Shopify Migration in Ireland: WooCommerce to Shopify Checklist

Originally published at satyam-mishra-dev.tech.

Almost half of Irish online stores still run on WooCommerce. Moving to Shopify usually means fewer plugins to patch, a faster checkout and less time spent on hosting. Done carelessly, it also means lost Google rankings and broken customer accounts. This is the checklist I follow for Irish stores.

1. Audit the store before you touch anything

• Count products, variants, categories, customers, orders and blog posts, so you can check the numbers match after the move.
• List every WooCommerce plugin and what it does. Most map to a Shopify feature or app; a few (custom pricing rules, bespoke integrations) need custom work.
• Export a crawl of every live URL, and note your top pages in Google Search Console. Those pages must keep their traffic.

2. Know what moves and what doesn't

Data	Moves?	Notes
Products, variants, images	Yes	With a migration app or CSV import. Check variant options and image order afterwards.
Categories	Yes	Become Shopify collections.
Customers	Yes	Passwords cannot be transferred. Customers activate their new account with an emailed invite.
Order history	Yes	Imported as historical orders, useful for customer service and repeat-purchase data.
Product reviews	Usually	Exported from the WooCommerce review plugin and imported into a Shopify review app.
Blog posts and pages	Yes	Formatting and embedded shortcodes need cleaning up by hand.

3. Protect your Google rankings with redirects

Shopify uses fixed URL patterns, so almost every WooCommerce URL changes. Each old URL needs a 301 redirect to its new address, set up before launch, not after.

Type	WooCommerce	Shopify
Product	/product/linen-shirt/	/products/linen-shirt
Category	/product-category/shirts/	/collections/shirts
Blog post	/2025/03/spring-edit/	/blogs/news/spring-edit
Page	/about-us/	/pages/about-us

• Keep product and collection handles identical to the old slugs, so only the prefix changes.
• Bulk-import the redirects as a CSV in Shopify under URL redirects, then test the top 50 URLs by hand.
• After launch, submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch the Pages report for 404s for the first few weeks.

4. Set up VAT for Ireland

• Irish shoppers expect VAT-inclusive prices, so turn on tax-inclusive pricing in Shopify.
• The standard rate is 23%. Some products are charged at reduced or zero rates, which Shopify handles with tax overrides per collection.
• If your sales to consumers in other EU countries pass €10,000 a year, you charge each customer's local VAT rate and file through the EU One-Stop Shop.

I configure VAT the way your accountant specifies. Confirm rates and OSS registration with them; this guide is not tax advice.

5. Shipping and payments Irish shoppers expect

• Shipping zones for Ireland with An Post and DPD Ireland rates, plus a separate zone for the UK and Northern Ireland, where post-Brexit customs rules apply to many goods.
• Shopify Payments is available in Ireland: cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, paid out in euro. Add PayPal and Klarna if your customers use them.
• If you sell across the EU, Shopify Markets shows local currency, language and delivery times per country.

6. Carry GDPR consent over correctly

Only customers who opted in to marketing in WooCommerce should be marked as subscribed in Shopify. Importing everyone as subscribed breaks GDPR and can get your email domain flagged. Set up a cookie banner on the new store before launch.

7. Launch day

1. Freeze product edits on WooCommerce and run a final sync of new customers and orders.
2. Place real test orders with each payment method and shipping zone, then refund them.
3. Point your domain's DNS to Shopify and wait for SSL to issue.
4. Test the redirects again on the live domain, and check analytics and the Meta pixel are firing.
5. Send customers the account activation email with a short note on why it changed.

8. How long a Shopify migration takes

The calendar time depends less on the platform than on how much has to be checked by hand. As a rough guide for an Irish store moving with its own domain:

Store	Typical time	What takes the time
Under 100 products, standard theme	1 to 2 weeks	Theme set-up, VAT and shipping, redirects for every product and category URL.
100 to 2,000 products, a few integrations	2 to 4 weeks	Variant clean-up, reviews and order history, email platform and accounting connections.
Large catalogue or custom features	4 to 8 weeks	Custom sections or apps, B2B pricing, subscriptions, and a longer test phase.

These are estimates, not quotes. The store stays live on WooCommerce for the whole build, so the only switch-over moment is the DNS change on launch day.

Shopify migration questions

Will I lose my Google rankings?

Not if every old URL redirects to its new Shopify URL (step 3). Rankings usually wobble for a week or two while Google recrawls, then settle. Missing redirects are what cause lasting drops.

Will the store go offline during the migration?

No. Shopify is built on a separate preview store while WooCommerce keeps selling. Customers move over when the domain is pointed to Shopify.

Can customers keep their passwords?

No. Passwords cannot be transferred between platforms, so customers activate their Shopify account from an emailed invite. Their order history comes across.

Can I keep my .ie domain?

Yes. You keep the domain at your registrar and point it to Shopify, or transfer it in. Email hosted on the domain keeps working if its MX records are left alone.

Can I do it myself?

A small store with a standard theme can, using a migration app or CSV import and this checklist. A developer is worth it when there are thousands of URLs to redirect, custom features to rebuild, or integrations with accounting and stock systems.

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I'm Satyam Mishra, a software developer in Pune working with stores and startups in Ireland, Europe and the US. More guides at satyam-mishra-dev.tech/guides.