Build & Migrate
BigCommerce to Shopify Migration
Same catalogue, better ecosystem.
(opens in a new tab) Brands move off BigCommerce for Shopify's app ecosystem, its theme flexibility and the developer pool that comes with the larger platform. We carry every product, customer and order across, remap the URL structure and redirect what earned rankings on BigCommerce, so the move gains you the ecosystem without costing you the traffic.
Stores we have built, migrated and still run.
4 on the record
Certified, not badge-only BigCommerce exports cleanly. The URL structure and the option model do not.
Read the platform comparisonThe product data moving tidily is what makes this migration feel easy, and it is the reason people underestimate it. What decides whether the store is better afterwards is the URL map, the option model and the custom API work nobody has looked at in years.
All migrationsMigrate BigCommerce to Shopify
How we migrate a BigCommerce store to Shopify
The crawl and the mapping happen before anything moves. That ordering is the whole difference between a migration that protects what the store earned and one that finds the damage afterwards.
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Audit and Crawl
We map the current BigCommerce store in full: the catalogue structure, every app and integration, and every indexed URL. The crawl is the part most migrations skip, and it is the part that protects your rankings.
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Migration Plan and Redirect Map
A written plan with the data mapping, the app-to-Shopify mapping and the full redirect map, signed off before anything moves. Disagreements are cheap at this stage and expensive after launch.
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Build and Migrate on Staging
Data migrated, the Shopify store built, integrations connected and redirects implemented, all on staging first. You click through the real store with your real catalogue before anyone commits to a date.
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Launch and Monitor
Pre-launch QA across real devices, managed go-live, then monitoring of rankings, redirect hits and errors through the weeks that follow, with a named person to call.
BigCommerce Shopify migration service
Why brands move from BigCommerce to Shopify
Brands move off BigCommerce mostly for the same reason: Shopify's larger app ecosystem, its theme flexibility and the bigger developer pool that comes with it. The risk sits in the URL structure, which does not map one to one, and in the option and variant model, which needs remapping rather than a straight export.
We migrate UK and US brands from BigCommerce to Shopify, mapping every URL by hand rather than trusting an automated tool, and verifying every redirect on the live domain before launch. Products, variants, customers and order history all move across.
This suits a BigCommerce store limited by its app catalogue or theme options, or one where a bespoke API integration has become the only way to get something a Shopify app already does natively. If BigCommerce is meeting your needs today, moving for the ecosystem alone rarely pays back quickly.
- Every old URL, including BigCommerce's own structure, mapped and redirected before launch
- Zero data loss: products, variants, customers, order history and content all transferred
- The current store keeps trading throughout, with no maintenance-mode window
- A named migration lead, not a queue of handovers between departments
What moves, and what gets rebuilt
What a BigCommerce to Shopify migration includes
Not a feature grid. Three questions: what the catalogue becomes, how the store keeps what it has already earned, and what happens on either side of the launch date.
The catalogue
Catalogue and Variant Migration
BigCommerce's product option and variant model does not map one to one onto Shopify's. We migrate the catalogue against Shopify's actual variant limits and structure, and flag anywhere a product genuinely needs restructuring before launch rather than after a customer finds it broken.
App and Integration Audit
BigCommerce stores typically lean on a smaller app catalogue than Shopify's, often filled in with custom API work instead. We audit what each integration actually does, move it to a native Shopify app where one exists, and rebuild what is genuinely bespoke.
What you have already earned
URL Structure Remapping
BigCommerce and Shopify structure category and product URLs differently, and the mismatch is where migrations lose rankings if it is left to a generic export tool. We map the real structure by hand, not by assumption, and verify every redirect on the live domain before calling it done.
SEO Preservation
Every indexed URL is crawled, mapped to its Shopify equivalent and given a 301 before launch. Titles, descriptions and structured data move with the page, and we compare the crawl before and after so any loss is visible rather than discovered in a report a month later.
