Square to Shopify Migration

Square to Shopify Migration with LitExtension

If you’d rather leave the technical side of your store migration to the experts, LitExtension’s All-in-One service is designed precisely for that. Instead of spending hours on data mapping and file transfers, you can continue managing your business while our specialists handle every step, from planning and setup to testing, data migration, and quality checks.

Wondering exactly how all of this happens? Let us show you what the process looks like when our team carries out your Square to Shopify migration from start to finish:

Step 1. Consultation with LitExtension experts

First, we start with a thorough discussion about your store and migration goals.

Specifically, after you share your requirements, our technical team reviews your Square site to understand its structure, including data types, catalog format, customer details, and any custom fields or integrations you’re using. This helps us identify potential challenges early and outline a migration plan tailored to your needs.

After we’re aligned on scope and deliverables, we prepare a Service Level Agreement (SLA) summarizing the entire process, timeline, and responsibilities. And once approved, the migration officially begins!

Step 2. Perform the pre-migration

Next, we get your Shopify environment ready to receive data. This involves setting up secure connections, adjusting configurations, and testing compatibility to ensure everything works seamlessly once data starts flowing. Plus, if your Square store uses unique attributes or data stored in non-standard fields, we adapt Shopify’s import structure accordingly.

In some cases, third-party app data or manually entered records may require additional customization, but no worries. Should that happen, our team will inform you first, explain the solution, and proceed only after your confirmation!

Step 3. Running a demo migration

Before migrating your entire database, we run a demo transfer with a small data sample. This gives you a visual preview of how information from Square will appear in Shopify, while allowing us to fine-tune field mappings and formatting if needed.

For smaller stores (under about 2,000 entities), this stage can be optional. Still, most of our clients choose to run the demo anyway because it’s quick, risk-free, and helps confirm that everything will import cleanly.

Step 4. Executing the full migration

Once you’re satisfied with the demo results, we proceed to the complete migration.

Our experts monitor the process in real time, ensuring that every product, category, customer, and order is safely transferred. The system runs on LitExtension’s Smart Controller, which automatically detects and corrects any data conflicts or errors so your migration continues uninterrupted.

Step 5. Migration result testing

After the full transfer is finished, our quality-assurance team inspects your Shopify store line by line. We compare key data (product details, customer profiles, order history, metadata) with your original Square store to make sure everything matches perfectly.

Needless to say, if we spot inconsistencies, they’re corrected immediately. By the time this stage ends, your Shopify store will be accurate, complete, and ready for daily operations.

Step 6. Keeping your store in sync post-migration

Migration doesn’t stop when your data lands in Shopify. Even at this stage, LitExtension still offers several follow-up services to keep your new store aligned with any continued activity on Square:

• Recent Data Migration: If new orders or customers appear on your Square site within 30 days after the full migration completes, we can sync them to Shopify at no extra charge (for up to 5% of your initial data volume).
• Re-migration: Should you decide to redo the process, we’ll perform one full migration again within 30 days (after the migration completes) for free.
• Smart Update: For up to 90 days after the full migration completes, we can refresh your Shopify store with any ongoing changes from your Square database automatically.

These extended services help you operate smoothly even if you keep both stores running in parallel for a short transition period.

Step 7. Ongoing support you can rely on

Last but not least, keep in mind that LitExtension’s support team remains available to assist with any follow-up questions or technical issues. You can expect responses within 24 hours, with support hours as follows:

• Tuesday–Saturday: 00:00 – 23:59 (UTC +7)
• Sunday–Monday: 08:30 – 23:59 (UTC +7)

In addition, you receive 30 days of dedicated technical support after your Shopify store goes live. So, aside from national holidays, help is always within reach, giving you total peace of mind as your new Shopify store starts welcoming customers!

Migrate from Square to Shopify Manually

Though using LitExtension is the quickest, least error-prone option, manual migration is still a decent option if you prefer full hands-on control or want to cut costs.

