Ecommerce Replatforming: A Decision Guide and Checklist

Ecommerce replatforming is buying a new commerce platform and rebuilding your store on it. The catalog, customer records and order history move as data. The rest of the project is everything that doesn’t follow the store on its own: storefront templates, checkout logic, saved cards, subscription contracts, email automations, product feed history, shipping and tax settings, and the domain.

BLKDG is a Shopify agency, and every migration we run includes the Shopify store build. The decision sequence holds for any ecommerce platform migration: confirm the trigger applies to your product, check whether an upgrade answers it, then scope the work that an import won’t do.

What is replatforming in ecommerce? It’s replacing the commerce platform under a store that keeps trading: a new platform subscription or license, a new storefront built on it, the old store’s data imported, and every connected system pointed at the new one. Ecommerce migration and ecommerce replatforming name the same project.

An upgrade, a redesign and a headless build each change one layer of the store and leave the platform in place. A replatform changes the platform, which forces a decision about every layer above it.

An upgrade keeps the platform and the data and moves to a newer version. Adobe recommends upgrading each patch release cycle (opens in new tab) and ties the habit to card security: “To remain PCI-compliant, merchants must be on the latest patch or security patch.”

A redesign changes the theme and stays on the platform, and an older theme can cap what the platform gives you. On Shopify, not every new feature is applied to an existing theme (opens in new tab): one that requires an updated theme architecture won’t be.

Headless replaces the front end only: it’s an architecture where the front end and back end of a website are independent. On Shopify, a custom storefront (opens in new tab) replaces the Online Store channel and connects to Shopify as the back end, and customers still check out using Shopify Checkout. BigCommerce works as the back end for a headless storefront (opens in new tab) in the same way, so headless is the alternative to a replatform when the storefront is the constraint and the commerce back end isn’t, and it’s the build we cover under headless Shopify and Hydrogen development.

Adobe Commerce runs on a support calendar. Each version gets a three-year standard support window (opens in new tab) from its General Availability date, and on Adobe Commerce on Cloud the calendar is enforced: June 1, 2027 is the date Adobe stops maintaining Cloud environments running unsupported Commerce versions. Adobe’s stated consequence is suspended traffic and a storefront that goes offline. The end dates differ by release line, and we list them in our guide to Adobe Commerce support dates by release line.

WooCommerce and self-hosted Adobe Commerce both run on PHP, and PHP has a support schedule of its own. PHP’s security support (opens in new tab) ends for the 8.2 branch on December 31, 2026 and for the 8.3 branch on December 31, 2027. WooCommerce asks for PHP 8.3 or greater (opens in new tab), tested up to PHP 8.4, and the versions on older stacks have reached their official end of life and may expose a site to security vulnerabilities.

Those dependencies sit outside Adobe’s own support. Adobe doesn’t provide security and quality fixes for third-party services and software dependencies, such as PHP and MySQL, that reach end of life while a store is in the three-year or extended support period for Adobe Commerce.

A runtime deadline is an upgrade trigger first. It becomes a replatform trigger when the upgrade, the extension rewrites it forces and the hosting behind it cost more than the store can justify.

Shopify retires features on dates as well. Shopify deprecated Scripts on June 30, 2026 (opens in new tab). Any Scripts still published on a store were deactivated and no longer work, and Shopify Functions is the replacement.

Checkout customization followed the same path. The checkout.liquid layout (opens in new tab) is available only to Shopify Plus merchants, and it’s unsupported for the Information, Shipping, and Payment checkout steps. On the Thank you and Order status pages, checkout.liquid and additional scripts were sunset on August 28, 2025. Script tags on those two pages were sunset on August 28, 2025 for Plus stores, and the sunset date for non-Plus stores is August 26, 2026.

checkout.liquid was a Plus-only layout, and the script tag date depends on the plan.

Moving to a hosted platform hands patching and runtime upgrades to the vendor, and the vendor still sets retirement dates for its own features.

Each trigger above has an answer that keeps the store where it is. On Adobe Commerce it’s the upgrade Adobe recommends every patch release cycle, or Adobe’s own managed line: Adobe positions Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (opens in new tab) as its SaaS offering, so moving to SaaS doesn’t require leaving Adobe. On WooCommerce it’s a PHP and database upgrade to the versions WooCommerce’s requirements name. On Shopify it’s rebuilding a retired Script as a Function, and the Shopify Scripts customizations report (opens in new tab) in the admin lists the customizations that were active.

