Move from Shopify to Crate
Your catalogue, your customers and your links come with you. This page says exactly which fields carry across, which do not, and what to do about the ones that do not.
What you export: Shopify exports products and customers as CSV from the admin (Products, then Export, and Customers, then Export). Those two files are the whole input.
How do I move my store from Shopify to Crate?
You move a Shopify store to Crate with Shopify's own CSV exports. Products, variants, prices, stock counts, images and customers export from the Shopify admin and import into Crate directly, so nothing is re-typed. Your domain is pointed at Crate rather than replaced, and your old product and collection URLs are redirected to their new addresses, so links already shared in posts, messages and search results keep working. What does not carry across is anything specific to Shopify's own systems: installed apps and their data, theme code, and discount codes, which are recreated in Crate. Plan for an evening, not a weekend.
What comes across
Field by field, from the export file named above.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Products | Title, description, product type, vendor and tags. |
| Variants | Options, SKU, barcode, price, compare-at price and weight. |
| Stock | The current count per variant, per location. |
| Images | Product and variant images, in their existing order. |
| Customers | Name, email, phone, addresses and marketing consent status. |
| Collections | Manual collections, recreated as Crate collections. |
| URLs | Product and collection paths, as redirects to their new addresses. |
What does not come across
Read this band before the one above it. It is the half that decides whether the move goes well, and it is the half most migration pages leave out.
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Installed apps and their data
An app's data lives in that app, not in your Shopify export. Check what each app holds before you cancel it, and read /integrations for what Crate covers natively.
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Theme code
Liquid templates do not transfer. You pick a Crate theme and set it up in the visual builder, which is usually an hour rather than a project.
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Discount codes
Recreate these in Crate. There are usually few enough to type, and the rules rarely map one to one.
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Order history
Past orders are exportable as CSV for your records but are not imported as live orders. Live order history starts on Crate the day you switch.
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Gift card balances
Outstanding balances have to be reissued deliberately rather than imported, because a mis-imported balance is real money.
The order to do it in
The order matters more than the speed. The last step is deliberately last.
- Export from Shopify Products, then Export, all products, CSV. Then Customers, then Export.
- Import into Crate Products, then Import. Map the columns once. Crate shows you a preview before anything is written.
- Check twenty products by hand Pick your bestsellers and check price, stock and images. Twenty is enough to catch a bad column mapping.
- Set up the theme Pick a theme, set your logo and colours, and check the storefront at 360px before anything else.
- Connect payments and delivery See /integrations for what connects to what.
- Load the redirects Import your old product and collection paths so existing links keep working.
- Point the domain Change the DNS records. Keep the Shopify store live until the domain has moved and you have taken a real order on Crate.
- Cancel Shopify Only after a real customer has placed and received a real order on Crate.
Your existing links
Crate imports a list of old paths and their new addresses and serves them as permanent redirects, so a link in an old post, an old email or a search result lands on the right product instead of a 404. This is the step most migrations skip and the one that costs the most traffic when it is skipped.
Questions about moving from Shopify
Short answers, and none of them hedge. If yours is not here, ask us on the contact page.
Will I lose my search rankings?
Not if the redirects are loaded. A permanent redirect passes the ranking signal to the new address. Rankings usually wobble for a couple of weeks and settle.
How long does it take?
For a catalogue of a few hundred products, an evening for the import and the theme, then a day of checking before you move the domain.
Can I run both at once?
Yes, and you should. Keep Shopify live until you have taken a real order on Crate.
Moving from somewhere else
Same structure, different export file.
Import the catalogue tonight.
Start the trial, import, and keep the old store running until you have taken one real order here.
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