

Skipping the prep is how a move goes wrong. A little time here saves you a lot of cleanup later.

Back up your BigCommerce store

Do this first, no matter what. Export CSV files of your products, customers, and order history so you have a full copy of everything before you change a thing.

BigCommerce keeps some data for you, but you still want your own backup. It keeps your old store safe and gives you something to fall back on if anything looks off.

List what needs to move

Write down what you actually have. Products and their options, customer details, past orders, blog posts, pages, custom fields, and your current web address structure.

Then note the tools that live outside your catalog: your apps, payment setup, shipping rules, and tracking pixels. This is also a good time to clear out old products and dead content so you’re not moving junk into a clean store.

Get your BigCommerce API details

Most migration tools connect to BigCommerce through its API, not a plain export.

So you’ll need your store’s API credentials ready: the Client ID, Access Token, and API path. You create these inside your BigCommerce admin, and having them on hand now saves you a stop later.

Know what won’t move on its own

Here’s the part most guides skip. A few things don’t move cleanly.

Customer passwords can’t be transferred, so shoppers will need to reset them after launch. Product reviews and some order details also need special handling. We’ll cover each one, but it helps to know now.

Also check: BigCommerce vs Shopify: an honest look for store owners

Pick your migration method first

There isn’t one right way to do this. There’s a right way for your store, and it comes down to how many products you have, how comfortable you are with tech, and your budget.

Three options cover almost everyone. Choose one before you touch any data.

Manual CSV import

Free, and you control every field. You export CSV files from BigCommerce and upload them to Shopify yourself.

Good if you have a small catalog and time to check the work. Hard if you have thousands of products, or if reviews, past orders, and redirects all matter to you, because a CSV won’t carry all of it.

A migration app

This is the best fit for most stores. Tools like Cart2Cart, LitExtension, and Matrixify connect to your BigCommerce store via the API and migrate your products, customers, and orders with far less manual effort.

Matrixify does the most for tech-savvy users.

It handles redirects, SEO fields, and blog content, and it can build your redirect list for you. Cart2Cart and LitExtension use simple step-by-step wizards, so you can move data without any code. Most of these charge based on how much data you move.

Hire a Shopify expert

If your store is big, heavily customized, or too important to risk any downtime, pay someone who has done this many times.

A Shopify Partner runs the whole move and catches the small problems you wouldn’t think to look for.

Step 1: Set up your Shopify store

You need a place to put your data before you can move it.

Start a free Shopify trial at shopify.com. Pick a plan that fits your store’s size. If you need staff logins, better reports, or lower fees, the higher plans are worth it. If you’re not sure, start on Basic and move up later.

Then pick a theme and set the basics: store name, currency, address, and contact info.

Setting your taxes, shipping zones, and payment methods early means less to do on launch day. The design doesn’t need to be perfect yet. You just need a working store that’s ready to take your data.

Step 2: Export your data from BigCommerce

Now pull your data out of BigCommerce. If you’re using a migration app, it does most of this through the API. If you’re going manual, you’ll export CSV files one type at a time.

Export your products

Export a full product CSV with your titles, descriptions, SKUs, variants, prices, stock levels, and image links.

Shopify handles variants differently. BigCommerce keeps product variants together, but Shopify requires a separate row for each variant, all tied to a shared “Handle.” A migration app sorts this out for you. By hand, you’ll need to reshape the file to match.

Export customers and orders

Export your customer list with names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses. Passwords won’t come across, so plan for customers to reset them after launch.

For orders, export your full history with order numbers, statuses, and dates. Heads-up: Shopify treats imported orders as archived records, not live ones, and past orders are one of the trickier things to move. This is where a migration app really helps.

Export blog posts and pages

Your content matters for SEO, so don’t leave it behind. Export your blog posts and pages, since you’ll add them to Shopify separately from your products.

Step 3: Import Your Data Into Shopify

With your files ready, bring everything into your new store. The exact clicks depend on the method you picked, but the order is the same: products first, then customers and orders, then content.

Pick the tool that imports what you need

Not every tool moves every kind of data, so match the tool to what you’re bringing over:

Matrixify (free tier, paid for larger stores): imports products, customers, orders, blog posts, pages, and redirects in one pass. The best fit when your blog content and orders both need to move.

