[MIGRATION LAYER] Shopify Migration Agency

Migration Engineering

From any storefront — even ones without an API.

Most brands do not start from zero — they start from a storefront they already lost faith in. The migration layer is how we get the brand off that platform without losing the catalogue, the customers, the orders, or the SEO equity already in the ground. We migrate from anything: WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, headless setups, in-house carts. When the source has no export API, we write a scraper. No platform cooperation required.

LAYER05/06of the system we build
SURFACES05capabilities in this layer
STACK06technologies on the bench
SOLD ASSYSTEMnever as a single service
N°01The layer

What ships in this layer.

5 surfaces, all built as part of the same system. None of them ship alone — they are the parts that make this layer work inside the whole.

  1. 01SOURCE SCRAPING

    Playwright · when no API exists

    Headless browser automation to extract products, variants, media, customers, and order history from platforms that refuse to export. The legacy platform never gets a say.

  2. 02DATA NORMALIZATION

    Schema mapping · catalogue parity

    Source schema mapped to the Shopify catalogue model — product, variant, option, metafield. Edge cases (bundles, configurables, kits) modelled deliberately, not lost in translation.

  3. 03IMAGE PIPELINE

    CDN-to-CDN · optimisation in transit

    Media migrated directly to Shopify CDN with format normalisation and dimension audit. No customer-facing image breakage at cutover.

  4. 04REDIRECT MAPS

    Slug-to-slug · 301 from every old URL

    Every product, collection, blog, and content URL on the old platform mapped to its new home. Search equity carried forward; no 404 in the index.

  5. 05PARITY AUDIT

    Line-by-line verification before cutover

    Catalogue, customer, order, and URL parity audited row by row before the DNS flip. If any row fails, the cutover waits.

Why this layer is part of the build.

growth system cannot be built on top of a storefront the brand wants to leave. But the cost of leaving — losing rankings, breaking links, dropping customers — is what keeps most brands stuck on a platform that no longer fits. We build the migration layer because the system has to start from a clean foundation, and we cannot ask the brand to throw away years of catalogue and search equity to get there.

WHAT WE ARE NOT

We do not take this layer as a retrofit on a storefront we did not build. If that is the work, the right call is an agency. We build the system the layer lives inside.

N°03Technical bench

How this layer is actually built.

The stack is on the bench, the wiring is documented, and the instance shipped with your system is yours to extend after handover.

ON THE BENCH
  • 01Playwright
  • 02Scraper
  • 03Admin API
  • 04Image pipeline
  • 05Redirect maps
  • 06Parity audit
6 layers · all yours after handover

Playwright for source extraction on platforms without an API. Custom normalisation pipelines per source schema; Shopify Admin API for catalogue creation. Media migrated CDN-to-CDN with hash verification. Redirect maps generated from source URL inventory and deployed at the storefront edge — no Shopify URL Redirects app. Parity audit run as a one-shot verification job that compares old vs new for every entity before DNS flips.

APIs required from source
0
redirects · slug to slug
1:1
data parity · audited
100%
N°04Where it lives in the system

Inside the system you would ship.

The layer does not stand alone. These are the standing systems most often built on top of it and the adjacent layers it interlocks with.

SYSTEMS BUILT ON THIS LAYER

N°10

Quarry Sync

<1hvs 2–3 day manual entry

n8n bridge between quarry inventory (Excel/ERP/Sheets) and live Shopify. New block → published with photos.

ADJACENT LAYERS · INTERLOCK

N°02Operations AutomationWhere the work actually breaks — between systems.
N°01Headless StorefrontBuilt on Hydrogen, not on a theme.

[N°05] Common questions

The questions this layer answers.

How the migration engineering layer behaves in production — the trade-offs we have already taken and the ones we re-open per build.

  1. Which platforms have you migrated from?

    Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and in-house carts where there is no export API. The harder the source, the more the migration layer earns its existence.

  2. What happens to old URLs?

    Every old URL is redirected slug-to-slug. We do not collapse URLs into category pages; the SEO equity has to travel intact.

  3. How long does a Shopify migration take?

    A clean platform-to-platform migration ships in six to eight weeks of the larger build. A scrape-rebuild of a dead source extends that based on what we have to reconstruct.

  4. Do customers, orders, and subscriptions come over?

    Yes — customers, order history, addresses, and active subscriptions. We do not migrate without them; you cannot rebuild on a storefront that lost its history.

N°06Next step

You want this layer? You want the whole system.

We do not take this layer as a one-off. We build from zero and grow with the brand. Every engagement begins with a paid discovery — fit before contract.

N°AOPEN A BRIEF

Build the whole system

Paid discovery sets the shape. We map your case across all six layers and ship the system the migration layer lives inside.

N°BREAD THE PRACTICE

How the work runs

Six chapters on how the system gets built — origin, journey, discipline, outcomes, handover. The story behind the layers.