We’d replatform when the constraint is the platform itself: its cost structure, the upgrade work it demands, or a capability it lacks and won’t get from a theme, an app or a version upgrade. If one of those three removes the constraint, that’s the smaller project and the one to price first.

A store moving to Shopify typically brings over products, customers and historical orders (opens in new tab) (orders that have already been fulfilled), plus gift cards, certificates and store credits, blogs, and pages such as the shipping policy, contact or about page. The order follows how the records reference each other: import products first, then customers, then historical orders, so that products and customers can be properly connected to the orders. After the import, the steps run through verifying products, the theme, shipping, taxes, the payment provider, test orders, staff, the domain, POS and optional SEO setup. Shipping and taxes are setup steps in that sequence, configured on the new store.

There are four ways to move data (opens in new tab): CSV import, third-party migration apps, migration services, and custom integrations through the API. CSV works best for simpler product catalogs and smaller customer lists. It covers products and customers, while historical orders, gift cards, blogs and pages go through migration apps or the APIs. Product fields that aren’t part of Shopify’s default product listing go into metafields.

You don’t have to bring everything, and a migration can be a good time to purge old, low-performing content. Importing orders also triggers email: every staff member set to receive new order notifications, the account owner included, gets a new order email for each imported order. Deactivate new order notifications before the import and reactivate them when it’s complete.

Do customer passwords transfer in an ecommerce platform migration? To Shopify by CSV, they don’t. Passwords are encrypted outside of Shopify (opens in new tab), so a CSV can’t carry them over from another online store.

The customer record itself comes across, including contact details, addresses and marketing preferences. On Shopify’s customer accounts, sign-in doesn’t need a password once sign-in links (opens in new tab) are turned on: customers enter their email address and receive a one-time 6-digit verification code.

Gift cards that can still be redeemed on the old store move last, right before the Shopify store launches. A card a customer spends on the old store after the import would carry a stale balance into Shopify, and an imported gift card can’t be deleted and loaded again.

A gift card number can’t be used again either, even after the original card with that number has been deactivated. A wrong import can’t be corrected by deleting the cards and entering the same numbers again, so the gift card file gets verified before it’s loaded.

For order history, Shopify’s floor is every historical order still within your return policy window, and its recommendation is to import orders from the past 2-5 years. Neither is a limit. Set the cutoff by how far back your support, returns and reporting reach.

Can saved credit cards be migrated to a new ecommerce platform? Card numbers can move, and they move between payment processors. Stripe’s position is that its customers own the sensitive data (opens in new tab) they entrust to it, and its condition is a compliance one: “To meet PCI compliance obligations, we can only transfer your card data to another PCI DSS Level 1-compliant payment processor.”

Braintree needs an attestation of the receiving processor’s PCI compliance (opens in new tab) from a qualified provider before it sends data there. It also caps the process at two exports: one for the bulk of your customers, and another for any new customers created while your processing was being switched over.

On an import into Braintree, the old processor encrypts the file with Braintree’s public key (opens in new tab) and uploads it to Braintree’s SFTP server, and Braintree returns a log of new customer IDs and payment method tokens. Every system holding the old tokens then needs the new ones. Card updates made during the transfer don’t arrive. On an import into Stripe, changes customers make to their payment information (opens in new tab) with the previous processor between the data transfer and the completed import are lost.

Getting card numbers into Shopify has its own gates. Migrating credit card primary account numbers requires the Shopify Plus or Enterprise plan (opens in new tab) and runs through Shopify Professional Services, which is a paid service. If saved card numbers have to come across, raise it when you scope the plan with your Shopify Plus agency. Tokens have a lower bar: migrating payment tokens is available on all Shopify plans and can be completed with support from your subscriptions app developer.

The card number service carries cards only, as credit card PANs. Accelerated wallets such as Venmo, Apple Pay, and Google Pay aren’t supported, and neither is bank account information. PayPal billing agreements can’t be migrated through this service either.

Storing customers’ cards for one-time purchases, as opposed to subscriptions, is available on the Enterprise plan. Migrating payment methods can be complex because the payment data is sensitive and encrypted, and unsupported payment gateways and local payment methods might bring limitations.

