Migrating to Shopify Plus: What We Learned from Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and Custom Platforms

We have moved merchants off Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, WooCommerce, Shopware, and fully custom platforms. Some needed a clean break. Some needed a surgical lift. Some needed three markets live in eight weeks. Here is what separates migrations that succeed from migrations that have to be redone.

Most merchants we work with have already decided to move. What holds them back is fear: fear of SEO loss, fear of downtime, fear of the unknowns that only surface mid-migration. These fears are not irrational — bad migrations happen. But they happen because of poor planning, not because the destination is wrong.

After dozens of platform migrations, we have identified three patterns:

The Clean Break. The merchant wants a fresh start — new design, new information architecture, new integrations. This is the most common pattern for brands outgrowing their first platform. Timeline: 10–16 weeks.

The Surgical Lift. The merchant loves their storefront but needs a better engine. We replicate the existing UX on Shopify and swap out the backend. Typical for Magento-to-Shopify moves. Timeline: 8–12 weeks.

The Phased Rollout. The merchant operates in multiple markets and cannot afford to migrate everything at once. We migrate one market, validate, then roll out. This is how we launched vivo across three European markets in eight weeks.

The number-one concern in every migration conversation is SEO. And the fear is justified — a botched redirect map can wipe out years of organic traffic overnight.

Platform migration is rarely just a platform migration. The real complexity lives in the integration layer: ERPs, 3PLs, payment providers, loyalty systems, and marketing tools that all need to reconnect to the new backend.

We treat integrations as first-class migration workstreams, not afterthoughts.

For ON.AE, we built a Gadget-powered middleware layer that bridges MuleSoft to Shopify Plus, syncing inventory, orders, and fulfilment in real time — live in 11 weeks. For ENHauto, we co-developed the first-ever SmartERP integration on Shopify.

Not everything deserves to be migrated. We always have the "what to leave behind" conversation early:

We run parallel environments during the final phase. The old site stays live while we run a final data sync, then cut over during a low-traffic window. Zero downtime is the standard, not the exception.

Honest timelines for Shopify Plus migrations:

Simple (single market, minimal integrations, standard theme): 6–8 weeks, from €30k.

Medium (multi-market or ERP integration, custom theme): 10–14 weeks, from €60k.

Complex (multiple markets, complex ERP, custom apps, product configurators): 14–20 weeks, from €100k.

These include UX research, design, development, QA, data migration, redirect mapping, and two weeks post-launch support. They do not include ongoing optimisation — which most clients continue with us.

90% of our clients stay for 2+ years. Pepper is five years in and 120 projects deep. The most expensive migration is the one you do twice — invest in the planning phase, and the work keeps compounding.