Introduction

Both BigCommerce and Shopify are mature SaaS commerce platforms capable of supporting high-growth online retailers. BigCommerce has traditionally been strong among businesses looking for a platform with robust native functionality and an open architecture.

Shopify, on the other hand, has built an enormous ecosystem around its platform and continues to invest heavily in developer tooling, international commerce, and enterprise-level capabilities through Shopify Plus.

Over the past five years, Shopify’s rapid growth has been driven by several factors:

• A large and mature app ecosystem
• Strong developer community and partner network
• Continuous platform improvements and feature releases
• Robust APIs and extensibility
• Simplified infrastructure and maintenance

While BigCommerce remains a powerful platform, many businesses begin to reconsider their platform choice as they scale. Shopify’s operational simplicity and ecosystem flexibility often become attractive when brands want to move faster with marketing, merchandising, and experimentation.

Ultimately, the decision to migrate platforms should be driven by long-term business needs rather than short-term technical preferences.

Very different platforms

Although both BigCommerce and Shopify are SaaS platforms, they follow different philosophies when it comes to platform design and extensibility.

BigCommerce tends to include a larger set of features natively within the platform. These features may include product filtering, product options, faceted search, and various merchandising tools built directly into the core system.

Shopify takes a more modular approach. The core platform is intentionally streamlined, with additional functionality typically provided through third-party apps and integrations.

This difference leads to two distinct operating models.

BigCommerce often requires fewer apps to achieve certain functionality because many capabilities are built directly into the platform. Shopify, however, benefits from an enormous ecosystem of specialized apps that allow businesses to select best-in-class tools for specific use cases.

Shopify’s ecosystem includes solutions for:

• Subscriptions

• Personalization

• Search and merchandising

• Loyalty programs

• Marketing automation

• International selling

Another major difference is the developer experience.

Shopify uses its own templating language called Liquid, which is widely considered easier to work with than BigCommerce’s Stencil framework. This allows developers to iterate more quickly on storefront features and customer experience improvements.

Both platforms can support high-volume commerce operations, but the workflow for teams managing the platforms day-to-day can feel very different.

Approach & planning

Migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify should be approached as a structured replatforming project rather than simply a technical migration.

For most businesses, the process presents an opportunity to improve various aspects of the online store, including:

• Site performance

• Checkout experience

• Integrations with internal systems

• Product data structure

• Merchandising workflows

However, one common mistake is attempting to change too many things simultaneously.

Combining a full redesign, platform migration, and multiple new integrations within a single project can significantly increase complexity and risk.

Many successful migrations instead follow a phased approach:

1. Migrate the platform

2. Maintain a similar UX initially

3. Iterate and improve post-launch

Most BigCommerce-to-Shopify migrations typically take between 3 and 5 months, depending on the size of the store and the complexity of integrations.

Before beginning the migration, businesses should:

• Document required functionality
• Audit integrations and third-party tools
• Review SEO risks and redirect planning
• Assess product and customer data quality
• Select an experienced Shopify implementation partner

Planning thoroughly before development begins significantly reduces issues during later stages of the project.

Data migration

Data migration is one of the most critical parts of any platform transition.

When moving from BigCommerce to Shopify, businesses must decide which data will be transferred to the new platform. In most cases, the following information is migrated:

• Products and product variants
• Product images
• Customer accounts
• Order history
• Discount codes
• CMS pages and blog content

Not all historical data necessarily needs to be migrated. Some businesses choose to migrate only a limited amount of order history and maintain older records in external systems.

Creating a data mapping document before starting the migration is highly recommended. This document outlines how fields from BigCommerce correspond to Shopify’s data structure.

While Shopify includes standard fields for products, orders, and customers, additional data may need to be stored using tags or metafields.

Cleaning and validating the data before migration is extremely important. Errors in the source data will almost always carry into the new platform unless they are addressed beforehand.

Migrating customer accounts from BigCommerce to Shopify

Customer data can typically be exported from BigCommerce via CSV files.

These exports can then be transformed into Shopify’s required format using migration tools such as Matrixify (formerly Excelify).

Standard customer fields such as names, email addresses, and addresses can be mapped directly between platforms. However, custom attributes in BigCommerce may require additional configuration within Shopify.

For example, data stored in BigCommerce custom fields may need to be migrated into Shopify customer metafields or tags.

One important limitation to note is that Shopify uses email addresses as unique identifiers for customer accounts. If duplicate customer records exist using the same email address, they will need to be consolidated before importing.

Many migration tools allow a “test import” or dry run, which helps identify issues before executing the final migration.

Customer account activation

When migrating customers between platforms, passwords cannot be transferred.

As a result, customers must reactivate their accounts and set new passwords after the migration.

To manage this process effectively, businesses should communicate clearly with customers before and after launch.

Common approaches include:

• Sending password reset emails after launch
• Adding messaging on the login page explaining the process
• Including a simple password reset link

Sending activation emails through your email service provider allows you to track engagement and resend the message to customers who did not open the first email.

Migrating orders from BigCommerce to Shopify

Order history is typically migrated after customer accounts have been successfully imported.

Maintaining order history allows customers to view their past purchases and ensures the business retains a consistent view of historical transactions.

Migration tools such as Matrixify can import order data into Shopify using structured CSV files.

