Moving from Shopify to Adobe Commerce on a Hyva frontend transfers your products, customers, orders, and SEO URLs through a scripted export and import, but rebuilds your theme, apps, and checkout from scratch. Expect six to twelve weeks for a mid-sized catalog, a mapped metafield-to-attribute model, and a full 301 redirect plan to protect rankings.
Most migration guides you will find cover the opposite trip, from Magento to Shopify. The inbound direction is different work. Shopify hands you a clean, opinionated data model and takes away most of the control; Adobe Commerce hands you the control back and expects you to model your own catalog. This guide is written for the direct-to-consumer brand that has outgrown Shopify’s customization ceiling and wants to know, concretely, what the move involves before signing anything.
Why a DTC brand leaves Shopify for Adobe Commerce
Brands rarely leave Shopify because it is slow or unreliable. They leave because they hit a wall that a SaaS platform will not let them climb. The usual triggers:
- Product customization the theme cannot express. Complex configurators, per-option pricing, made-to-order rules, and deep variant matrices strain Shopify’s 100-variant-per-product model and its liquid templating. Adobe Commerce models configurable, bundle, and grouped products natively and lets you build a true product configurator on Magento and Hyva.
- Transaction fees and margin. Shopify’s platform fee plus payment fees compound as GMV grows. A self-hosted Magento or Adobe Commerce build removes the platform’s percentage cut, which changes the math above roughly eight-figure revenue.
- Multi-store and multi-region ambition. Running separate storefronts for the US, Canada, and the EU with localized pricing, catalog, and content is native to Magento through its website and store-view scopes. Shopify Markets handles some of this, but brands that want independent catalogs per region often find the scope model in Magento cleaner.
- B2B alongside DTC. When a consumer brand starts selling wholesale, Adobe Commerce B2B gives you company accounts, shared catalogs, and quotes in the same install as your DTC storefront.
- Owning the stack. Some teams simply want their code, their data, and their integration layer under their own control rather than inside an app ecosystem.
If none of these apply, staying on Shopify is often the right call. Replatforming is a serious project, and Bemeir will tell a brand when the move does not pay for itself. When it does apply, the rest of this guide is your scoping map.
What transfers automatically, and what you rebuild
The single most useful thing to internalize before the project starts: migration tools move your data, not your experience. Products, customers, and orders can be scripted across with tools like Cart2Cart or a custom export-import pipeline. Everything that made your Shopify store feel like your store, the theme, the apps, the checkout, the custom logic, is rebuilt on the new platform.
| Element | Transfers with a migration script | Rebuilt on Adobe Commerce |
|---|---|---|
| Products (SKU, title, description, price, images) | Yes | Attribute mapping required |
| Product variants | Yes, remapped | To configurable products |
| Metafields | Partial, as attributes | Attribute set design |
| Categories / collections | Yes | Rule-based collections rebuilt |
| Customers and addresses | Yes | Passwords never transfer; force reset |
| Order history | Yes | Read-only import |
| Coupons / discounts | Basic rules | Complex cart rules rebuilt |
| CMS pages and blog | Yes | Layout rebuilt |
| SEO URLs and meta | Yes | 301 redirect map required |
| Theme and design | No | Full Hyva frontend build |
| Apps | No | Extensions or custom code |
| Checkout customizations | No | Rebuilt natively |
| Payment credentials | No, never | Reconnect gateways |
| Abandoned carts and wishlists | No | App-based rebuild |
Two rows deserve emphasis. Customer passwords are hashed and never migrate between platforms, so every customer resets on first login; plan the email that explains why. And payment card data never moves, for the same security reason, so you reconnect payment gateways such as Adyen, Stripe, or Braintree fresh on the new store.
Mapping the Shopify data model to Magento
This is where inbound migrations get technical, and where a cheap migration goes wrong. Shopify and Magento model catalogs differently, and the translation is the real work.
Variants become configurable products. Shopify treats a product as a parent with a flat list of variants. Magento models the same idea as a configurable product, a wrapper that points at individual simple products, one per variant, each with its own SKU and stock. The migration has to explode every Shopify variant into a simple product and re-associate it under a configurable parent. Rushed migrations flatten this and lose per-variant inventory.
Metafields become attributes and attribute sets. Shopify metafields are loosely typed key-value pairs. Magento uses a structured EAV model with attributes grouped into attribute sets by product type. You cannot copy metafields across one to one; you design an attribute set that expresses the same data with the right input types, then map each metafield into it. Get this right and layered navigation, search, and merchandising all work. Get it wrong and you rebuild it later.
Collections become categories or rules. Shopify’s automated collections translate to Magento category rules; manual collections translate to static category assignment. Smart, rule-driven category logic is worth rebuilding deliberately rather than importing as flat lists.
Tags and handles. Shopify tags often carry merchandising meaning. Decide during scoping whether each tag becomes an attribute, a category, or a search facet before you import, not after.
The theme rebuild: why Hyva, not Luma
The frontend does not transfer, so you are building it new. That is not a loss; it is the opportunity. Building on Magento’s legacy Luma theme in 2026 means shipping RequireJS, Knockout, and jQuery, the exact stack that makes Magento feel slow. Building on Hyva means inline Alpine.js and Tailwind, a frontend that routinely lifts PageSpeed scores from the 30s into the 90s and moves Core Web Vitals into the green. Hyva is an open-source Magento theme built for exactly this kind of performance-first rebuild.
