Migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify

BigCommerce and Shopify are the most similar pair of platforms anyone migrates between — both hosted, both SaaS, both with comparable catalogue models. Which is exactly why this migration gets underestimated: the data maps cleanly, so people assume the URLs will too.

They don't.

Why stores move

Usually the ecosystem rather than the platform. BigCommerce is a capable product; Shopify has a much larger app store, a larger developer pool, and a checkout that converts well. Merchants also cite the theme ecosystem and the ease of finding someone to work on the store.

Occasionally it's the reverse of a decision made years ago on features that have since equalised. Worth being honest about whether the platform is the actual problem — when Shopify is the wrong choice applies in both directions.

URLs are the whole risk

BigCommerce lets you define URL structures fairly freely, and many stores use paths that have no Shopify equivalent. Shopify enforces /products/, /collections/, /pages/, /blogs/.

Consequences:

• Product URLs almost certainly change. A BigCommerce store using /brand/product-name cannot reproduce that.
• Category URLs change, and BigCommerce's nested categories flatten into Shopify collections.
• Custom URL structures you configured are gone.

So every indexed URL needs a 301. On a mature catalogue that's thousands of them, and it's a workstream with its own owner — redirect mapping.

Match Shopify handles to your existing slugs wherever the slug survives; it turns thousands of manual mappings into pattern rules.

Data mapping

Mostly straightforward, with four things to plan:

Products and variants. BigCommerce's options and variants map reasonably to Shopify's, but Shopify caps options per product. BigCommerce stores using many option sets need a modelling decision, not a copy — often metafields.

Custom fields. BigCommerce custom fields have no direct equivalent. They become metafields or metaobjects, and they should be defined and typed before import, not dumped into descriptions.

Categories to collections. Nested categories flatten. Plan how the hierarchy is expressed through collections and menus.

Customer groups. BigCommerce customer groups with group pricing map to Shopify's B2B catalogues and price lists on the right plan — B2B and wholesale. If group pricing is core to how you sell, scope it deliberately.

Customers and order history transfer for support and reporting. Passwords never migrate — plan a reset prompt at launch.

Multi-storefront

BigCommerce's multi-storefront usually maps to Shopify Markets rather than separate stores. Decide early: it changes the whole data and URL plan.

Most merchants who ask for separate stores describe requirements Markets already handles — multiple stores or Markets.

Apps and integrations

List every BigCommerce app and sort into three piles: native on Shopify, an app from the Shopify store, or custom development.

Don't assume one-to-one replacements exist. Sometimes a BigCommerce app's job is better done by a Shopify native feature, and occasionally by a small custom app.

Anything connected to an ERP, accounting system or 3PL is a rebuild rather than a reconnection — scope it alongside the migration, not after — ERP integration.

Content

BigCommerce web pages become Shopify pages; blog posts become blog articles. Bring the titles and meta descriptions with them — this is the step rushed migrations skip and it's why their traffic drops.

The sequence

1. Export every indexed URL from the sitemap, Search Console, a crawl and analytics.
2. Audit the catalogue — options, custom fields, categories.
3. Define the Shopify data model, including metafields, before importing anything.
4. Import to a development store and check a sample thoroughly.
5. Build the redirect map as its own workstream.
6. Rebuild the storefront. Don't port the BigCommerce theme; use the move to simplify.
7. Load and test redirects before switching DNS.
8. Launch outside peak hours, submit the new sitemap.
9. Watch crawl errors and rankings for a month.

The honest summary

This is the least painful platform migration available, and that's the trap. The data is easy, so the effort goes into the storefront and the URL work gets squeezed into launch week.

Get the redirects right and a BigCommerce-to-Shopify move is genuinely low risk. Get them wrong and the platform similarity won't save you.

Everything about this migration is easy except the URLs. So spend the time you saved on the URLs.