Depending on order volume, businesses may choose to migrate:

• All historical orders
• Orders from the last several years
• Only recent orders

It is important to verify that key order data is preserved during migration, including:

• Order totals

• Taxes and shipping charges

• Customer associations

• Fulfillment status

Testing the data before final import helps prevent issues once the new store is live.

Product data structure

BigCommerce and Shopify handle product data in different ways.

BigCommerce allows merchants to create product options, option sets, and custom fields to structure product information.

Product options define variations such as size or color, while custom fields allow merchants to store additional product metadata.

Shopify uses a simpler model based on variants, tags, and metafields.

Variants define product options such as size or color, while tags are commonly used for product categorization and filtering.

For example, a product might include tags such as:

Brand: Nike
Category: Running Shoes
Gender: Mens
Colour: Black

These tags can power automated collections, product filters, merchandising rules, and marketing integrations.

Metafields are used when additional structured data is required.

Maintaining a clear tagging structure is essential to ensure product data remains organized and usable throughout the platform.

Metafields

Metafields allow merchants to store custom structured data that does not exist within Shopify’s standard product fields.

Common metafield use cases include:

• Product specifications
• Ingredient lists
• Additional product descriptions
• SEO metadata
• Technical details

Metafields are highly flexible and can store large amounts of data. They are also accessible via Shopify’s API, making them useful for integrations with other systems.

However, managing metafields may require additional tools or development workflows depending on how the data is used within the storefront.

Product options vs variants in Shopify

BigCommerce product options allow merchants to create configurable product variations.

These options may include attributes such as:

• size

• color

• material

• style

Shopify manages product variations using variants within a single product listing.

Each variant can have its own:

• SKU

• price

• inventory level

• image

However, Shopify does include some limitations:

• maximum of 3 option types per product
• maximum of 100 variants per product

For most businesses, these limits are sufficient. However, stores with extremely complex product configurations may require custom solutions or specialized apps.

Other product types

Certain product configurations available in BigCommerce may need to be implemented differently in Shopify.

Product bundles

Bundles can be implemented using Shopify apps or custom theme logic. Some businesses also manage bundle inventory through ERP systems.

Kit products

Product kits that combine multiple SKUs can be managed through inventory systems or custom bundle applications.

Gift cards

Shopify supports digital gift cards natively. These function like standard products and generate unique codes when purchased.

SEO

SEO is one of the most important aspects of any platform migration.

Shopify enforces a specific URL structure for certain content types:

/products/product-name
/collections/collection-name
/pages/page-name

Because BigCommerce allows more flexibility in URL structure, some URLs may change during the migration process.

To preserve search rankings, businesses must implement a comprehensive 301 redirect strategy mapping old URLs to their new equivalents.

Other important SEO tasks during migration include:

• Transferring page titles and meta descriptions
• Preserving structured data
• Maintaining internal linking structures
• Updating XML sitemaps
• Monitoring rankings after launch

With careful planning, most SEO risks can be mitigated.

Payments

Payment processing may also change during a migration.

BigCommerce supports many payment gateways directly, including Stripe, PayPal, and Adyen.

Shopify encourages merchants to use Shopify Payments, its native payment solution. This integration offers a seamless checkout experience and supports multiple payment methods.

Merchants can also use alternative gateways, although additional transaction fees may apply.

Before migrating, businesses should review existing payment provider agreements and ensure that the new setup supports required currencies and fraud protection tools.

International setup

BigCommerce offers Multi-Storefront (MSF) functionality, which allows businesses to manage multiple storefronts within a single platform environment.

Shopify handles international commerce differently.

Many businesses operate multiple Shopify stores for different regions, currencies, or languages.

To manage these effectively, companies often rely on:

• Product information management systems
• ERP integrations
• Synchronization tools
• Centralized content workflows

Although this approach requires coordination, many global brands operate successfully using multiple Shopify storefronts.

Wholesale & B2B

Shopify Plus now includes a growing set of features designed to support B2B commerce.

These include:

• Company accounts
• Custom catalogs
• Price lists
• Payment terms

BigCommerce has traditionally been strong in B2B commerce, but Shopify has significantly expanded its capabilities in this area in recent years.

For many businesses, Shopify’s native B2B tools combined with specialized apps provide sufficient flexibility.

Development

Developer experience is one of the reasons many brands prefer Shopify.

Shopify’s Liquid framework allows developers to build and customize storefronts quickly. Combined with Shopify’s extensive APIs, this allows teams to create complex integrations while maintaining a streamlined development workflow.

Shopify also benefits from an enormous global developer ecosystem.

This makes it easier for businesses to find experienced partners, developers, and specialized integrations.

BigCommerce offers strong APIs and open architecture as well, but Shopify’s developer ecosystem and tooling have grown significantly larger over the past decade.

Maintenance

One of the biggest operational advantages of Shopify is the reduced maintenance burden.

Because Shopify is fully managed as a SaaS platform, merchants do not need to manage:

• Hosting infrastructure

• Platform upgrades

• Security patches

• Performance optimization

This allows internal teams to focus more on growth initiatives rather than platform maintenance.

For many businesses, this shift leads to lower long-term operational costs and faster experimentation with new marketing and merchandising strategies.

If you have any questions about migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify or Shopify Plus, our team of Shopify migration experts would be happy to help — feel free to reach out to me directly.