What happens around the move
Integrations and Custom Functionality
ERP, fulfilment and payment integrations reconnected and tested against real orders before go-live. Where bespoke BigCommerce functionality is genuinely load-bearing, our developers rebuild it natively on Shopify's larger app ecosystem.
Launch and the Weeks After
Managed go-live with the team on hand, then close monitoring of rankings, redirects and error logs through the period where migration problems actually surface. A migration is not finished on launch day, and pricing it as though it is helps nobody.
Decide
Before anything moves, the honest question is whether it should. Most of the money in a migration is lost or saved here.
Migrate BigCommerce to Shopify
A working store is not a reason to move
If BigCommerce is meeting your needs today, moving for the ecosystem alone rarely pays back quickly, and we will tell you so. The brands where it does pay back usually know why already: an app catalogue that has run out of answers, or a bespoke integration written because no app existed.
So the first piece of work is the numbers rather than the build. What the move costs, what it removes from your developer bill, and what it puts at risk on the day the domain switches.
Before you commit
What you are actually comparing
These two are closer than any other pair we write about. Both are hosted, both handle the infrastructure, and both run serious stores. Two of the six lines below genuinely go to BigCommerce, which is why we say out loud that a working BigCommerce store is not a reason to migrate.
| Capability | BigCommerce | Shopify and Shopify Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction fees | No additional platform fee on top of your payment processor | None either on Shopify Payments; a platform fee applies on a third-party gateway |
| How the price rises | An annual sales threshold per plan: cross it and you move up a tier | A plan fee you change when you choose to, plus payment processing |
| Native product options | Historically stronger on complex, interdependent options | Variants and metafields, with much of that gap now closed |
| Built in before apps | Faceted search, customer groups, pricing rules, multi-storefront lower down the range | Fewer of those native, and an app for each that is genuinely needed |
| The ecosystem | Smaller: fewer apps, themes, agencies and developers who know it | The largest in ecommerce, which is what most brands actually move for |
| Checkout | Yours within what the platform allows | Built in, and extendable on Plus on the highest-value page in the funnel |
Migrate
The mapping, the rebuild and the redirects. Everything that decides whether the store you land on is better than the one you left.
BigCommerce Shopify migration service
The option model is a design decision, not an export
BigCommerce handles complex, interdependent product options natively, and Shopify reaches the same place through variants and metafields. The two do not map one to one, so the translation sets what your merchandising can do for years and it is made once.
We migrate against Shopify’s actual variant limits rather than a spreadsheet’s, and flag in writing anywhere a product genuinely needs restructuring while it is still cheap to argue about.
Migration from BigCommerce to Shopify Plus
Rankings survive the move, or the move was not worth making
BigCommerce category and product paths rarely map onto Shopify’s automatically, so the redirect map is the single biggest factor in whether a migration protects your rankings or quietly costs them. A store that has ranked for years has the most to lose on the day it moves.
Every indexed URL is crawled, mapped and given a 301 before launch, then compared crawl to crawl afterwards, so a page that went missing is found by us rather than by your traffic graph six weeks later.
What usually goes wrong
Four failures account for most of the damage
None of them is exotic. Each one is cheap to prevent and expensive to find afterwards, which is why the audit comes first rather than the build.
The redirect map is built from the sitemap
A sitemap says what you want indexed, not what Google actually has. We crawl the live store and pull Search Console’s own list beside it, because the pages earning the most are often the ones nobody remembers building.
The clean export is mistaken for a clean migration
BigCommerce product data comes out tidily, which lulls people into treating the whole job as an export. The URL structure and the option model are the parts that need designing, and neither shows up in a product CSV.
The password reset lands as a surprise
Passwords cannot move between platforms, for security reasons, so every customer is invited to set a new one. Timed and worded with you, it reads as part of the launch. Sent cold, it reads as a phishing email.
The custom API work has no owner
Where BigCommerce had no app for something, a developer usually wrote it. That code tends to have no documentation and nobody named against it, and it is a thing to find during the audit rather than during cutover.
