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