What comes along when UK retailers move from Shopware to Shopify, what they lose, how the migration works and what it costs.
Moving from Shopware to Shopify is a rebuild with a data transfer, not a one-click switch. Products, categories, customers and, if you want, your order history can be moved to Shopify via CSV or API. Your theme, plugins, shopping experiences, custom pricing rules and checkout customisations, on the other hand, have to be rebuilt or replaced with Shopify apps. Based on our project experience, a small shop takes 6 to 10 weeks and a mid-sized shop 3 to 5 months.
Three things are lost in every switch: customer passwords, your URL structure and everything that only ran through Shopware plugins. Shopify cannot import passwords from other systems, so customers set new ones. Product and category URLs on Shopify follow fixed patterns such as /products/ and /collections/, which means every old URL needs a 301 redirect. And you have to check every plugin feature one by one: is there an app, is a standard feature enough, or does it go away?
On an ongoing basis, you pay a Shopify plan starting at €36 per month plus fees per sale. With Shopify Payments, online card payments cost 1.3 to 2.1 % plus €0.30 each, and third-party payment providers add a transaction fee of 0.2 to 2 %. In return, hosting, security updates and version upgrades are no longer your job.
This article is for merchants and e-commerce managers who run a Shopware shop and are considering a move to Shopify. You will learn how the migration works, what it costs, which data comes along and how to tell in advance whether the switch makes sense for your shop at all. Our general platform comparison is in the article Shopify or Shopware; this one is only about the move.
As a Shopware partner, we will say it openly: for some shops, Shopify is the better choice. The question is not which system is better, but which one fits your product range, your processes and your team.
Our rule of thumb from projects: if more than three of your core processes run through custom plugins, calculate the switch especially carefully. In that case, a Shopware relaunch is often cheaper than a platform change. Our article on Shopware alternatives compares other options.
Shopware 6 exports products, customers and categories as CSV files through the import/export profiles in the admin. Orders, media and custom fields are best pulled through the Admin API. On the Shopify side, there is no ready-made importer for Shopware: Shopify’s free Store Migration app supports platforms such as WooCommerce, Wix or Etsy, but Shopware is not on the list. So you work with CSV files, an import app like Matrixify or your own script using the Shopify Admin API.
| Data | Transfer to Shopify | What to watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Products and variants | Yes, via CSV or API | Maximum of 3 options and 2,048 variants per product |
| Product images | Yes, via image URLs | The old image URLs must still be reachable during import |
| Properties and custom fields | Yes, as metafields | Create metafield definitions in Shopify first |
| Categories | Partly, as collections | No nested categories, hierarchy only through menus |
| Customers and addresses | Yes, via CSV or API | Passwords cannot be transferred, set marketing consent per channel |
| Order history | Yes, via API or import app | Turn off order notifications before importing |
| CMS pages and shopping experiences | Text and images only | Rebuild layouts in the Shopify theme |
| Plugins and rules | No | Replace with apps, Shopify Flow or custom development |
| Reviews | Usually yes | Depends on the review app you choose |
The import order is fixed: first products, then customers, then historical orders. That way, Shopify can match each order to a customer and to each product. According to Shopify, your team receives a notification for every imported order unless you turn off order emails beforehand. With 30,000 old orders, that is a real problem.
Plan your data cleanup before the export. The effort of a migration depends less on the amount of data than on its quality. 20,000 clean products move faster than 2,000 products with inconsistent attributes, missing images and duplicate SKUs.
The title of this article promises an honest answer to this question. Here it is, sorted by impact.
Shopify states in its own help centre that passwords from another shop cannot be transferred via CSV. After the move, your existing customers receive an invitation and set a new password. Expect some of them not to do this right away. Plan a friendly email campaign with a clear reason and a small incentive instead of sending invitations without comment.
Shopware allows freely designed SEO URLs, such as /women/jackets/rain-jacket-nova. Shopify sets the paths: products live under /products/, categories as collections under /collections/, content pages under /pages/. So every old URL changes. The next section explains what that means for rankings.
Every Shopware plugin is a feature you need to find again in Shopify. For standard needs such as newsletters, reviews or product filters, there are apps. For custom developments, such as a delivery time calculation from the warehouse or a product configurator, there is usually no ready-made app. That leaves a choice between your own app development, a compromise or doing without.
With the Rule Builder, Shopware controls shipping costs, discounts, payment methods and prices through rules, such as “customer from Austria, basket over €200, customer group retailer.” Shopify covers many of these cases through discounts, markets and apps, but not with the same freedom in one interface. Before switching, write down every active rule and check how it will be handled in Shopify.
Shopware’s shopping experiences cannot be exported. You can carry over text and images, but you rebuild the layout in the Shopify theme with sections.
The Shopify checkout is deliberately uniform and fast, but less customisable than the Shopware checkout. Additional fields, extra steps or special logic are only possible to a limited extent, and many extensions require the Plus plan. Check early whether your current checkout customisations are really needed.
The biggest ranking losses in platform changes are not caused by the new system but by forgotten redirects. Because every product and category URL changes when you move from Shopware to Shopify, you need a complete redirect list.
First, a redirect only works if the old URL leads nowhere in Shopify. A URL that returns a valid page cannot be redirected. Second, the fixed paths /products and /collections themselves cannot be redirected. If you ran variants in Shopware as separate products with their own URLs, you have to decide which of them remain separate products in Shopify.
Carry over title tags, meta descriptions and image alt texts from Shopware. Without this data, Shopify generates default values that are usually weaker. According to Shopify, reindexing can take a few days to a few weeks. A temporary dip is normal; a lasting one almost always points to missing redirects.
