30 Mar 2026 · Shopify, Migration, Operations
Replatforming to Shopify: a risk checklist for ops teams (not just marketing)
Redirects, integrations, stock truth, customer accounts, and cutover weekend planning — the items that decide whether migration week is boring or catastrophic.
Migrations fail in the seams, not in the hero banner
Marketing cares about the new homepage. Ops cares whether orders, stock, refunds, and tracking remain coherent while traffic still hits old URLs.
This checklist is the ops-first view.
1) URL and SEO continuity
- redirect map for high-traffic paths,
- canonical strategy for collections/products,
- and a plan for staged indexing changes.
Pair with collection SEO without crawl chaos and technical SEO checklist.
2) Stock truth during parallel running
If you run two systems even briefly, define which system is authoritative for each window — and how you prevent double-selling.
3) Integrations: rebuild vs reconnect
Not every old integration should be rebuilt the same way. Sometimes you simplify, sometimes you split into transactional vs batch.
Use the integrations playbook mindset: contracts, retries, logs.
4) Customer accounts and order history
If customers lose access to history, support pays for months. Plan migrations and comms honestly — see also order history trust (companion post).
5) Payments and refunds in flight
Define how partial migrations handle in-flight authorisations, captures, and returns.
6) Cutover rehearsal
Do a timed rehearsal with realistic order scenarios — not “happy path only”.
Next step
Send your current platform, top integrations, and your non-negotiable launch window. We will propose a phased cutover that protects revenue.
Services: API integrations · Shopify themes · Contact: Contact.