What you’ll learn in this section‍

• The most common mistakes brands make when migrating
• Why these mistakes create operational risk and unnecessary cost
• How to avoid them with better planning and partner alignment
• The true cost range of a Shopify migration (and why it varies)
• The ROI profile we routinely see across post-migration stores
• How to model your own cost of ownership using our TCO sheet

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Why pitfalls happen

Migration is a strategic project, and brands often underestimate the ripple effects across operations, data, integrations, SEO and team capacity.

Most pitfalls come from two things:

1. Rushing planning
2. Underestimating complexity

Both are avoidable with a structured approach.

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The most common migration pitfalls

These are the issues we’ve seen repeatedly across 100+ migrations:

• Rushing discovery or skipping stakeholder alignment
• Migrating without a clear “why”, leading to unfocused decisions
• Forgetting to prioritise Customer Experience (pre- and post-purchase)
• Underestimating integration complexity (ERP, WMS, CRM, subscriptions, accounts, etc.)
• Failing to review or replace all connected apps and services
• Not evaluating SEO implications early
• Migrating data without validating quality or completeness
• Treating go-live as the finish line instead of planning post-launch improvements
  
  

These pitfalls don’t just slow projects down. They create opportunity cost, operational disruption and long-term headaches.

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What a migration costs (realistic ranges)

A Shopify migration can cost £15k–£150k+ depending on:

• Data volume and complexity
• Number of systems integrated
• Required customisations
• Operational processes that need to be preserved or improved
• Internationalisation
• B2B requirements
• SEO complexity
• Size of internal team and involvement

Importantly: cost should not be viewed in isolation.

A migration is an investment in long-term operational leverage, not a one-off website rebuild.

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Understanding ROI: What actually improves?

Across our migration work, we routinely see:

• 10–30%+ lift in conversion rate
• Up to 60% savings on hosting and maintenance
• Faster time-to-market for new features and campaigns
• Higher CRO velocity due to easier testing frameworks
• Reduced dependency on developers
• Better quality data, improving marketing efficiency
• Better checkout performance by default, Shopify’s checkout converts higher than any other major platform

These improvements compound over time.

The Shopify advantage: Lower cost of ownership

With Shopify, brands benefit from:

• No server management
• No PCI/security overhead
• No surprise infrastructure costs
• No expensive quarterly upgrade cycles
• A constantly evolving product roadmap paid for by Shopify
• Best-in-class reliability and uptime
• A global partner ecosystem

This reduces operational friction and frees the budget for growth activities.

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Quickly calculate your TCO.

We’ve built a quick and simple Total Cost of Ownership calculator:

Click here to view

• Input your current operational costs
• Compare against projected Shopify costs
• See the breakeven point
• Model multi-year ROI
• Understand where savings (and lifts) are likely to occur

Brands are often surprised how quickly the numbers justify the migration.