For a brand leaving Shopify specifically, this matters. Shopify’s hosted themes are fast out of the box, so a Magento rebuild on Luma would feel like a downgrade the day you launch. A Hyva build lets you match or beat the speed you had on Shopify while gaining the customization you moved for. Bemeir is the first US-based Hyva Gold Partner, and the practical comparison of Hyva versus Luma frontend performance shows why this is the default recommendation rather than an upsell.
The app-to-integration audit
Every Shopify app you rely on is a decision waiting on the new platform: native feature, off-the-shelf extension, third-party SaaS, or custom build. Run this audit early, because it drives both scope and cost. A typical DTC app stack maps like this:
- Email and SMS (Klaviyo). Klaviyo has a Magento connector; plan the Klaviyo integration on Hyva so event tracking and catalog sync survive the move.
- Reviews (Yotpo, Okendo). Most have Magento modules; review schema needs re-emitting on Hyva.
- Subscriptions. Shopify’s subscription apps have no drop-in Magento equivalent; this is usually an extension plus configuration.
- Search and merchandising. Algolia and Adobe Live Search both run on Hyva with the right compatibility module.
- Reviews, loyalty, search, and ERP connectors all live in Bemeir’s technology partner ecosystem, which is where the “does this app exist on Magento” question usually gets answered.
The audit output is a line-item list: keep native, buy extension, integrate SaaS, or build. That list is most of your project estimate.
Timeline and cost ranges
Every store is different, but honest planning ranges for a mid-sized DTC catalog help you sanity-check a proposal.
| Phase | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Discovery, data mapping, attribute design | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Hyva theme build and design | 3 to 5 weeks |
| Data migration and QA | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Integrations and app replacements | 2 to 4 weeks (parallel) |
| UAT, redirects, launch | 1 to 2 weeks |
A focused DTC replatform to Adobe Commerce on Hyva generally runs six to twelve weeks of agency time, with your own team owning one to three person-months of content prep, configuration decisions, and user acceptance testing. Cost scales with catalog complexity, the number of custom apps to replace, and integration depth, especially if an ERP or a PIM enters the picture. The reverse-direction TCO math is laid out in the Adobe Commerce versus Shopify Plus three-year model, and the same variables drive the inbound estimate.
Protecting SEO through the cutover
A replatform is the fastest way to lose organic traffic if redirects are an afterthought. Shopify uses a fixed URL structure (/products/, /collections/); Magento uses its own. Every ranking URL needs a 301 to its new equivalent, mapped before launch, not patched after; Google’s own site move guidance treats server-side permanent redirects as the baseline for keeping equity through a URL change. Alongside the redirect map, re-emit clean structured data on the new store, because Magento’s default microdata often misses fields and a Hyva build changes how it renders. Baseline your top landing pages, ship the redirects with the launch, and monitor Search Console for coverage errors in the first two weeks.
When BigCommerce or Shopware fits better
Adobe Commerce is not the only destination worth weighing. A brand that wants more control than Shopify but less operational weight than Magento sometimes lands better on BigCommerce, which keeps a SaaS model with fewer platform limits. European brands, or those who want an open-source platform with a modern architecture out of the box, often shortlist Shopware. Bemeir builds on all of these, and still delivers and supports Shopify and Shopify Plus for brands that fit it best, so the recommendation is not tied to one platform. As covered on the about page, the team works as an extension of the merchant rather than pushing a single stack. The right answer depends on your catalog, your team, and your five-year plan, not on which platform an agency happens to sell.
Frequently asked questions
Will I lose my Google rankings when I move from Shopify to Magento?
Not if redirects are planned. Every ranking Shopify URL needs a 301 redirect to its new Magento URL, mapped before launch. Re-emit structured data on the new store and monitor Search Console. Brands that skip the redirect map lose traffic; brands that ship it with launch usually hold rankings within a few weeks.
Do customer accounts and passwords transfer?
Customer records, addresses, and order history transfer. Passwords do not, because they are hashed and never move between platforms. Every customer resets their password on first login, so send an email explaining the change before launch to reduce support tickets.
Is Magento overkill for an $8M DTC brand?
It depends on why you are moving. If you are hitting Shopify’s customization or multi-store ceiling, Adobe Commerce on Hyva is a fit at that size. If you are comfortable within Shopify’s model and just want lower fees, the total cost of ownership may not favor the move. The customization pressure, not revenue alone, is the deciding factor.
How long does the migration take?
A mid-sized DTC catalog typically takes six to twelve weeks of agency time. The variables that stretch it are catalog complexity, the number of custom apps to replace, and whether an ERP or PIM integration is in scope. Your internal team should budget one to three person-months for configuration, content prep, and testing.
Can I keep selling on Shopify during the build?
Yes. The old store stays live while the new one is built and tested. You run a final data sync close to cutover to capture recent orders and customers, then switch DNS and ship redirects. Nothing forces downtime beyond the short cutover window.
Replatforming from Shopify to Adobe Commerce on Hyva is a data migration wrapped around a frontend rebuild and an integration audit. Scope those three tracks honestly, plan the redirect map from day one, and the move gives a DTC brand the customization and control it left Shopify to find, without giving up the speed it had.
