Migrating from Shopify to Commercefull — A Complete Guide

Shopify is where most merchants start — and where many eventually feel the squeeze: app bills stacking up, checkout locked behind Plus, and a growing sense that the store you built isn’t really yours.

Commercefull ships with a built-in migration module designed for exactly this move. Here’s how a real Shopify→Commercefull migration works.

What actually moves

The migration module tracks each import as a job, maintains a mapping table between Shopify IDs and Commercefull IDs, and logs every error for triage. Coverage:

The workflow

1. Export from Shopify. Pull your data via the Admin API (or CSV exports from the admin panel — Products → Export, Customers → Export).

2. Create an import job. The Business API registers the import and returns a job ID. Always start with a dry run:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/business/migration/jobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "organizationId": "your-org-id",
    "jobType": "full",
    "source": "shopify",
    "sourceStoreUrl": "https://your-store.myshopify.com",
    "dryRun": true
  }'

3. Stream records. For each exported record, create it via the Business API and record the ID mapping back to the job — that’s what makes rollback, re-runs, and audit trails possible.

4. Review errors, fix, re-run. The job’s error log tells you exactly which records failed and why. Fix the data, re-run only what failed.

What doesn’t move (plan for these)

Be honest with yourself about the gaps — every platform migration has them:

• Customer passwords. No platform exports password hashes — customers reset on first login. Plan a “reset your password” email campaign for launch week.
• App data. Your Shopify apps’ data (reviews apps, loyalty apps, subscription apps) lives in those apps’ databases, not Shopify’s. Export from each separately.
• Theme. Liquid templates don’t port — you’ll rebuild the storefront in Commercefull’s theme system or go headless on the Customer API.
• Subscriptions in progress. Active subscription contracts need re-establishment — migrate subscribers and re-create their schedules.

The wins on the other side

• No more app tax. Loyalty, subscriptions, reviews, gift cards, B2B — the things you were renting — are native modules now.
• Your checkout. Every template and flow is editable code, not a sandboxed script slot.
• Your database. Plain PostgreSQL. Query it, export it, keep it forever.

The full technical guide — entity mapping tables, API calls, dry-run workflow — is in the docs: Migrating from Shopify.

Not on Shopify? The migration module also supports WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, Shopware, Wix, Squarespace, and CSV.