The problems that matter rarely appear on launch day. They appear when Google recrawls, when the first month-end report runs against imported order history, and when a customer spends a balance that moved across in a different shape. So the same developers stay on it, watching redirect hits and errors daily at first and tracking rankings against the pre-launch crawl.
Support after launchHow we work with you
Audit first, decide after
A crawl, an integration inventory and a catalogue mapping, priced on its own. You end up with a written migration plan and a redirect map you own, whoever eventually does the work.
Fixed feeFixed-scope migration
The plan signed off, then the build, the data, the integrations and the redirects to an agreed scope and date. The people who quoted it are the people on it.
ProjectMigration, then a retainer
Launch is where a migration starts being judged. The same developers stay on for monitoring, the fixes that surface in the first weeks, and the next round of work.
MonthlyReviews on the Shopify Partner Directory
Merchants, in their own words.
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From start to finish, they were incredibly easy to work with. They understood the brief perfectly and delivered to a very high standard. Communication was excellent throughout, with quick and clear responses to any questions I had.
Tacky And Upsetting Store build or redesign · April 2026
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The things [the team] have put in place and recommended for us have paid immediate dividend. We wish we had come in contact with [them] sooner.
ARTMARTIAL Store build or redesign · April 2026
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I can’t recommend [the team] enough, [they] helped us with everything from product design, supplier communication to website building and SEO. We were able to build a brand off the back of all [their] information and help.
Reveliér Studios Business strategy guidance · April 2026
Keep reading
Everything around a migration
Other platforms
What comes with it
Read before you decide
Partners
Tools we have already run on our own stores.
The apps around a Shopify store decide as much as the theme does, and choosing between thousands of them is most of the work. We are a Shopify Plus Partner and we integrate the tools that sit around the platform. Every one of them runs on our own two stores before it reaches a client, so the recommendation you get comes from having paid for the thing and lived with it. When a brand already runs a stack that works, we integrate with it rather than rebuilding it to suit us.
How we use them
Straight answers
Will we lose our Google rankings when we migrate from BigCommerce?
Not if the redirects are handled properly. BigCommerce's URL structure does not map one to one onto Shopify's, so we map every indexed URL by hand and verify the redirects on the live domain before calling it done.
Why do brands move from BigCommerce to Shopify?
Mostly for Shopify's larger app ecosystem, its theme flexibility and the wider pool of developers who build on it. We size that against your specific stack before recommending the move.
Can you migrate BigCommerce product options and variants?
Yes. The two platforms' variant models do not match exactly, so we migrate against Shopify's actual limits and flag anywhere a product genuinely needs restructuring before launch rather than after.
What happens to custom API integrations built for BigCommerce?
Each one is audited. Where a native Shopify app already does the job, we move to it. Where the integration is genuinely bespoke, our developers rebuild it on Shopify's API.
How much downtime does the migration cause?
None your customers will see. BigCommerce keeps trading while we build on a separate Shopify store, and the domain switches only once the redirect map passes.
Do you migrate US BigCommerce stores from the UK?
Yes. We run migrations for US brands out of London, and the time difference helps: work done here overnight lands before your team starts the day.
Is this the right thing to buy from us?
Worth a conversation
- The app you need does not exist on BigCommerce and does on Shopify
- A bespoke API integration is doing a job a Shopify app does natively
- An annual sales threshold keeps moving you up a tier
- Finding developers or an agency who know the platform is getting harder
Probably not this, yet
- BigCommerce is meeting your needs and the store converts well
- Your catalogue relies on option logic BigCommerce handles better
- You want a redesign rather than a replatform
- You need someone to keep BigCommerce running, which we do not sell
Tell us what the store needs to do
Send the store URL and what is in the way. We reply personally, and if the honest answer is that you do not need this yet, that is the reply you get.
Stores we build and grow
Migration from BigCommerce to Shopify
Talk to the people who would do the migration.
Send us the store. We will come back with what the option mapping looks like, what the redirect map involves, and whether moving is the right call at all.
UK and US brands buy this from the same senior team, and the American day is covered from the start of it rather than the end. How we work with US brands.
Get in touch