The alternative is to leave the card data where it is. In what Shopify calls the slow drip method, a secondary gateway keeps billing existing subscription contracts through the old processor, and each card moves when its customer updates billing details. Shopify’s own estimate is that it can take months or even years to fully migrate all payment methods, depending on when customers choose to update their billing details. On plans other than Plus and Enterprise, keep the secondary gateway active until the last payment method has moved.

A subscription is a payment method plus a contract, and the contract is recreated on the new platform. After payment methods land, the existing subscription contracts get recreated through Shopify’s APIs, and that step belongs to you or your subscription app vendor. Importing or creating the customer records is your responsibility too.

Selling subscription products requires Shopify Payments as the primary payment provider (opens in new tab). Migrating existing subscriptions needs Shopify Payments, Authorize.net, or Stripe as a primary payment gateway (opens in new tab), and the migration process is designed by third-party apps, not by Shopify. Existing pay-as-you-go contracts can be imported into Shopify without migrating credit cards directly (opens in new tab) from Stripe, Braintree, PayPal Express and Authorize.net.

What moves in that import depends on the gateway. From Stripe it’s credit card payment methods only. From Braintree it’s only credit cards and Apple Pay payment methods, and Braintree’s legacy payment gateway integration doesn’t support multi-currency subscription contracts. An import into Stripe carries a risk afterward: issuers that can’t confirm a cardholder’s consent to recurring payments might decline them.

Many ERPs and similar third-party systems already have connector apps, so search the Shopify App Store for one before creating a custom integration. Install any necessary apps early in the setup of the store so you have plenty of time for testing before launch.

You can switch ecommerce platforms and keep the same Klaviyo account (opens in new tab). The order of work is fixed: fully migrate all the historic purchase data from the old ecommerce platform to the new one before integrating the new platform with Klaviyo. The nine steps run from migrating historical data and integrating the new platform through onsite tracking, sign-up forms, flows, the welcome series and segments, and end with disabling the old integration.

Metric-triggered flows stop queuing new contacts after the switch unless they’re cloned, because no more data flows into Klaviyo from the legacy platform. A flow’s trigger is tied to a metric from one platform’s integration, and it can’t be changed directly. Clone the flow and select a new trigger for the correct metric.

The same applies inside the emails and the audience definitions. The template tags in an abandoned cart flow differ from one platform to the next, and any segment with metric-based conditions has to be recreated to incorporate the new metric.

Set cloned flows to Draft or Manual so messages don’t start sending automatically during the migration. Deleting a legacy metric also deletes all the historical data associated with it from your account. Flow rebuilds are part of the Klaviyo email marketing work we scope into a migration.

Google wants a stable ID for each product (opens in new tab): once you’ve assigned an ID to a product, don’t change it. Merchant Center and Google Ads use the ID to track the product’s performance history, and changing it overwrites the product and its history.

If the new store’s feed submits different IDs for the same products, that history is overwritten. Choose the ID the new feed will send before the catalog import, and match it to what Merchant Center already holds.

Tracking gets rebuilt as well. On Shopify, pixels are added as app pixels or custom pixels (opens in new tab) in the Customer events section of the admin, which is where tags from the old platform’s templates get recreated.

Replatforming cost splits into prices you can read on a vendor’s page and prices that exist only in a quote.

Shopify publishes prices for Basic, Grow and Advanced (opens in new tab), each with a monthly and a yearly rate. Shopify Plus (opens in new tab) has a starting price by contract term, and more complex, higher volume businesses switch to a variable platform fee based on their revenue and business model.

BigCommerce lists Core, Growth and Scale (opens in new tab). Core and Growth each carry a trailing twelve-month sales cap with an automatic upgrade to the next plan, Scale charges a percentage on sales above a monthly cap, and Performance shows custom pricing above a published starting figure. Salesforce shows “Contact for pricing” on every Commerce edition (opens in new tab), and WooCommerce is free to download and use (opens in new tab), with hosting, extensions and payment processing as separate costs.

On Shopify Plus and on BigCommerce, the subscription line moves with sales volume. Model the platform fee at the volume you’re planning for as well as the volume you have.