Ideally, schedule the launch on a slow weekday and never in the weeks before Black Friday or the Christmas season. Keep the old Shopware shop available in read-only mode for a few weeks after the move in case data is missing.
The costs consist of the one-time project and the ongoing costs afterward. Compare both with your current Shopware costs, not with zero.
The following ranges are based on our experience with migration projects; they are not fixed prices. The effort depends mainly on the number of plugins and integrations and on the quality of your product data.
| Store type | Typical scope | Duration | Project budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small B2C shop | up to 1,000 products, ready-made theme, few apps | 6 to 10 weeks | €10,000 to €25,000 |
| Mid-sized shop | several thousand products, custom theme, ERP integration | 3 to 5 months | €30,000 to €80,000 |
| Large shop | several countries, B2B and B2C, custom apps, Shopify Plus | 5 months or more | €80,000 or more |
In Germany, Shopify costs €36 (Basic), €105 (Grow) or €384 (Advanced) per month with monthly billing, less with annual billing. According to the pricing page, Shopify Plus starts at €2,100 per month. With Shopify Payments, online card payments cost 2.1 % (Basic) down to 1.3 % (Plus) plus €0.30 each. If you use a third-party payment provider, Shopify charges an additional 2 %, 1 %, 0.6 % or 0.2 %, depending on the plan. Apps with their own monthly fees come on top. A detailed breakdown is in our article on Shopify costs.
A shop with €600,000 in annual revenue and an average order value of €60 has about 10,000 orders per year. On the Grow plan with monthly billing, it pays €1,260 in plan fees per year. If all payments run through Shopify Payments at 1.8 % plus €0.30, that is €10,800 plus €3,000, a total of €13,800. If instead 40 % of revenue runs through a third-party provider such as PayPal, a 1 % Shopify fee applies to that share, which is €2,400, on top of the provider’s own fees. With five to eight apps at €20 to €50 per month each, apps come to roughly €1,200 to €4,800 per year.
On the Shopware side, hosting, maintenance, updates and plugin licences go away in return. Our article on Shopware costs shows what these items typically cost. Only a comparison over three years shows whether the switch pays off.
During the move, you set up payment methods, tax rates and legal pages in Shopify from scratch. This is not a big block of work, but a mistake here costs revenue directly or leads to legal warnings.
In the UK, you set up VAT at 20 %, plus the reduced rate of 5 % and the zero rate for eligible goods. Customer data falls under UK GDPR, so update your privacy policy and data processing agreements when you switch. If you ship to the EU, plan for customs declarations and decide whether you collect EU VAT at checkout, for example through the IOSS scheme for consignments up to €150. The euro prices in this article are Shopify’s German prices; UK plans are billed in pounds and can differ.
Shopify now offers B2B features on all plans: company accounts, catalogues, payment terms and quantity rules. Outside of Shopify Plus, however, only three active catalogues are allowed, and features such as customer-specific deposits remain reserved for Plus. If you maintain dozens of customer groups with their own prices in Shopware, this almost always becomes a Plus project or a case for a B2B app in Shopify.
Shopware maps languages and countries through sales channels and domains. Shopify uses markets for this. Each market can have its own language, currency, prices and domain. Check how many markets your plan allows and how you will maintain translations before exporting them from Shopware.
If you run several sales channels with different product ranges in Shopware, such as a wholesale site and a consumer site, you often need two separate shops in Shopify. That means double plan and app costs and syncing inventory through your ERP.
There are usually three paths to choose from. The following overview is a guide, not a blanket recommendation.
| Your situation | Obvious path |
|---|---|
| Simple B2C catalogue, small team, hosting and updates are a burden | Consider switching to Shopify |
| Shopware 5, rebuild needed anyway, little custom logic | Compare Shopware 6 and Shopify openly |
| Store runs well, but design and speed are outdated | Relaunch on Shopware 6 |
| B2B with many customer groups, ERP integration, custom pricing logic | Stay with Shopware |
| The problems lie with hosting or support, not the system | Change hosting or partner |
We often see one pattern: the wish to switch comes from frustration over slow pages or an expensive service provider. In that case, look at Shopware hosting and support first, before replacing the entire system.
Not from Shopify itself. Shopify’s free Store Migration app does not support Shopware. The usual routes are CSV exports from Shopware, import apps such as Matrixify or paid migration services. No tool transfers a theme or plugins.
No. Shopify cannot import passwords from other shops. Customers receive an invitation and set a new password.
Not necessarily. With complete 301 redirects, carried-over metadata and equivalent content, rankings usually recover after a few weeks. Missing redirects are the most common cause of lasting losses.
In our experience, 6 to 10 weeks for small shops and 3 to 5 months for mid-sized shops with integrations. Large shops with B2B and several countries take longer.
Yes, through the Shopify Admin API or an import app. Import products and customers first and turn off order notifications beforehand.
We are a Shopware Platinum Partner based in Bremen, Germany, and have been working on online shops since 2017, including Shopify. That is why we can assess both sides honestly. Before we plan a switch, we look at your shop: plugins, rules, integrations and data quality. At the end, you get a clear recommendation, even if it is to stay with Shopware.
If you want to know what a move would cost in your case and what you would lose, start with our shop analysis. You can find more about building on Shopify on our Shopify agency page, or contact us directly through our contact form.
Besnik Bilalli is the founder and CEO of solution25, the Shopware agency from Bremen. Before founding the agency in 2017, he built his own online store and grew it to more than 500 orders a day. Since then he has been helping merchants with Shopware projects, from the first budget to ongoing operations. He’s happy to answer questions about this article personally: get in touch.
Responsible for content and updates: Besnik Bilalli. Last updated: November 2026. Next content review: February 2027.