If you want products, orders, and blog posts moved together, Matrixify or one of the automated tools handles all three. The free Store Importer covers products and orders, but you’ll add your blog posts by hand.

Run a test batch first

If you’re using a migration app, move a small batch first, maybe 10 to 20 products, customers, and orders.

This lets you check the connection and see how your data lands before you commit to the full move. Fix any mapping issues now, not after everything’s in.

Import your products

For the manual route, go to Settings, then Apps and Sales Channels, then Store Importer in your Shopify admin, and upload your product CSV.

Shopify shows a preview before it saves anything. Check it, because BigCommerce and Shopify don’t use the same column names, and you may need to match a few fields.

Import customers and past orders

Customer and order data go in the same way, but this is where being careful matters most. A wrong match on an order can mix up a customer’s history. An app like Matrixify or Cart2Cart links order status, dates, and customers for you.

By hand, upload slowly and check a few records against the originals first.

Move your blog posts and pages

If your tool didn’t already bring them over, add your posts and pages to Shopify’s blog and pages sections by hand.

This is easy to forget when you’re busy moving products, and forgetting it is how stores lose a big chunk of their search traffic overnight.

Step 4: Review and clean up your store

Data landing in Shopify isn’t the same as data being correct.

Check your Products section for options, images, stock counts, and prices, since imports sometimes drop an image or mix up a variant.

Then sort products into collections and use tags to keep filtering clean. Last, put a few customer and order records next to the originals to confirm the import held up.

Step 5: Keep your SEO safe with redirects

This is the most important step, and the one thing that guides the skip.

Your old BigCommerce and new Shopify addresses won’t match, partly because Shopify uses fixed folder names like /products and /collections that you can’t rename. So every link Google knows now points to a dead page, which drops your rankings.

The fix is 301 redirects. They tell Google that a page has moved permanently and pass its ranking power to the new address.

Map your top traffic pages first. Also, keep your meta titles and descriptions, and submit a fresh sitemap to Google Search Console.

Step 6: Set up the basics before launch

With your data in and SEO-safe, finish setting your payments, shipping rates, and taxes if you didn’t set them earlier.

Shopify Payments is the default, but check its rates against your old BigCommerce setup. Then connect your domain, either by pointing your current one to Shopify or by moving it over entirely.

Last, install Shopify apps to replace the BigCommerce features you counted on. Email, upsells, reviews, whatever your store relied on, there’s almost always a match in the Shopify App Store.

How to bring your reviews across

Reviews get their own section because they’re one thing that won’t move cleanly on its own.

Star ratings and written reviews don’t map neatly from BigCommerce into Shopify, and Shopify shut down its own review app back in 2024.

So all that trust you spent years earning won’t come along unless you plan for it.

You have two choices. Collect reviews again from scratch after launch, or use a review app that can import your old ones and keep collecting on Shopify.

An app that works on multiple platforms is the cleaner path, especially if you might run more than one store later. Full disclosure: this is our space.

WiserReview can import reviews by CSV and works on Shopify, BigCommerce, and other platforms from one place. Plenty of other apps do this too, so pick whichever fits your budget. The point is to move your reviews on purpose, not assume they’ll follow your products.

Common mistakes to avoid

Most failed moves go wrong in the same few ways:

• Skipping 301 redirects. The big one. It’s the difference between a smooth switch and a sharp drop in traffic.
• Not taking a backup. You lose your safety net if the move goes wrong.
• Forgetting the password reset. Customer passwords don’t transfer, so plan a reset flow before launch.
• Forgetting reviews and past orders. Both need special handling and won’t move on their own.
• Going live before testing checkout. A broken checkout on day one costs you real sales.

None of these is hard to avoid. You just have to slow down enough to catch them.

Conclusion

Learning how to migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify can feel scary from the outside, but it’s really just a series of steps: get ready, pick a method, move your data in order, keep your SEO safe, and test before you launch.

Get the redirects right, plan for the password reset, and handle your reviews on purpose. Do that, and the move is nearly invisible to your customers. They keep shopping, and you get the flexibility you moved for.

Start with the free Shopify trial, work through this in order, and don’t rush the testing step. That’s the whole thing.