Just keep the drawbacks in mind: you’ll spend more time cleaning and mapping data, some entities (like historical orders) aren’t natively importable into Shopify, and you’re entirely responsible for any issue that might arise. Still okay with that trade-off? Then follow the steps below:

Step 1. Back up Square and prep a Shopify staging store

• First, in Square Dashboard, back up your Item Library (products/variants) to CSV and export your Customers list to CSV.
• Download or inventory your product images so you can reference them by full URL later. Keep a note of discounts, tax rates, shipping rules, and pages you’ll recreate on Shopify.
• Then, create a fresh Shopify store (trial or dev). 
• Set your currency, taxes, shipping, and payment preferences, and pick a theme so you can see how product content renders. This process also removes guesswork when you start testing imports.

Step 2. Export from Square (catalog, customers, references)

Depending on the data type you want to export, follow these steps:

• To export reports, go to Reports in the Square Dashboard, select the report you need, and click the export icon.
• For customer data, navigate to Customers > Customer directory > Directory, click Import/Export, and then Export customers.
• For item libraries (products), go to Items > Item library and click Actions > Export Library.

And so on.

Step 3. Shape CSVs to Shopify’s format

Download Shopify’s sample CSVs for Products and Customers from the import screens, then reshape your Square exports to match header names and requirements.

• Normalize option names (“Color,” “Size”), ensure variant rows are tied to the correct parent product handle
• Clean text (UTF-8 encoding, no stray delimiters). 
• If you’ll reference images by URL, add them in the image column; multiple images go in separate rows or comma-separated, per Shopify’s importer guidance.

Step 4. Import into Shopify in a safe sequence

Finally, in Shopify Admin, go to Products → Import your product CSV. Validate a small sample first, then scale up, and don’t forget to check the results.

Note: if you truly need historical orders inside Shopify, that typically requires a specialized solution. For that reason, many merchants keep Square read-only for historical lookup and start all new orders on Shopify.

Why Switch from Square to Shopify

From our observation, Shopify gives you:

• A purpose-built commerce stack with robust catalog and variant handling
• A massive theme/app ecosystem
• First-class checkout that’s optimized for conversion. 
• Multichannel selling (online store, social, marketplaces) with powerful analytics and automation

Basically, if you’re scaling, need more control over merchandising, or want deeper integrations (marketing, fulfillment, B2B, POS), Shopify’s platform and partner network tend to get you there faster with fewer workarounds! For many growing brands, that combination of flexibility, performance, and ecosystem support is truly the deciding factor when switching from Square to Shopify.

Tips for the Best Transition from Square to Shopify

Lastly, keep in mind that a little preparation prevents a lot of cleanup later on. Use these practices to make your transition smoother and reduce post-launch surprises.

Standardize your catalog before you export

For starters, we suggest cleaning the Square Item Library first and making sure every product has a unique SKU and a clear primary image. The goal is to produce a “single source of truth” so your Shopify import doesn’t multiply variants or misplace items.

After cleanup, export fresh CSVs and reshape them to Shopify’s templates. Fixing taxonomy and data quality before import saves hours of rework and prevents customer-facing mistakes on launch day.

Migrate in stages and validate with real samples

We cannot stress this enough: Don’t import everything at once!

Start with 10–30 representative products (including variants and long descriptions) and a small customer sample. Import, review on desktop and mobile, adjust your CSV mapping, then scale. Repeat in batches until you’ve migrated the full catalog.

This phased approach gives fast feedback, reduces the blast radius of any mistake, and builds a repeatable checklist for your final run. When the full catalog looks right, recreate collections and discounts, then do a final pass on theme presentation.

Recreate key operations and test every workflow

Finally, your new store won’t start running smoothly right away just because your products show up in Shopify. You’ll also need to pay attention to the core operations (discount codes, tax settings, shipping rates, etc.).

So simulate a full checkout from product view to order confirmation, then test refunds, discounts, and abandoned cart emails to make sure they trigger correctly. This step ensures not only that your Shopify store looks right but that it works right for both you and your customers on launch day.