Adobe Commerce to Shopify Migration

Why Switch from Adobe Commerce to Shopify

Migrating from Adobe Commerce to Shopify is one of the most effective decisions businesses can make to stay competitive in today’s eCommerce landscape. While Adobe Commerce offers flexibility, it comes with heavy costs, complex management, and technical challenges that slow down growth. Shopify, by contrast, delivers simplicity, speed, and scalability right out of the box.

Choosing Adobe Commerce to Shopify migration means cutting costs, improving performance, and focusing on business growth instead of technical struggles. Let’s analyze in detail why you should choose Shopify instead of Adobe Commerce:

Lower Costs and Easier Management

Adobe Commerce to Shopify migration helps you save money and simplify operations. Adobe Commerce often requires costly developers, constant maintenance, and high hosting fees that can reach tens of thousands of dollars per year. Shopify offers predictable pricing starting at just $39/month, with Shopify Plus around $2,000/month, making it far more cost-effective.

Faster Store Performance

Shopify is built for speed. On average, Shopify stores load 40% faster than Adobe Commerce stores, giving you better customer experiences and higher conversion rates. Even a 1-second delay can lower conversions by 7%, so faster performance directly impacts your bottom line. With Shopify, optimization is automatic, while Adobe Commerce needs custom hosting and tuning.

Stronger Security and Automatic Updates

Shopify handles security for you. It is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and automatically applies updates and patches. In contrast, Adobe Commerce requires store owners to manage security themselves, often hiring specialists to apply patches and monitor threats, which adds cost and risk.

Larger Ecosystem and Growth Opportunities

Shopify powers over 4.6 million stores worldwide, compared to just 130,000 for Adobe Commerce. This massive ecosystem gives you access to thousands of apps, seamless integrations, and a large developer community. With Adobe Commerce, adding features usually means expensive custom development, but with Shopify, growth is fast and affordable.

Focus on Sales, Not Technical Issues

By choosing Adobe Commerce to Shopify migration, you remove technical barriers and free up resources to grow your business. Shopify lets you focus on selling, marketing, and scaling your brand instead of managing servers or fixing code. For most merchants, Shopify isn’t just the better option—it’s the clear choice for long-term eCommerce success.

That’s exactly why switching from Adobe Commerce to Shopify is the smarter choice—especially for businesses struggling with high development costs, slow site performance, or the constant need for technical maintenance. If you want a platform that’s faster, easier to manage, and built to scale without draining resources, Shopify is the clear path forward.

How to Move from Adobe Commerce to Shopify

Migrating from Adobe Commerce to Shopify involves securely transferring essential data including products, customers, orders, blogs, and more while ensuring accuracy and maintaining data integrity throughout the process.

The following key steps outline how to ensure a smooth and accurate migration from Adobe Commerce to Shopify:

• Step 1: Back up and export data from Adobe Commerce
• Step 2: Set up your Shopify store
• Step 3: Import data into Shopify
• Step 4: Test functionality and launch your Shopify store

To ensure a smooth and accurate migration from Adobe Commerce to Shopify, prepare the following in advance:

• Administrator access to both your Adobe Commerce and Shopify accounts.
• A laptop or desktop computer with a stable internet connection, as interruptions during migration may result in data loss or errors.

Step 1: Back up and export data from Adobe Commerce

Begin by creating a backup to safeguard your data and ensure it can be restored if any issues arise during migration. Once the backup is complete, export your Adobe Commerce data to prepare it for import into Shopify.

Create a System Backup

To create a System Backup of Adobe Commerce:

• In the Adobe Commerce Admin, go to System → Tools → Backups.
• Choose the type of backup you need:
  • System Backup (includes database, media files, and filesystem)
  • Database & Media Backup
  • Database Backup Only
• Optionally, put the store into maintenance mode while backing up to avoid data changes during the process.
• Confirm the backup action and wait for completion.
• Download the backup archive or note its storage location.

Note: The built-in backup feature is deprecated in versions 2.3.0 and above. It’s safer to use other backup tools or manual methods.

Export Key Entities via Admin

To export entities via Admin dashboard on Adobe Commerce:

• In Adobe Commerce Admin, navigate to System → Data Transfer → Export.
• Select an Entity Type (e.g., Products, Customers, Customer Addresses, Stock Sources, Customer Finances).
• Use Filters if you only want some records (e.g., specific SKUs, dates).
• Optionally exclude attributes you don’t want to export.
• Choose export format (default: CSV) and, if necessary, enable Fields Enclosure to handle special characters properly.
• Click Continue to start the export. The process runs in the background; when completed, the file is placed in var/export/ (or remote storage, if configured).
• Download the generated export files.

Verify and secure backups and exports:

• Ensure all export files are intact and non-corrupted.
• Check encoding, delimiters, and special characters.
• Store backups in a secure location with restricted access.
• Document which backup corresponds to which timestamp and environment.

Step 2: Set up your Shopify store

Prepare your Shopify store with the essential configurations to ensure a smooth migration process:

• Sign up for Shopify and select a plan that aligns with your business requirements.
• Configure store settings, including store name, address, currency, payment gateways, and initial shipping options.
• Choose a theme to establish the basic layout. You may begin with Shopify’s default theme and customize it after migration.

At this step, there is no need to focus heavily on UI/UX. Once the data migration is complete, the store’s design and user experience can be refined to align with your content and business goals.

Step 3: Import data into Shopify

Next comes the most important step in the migration from Adobe Commerce to Shopify.

After exporting the file from Adobe Commerce, the data must be reformatted to match Shopify’s supported CSV structure. You can either adjust the existing file or transfer the information into Shopify’s CSV template before importing it.

The steps are as follows:

• Download Shopify’s product and customer CSV templates from the official Importing and Exporting documentation.
• Open both the Adobe Commerce export files and Shopify templates in a spreadsheet program for comparison.
• Map Adobe Commerce columns to the corresponding Shopify columns. Pay special attention to accuracy, as this step is detailed and time-consuming.
• Verify product image URLs in the CSV to ensure they are publicly accessible before import.
• In your Shopify Admin:
  • Go to Products > Import and upload the formatted product CSV.
  • Go to Customers > Import and upload the formatted customer CSV.
• Review the mappings carefully and proceed with the import.

If you encounter issues during the import process or the import fails, review the following common causes:

• Mismatched column names: Confirm that all fields align precisely with Shopify’s CSV template.
• Incorrect date or currency formats: Ensure values follow Shopify’s required formats.
• Duplicate SKUs or handles: Remove or correct duplicates beforehand to avoid overwriting data.
• Broken or private image URLs: Verify that all product images are hosted on publicly accessible links.
• Special characters: Check file encoding (UTF-8) to prevent corrupted text during import.

Step 4: Test functionality and launch your Shopify store

As the final stage of your Adobe Commerce to Shopify migration, carefully test your Shopify store to confirm everything is functioning properly. Verify that products, customer data, and orders have been transferred accurately, check payment gateways and shipping settings, and ensure your storefront displays correctly. Once testing is complete and all systems are working as intended, you can confidently launch your Shopify store.