On Basic, Grow and Advanced, Shopify’s rates and fees (opens in new tab) include the monthly price, credit card rates, and third-party transaction fees. The third applies when you keep an outside payment provider, and then two parties charge you: Shopify charges third-party transaction fees that vary by plan, and your payment provider charges its own credit card rates separately.

Credit card transaction fees aren’t returned to you when you issue a refund, and there are no setup fees on any Shopify plan.

One Shopify fee rule depends on when the store was created. On Shopify stores created on or after May 12, 2025, orders that include store credit or gift cards as a payment method are charged third-party transaction fees on the amount paid with store credit or gift cards. Store credit and gift card transaction fees don’t apply to Shopify stores created before May 12, 2025. The date to check is the creation date of the store you’ll launch on.

The remaining lines are quoted per project or priced by each vendor: apps and extensions, a paid theme, data migration tools or services, build and integration labor, redirect mapping, QA and training. The old platform also keeps billing until cutover, so the length of the plan sets how long you pay for two.

Does moving to a hosted platform make a store PCI compliant? Shopify’s claim about its own PCI compliance (opens in new tab) is “Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant. This compliance extends by default to all stores powered by Shopify.” The PCI Security Standards Council, in e-commerce guidance (opens in new tab) from April 2017 written against PCI DSS v3.2, says of hosted shopping carts that “The use of such a solution can alleviate many but not all of the merchant’s PCI DSS responsibilities.” The council also says “it is the responsibility of the merchant to vet the service provider and monitor its compliance to PCI DSS.”

By the standards body’s account, replatforming to a hosted platform reduces the PCI work you carry without removing it. Get each shortlisted platform’s responsibility statement in writing and give it to whoever signs your self-assessment.

A replatform changes URLs and templates, which makes it a site move in Google’s terms. The URL inventory is wider than pages: Google wants the URLs of embedded content (opens in new tab) in the move plan, meaning videos, images, JavaScript, and CSS files. The links to update reach beyond the site itself, to profile links such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and to ad campaigns, which need to point to the new landing pages.

The redirect map, staging rules and launch sequence are in our SEO migration checklist. We run redirect mapping and SEO migration as part of the build.

The first import happens before launch, and the old store keeps taking orders after it. A delta migration is the transfer of any new data added to your old store after the cutoff point you chose for the initial migration. There’s no right or wrong amount of time between the cutoff and go-live, but a shorter gap makes the delta migration an easier job. The gap fills with more than orders: along with new orders and customers, any products or content you added might need adding to the new store, with 301 redirects.

A freeze on catalog and content changes shrinks the delta.

How long does the DNS switch take in an ecommerce migration? After you point the domain at Shopify, the DNS change (opens in new tab) usually takes effect within two hours, but can take up to two days. Reduce the TTL with your domain hosting provider to 300 about a week before you go live.

While DNS propagates, both stores can receive visitors, so some customers might be directed to the old store and others to the new one. Consider deactivating the old store’s checkout during that time. Turning off the old checkout also stops new orders and gift card redemptions from landing on the old store after the final delta.

At launch, deactivate Shopify Payments test mode, then switch the primary domain, point DNS records to Shopify, submit the sitemap to Google, and deactivate private mode. Before launch, run test orders with discount codes, different payment methods, different shipping addresses (with particular attention to how the tax is calculated) and failed transactions. The notification emails, the fulfillment flow and a refund get tested after that.

The rollback plan is the old store, kept intact until the delta is reconciled and the new store has processed real orders. A low TTL is what lets you point the domain back quickly. Shopify doesn’t back up your store data by default, so export the imported data set once it’s verified.

This ecommerce replatforming checklist runs in order of work. Start with the decision.

Inventory the store before anything is built.

Build the store and move the data.

Move payments and re-point integrations.

Cut over.

Close out after launch.

BLKDG is a Shopify agency, and every migration we run includes the Shopify store build, so the data move, the storefront and the integrations sit in one plan under our Shopify migration services. For platform-specific steps, we’ve written separate guides to a WooCommerce to Shopify migration and a Wix to Shopify migration.

If you’re weighing ecommerce replatforming against an upgrade, schedule a free Growth Audit. It’s a no-obligation look at why your store isn’t getting seen or converting, with a roadmap for how to fix it.