monkeyman.agency
monkeyman.agency
Migration · BigCommerce → Shopify

BigCommerce stops being cheaper the moment you grow.

Revenue-tier pricing, a thinner app marketplace, and a checkout that's harder to extend. We move BigCommerce stores to Shopify and the maths works out within a quarter.

Scope my BigCommerce migration See migration work
Source platform
BigCommerce
Category
Hosted SaaS commerce
Timeline
4-6 weeks
Starts at
Save up to 70%
Why brands leave BigCommerce

BigCommerce was a reasonable choice when you were small and the price-per-feature looked competitive.

Then your revenue crossed a tier threshold and your bill jumped. Then you needed an app for something native on Shopify and discovered the marketplace is half the size. Then your dev wanted to extend checkout and ran into BigCommerce's far narrower customisation surface.

  • Revenue-based pricing tiers punish exactly the brands you want to be, the ones growing.

  • The app marketplace is roughly a third of Shopify's. Niche tools just aren't there.

  • Checkout extensibility is real but limited; Shopify Functions covers more cases.

  • Theme ecosystem is smaller and slower-moving, Stencil hasn't kept pace with Online Store 2.0.

  • Headless paths exist on both platforms, but Shopify's Hydrogen + Oxygen is materially better-resourced.

BigCommerce-specific gotchas

What actually breaks when you migrate.

Most migration vendors quote a price and stay vague on what's hard. These are the BigCommerce-specific traps and how we handle each one.

  • BigCommerce price lists, customer groups, and B2B Edition setups need re-mapping.

    How we handle it →
    We migrate to Shopify B2B (Plus), companies, price lists, NET terms, and validate the mapping against your real customer segments before launch.

  • BigCommerce's per-product custom fields use a different shape than Shopify metafields.

    How we handle it →
    We script a transform that turns each custom field into the right metafield definition (single-line, multi-line, JSON, reference) so theme blocks read them natively.

  • URL paths differ, `/shop-by/category/widget` vs. `/collections/widget`.

    How we handle it →
    We export every product and category URL, generate a 301 map, and include canonical-tag preservation so Search Console doesn't see duplicate-content flags.

  • Multi-storefront (international) on BigCommerce has its own quirks.

    How we handle it →
    We move each storefront to a Shopify Markets region with localised currency, language, domain, and tax setup.

  • Stencil theme components don't map to Liquid/Online Store 2.0.

    How we handle it →
    We rebuild the storefront with section-based architecture, same look, faster page speed, easier merchandising changes after launch.

Data we preserve

Your customers, orders, SEO, nothing left behind.

  • Products with options, modifiers, and variants

  • Custom fields → Shopify metafields

  • Customer accounts, customer groups, B2B price lists

  • Order history with status, fulfilment, refunds

  • Categories with SEO settings and featured images

  • 301 redirect map for every product, category, blog, and content URL

  • SEO metadata including page title, meta description, search keywords

  • Reviews from native or third-party sources

  • Coupons and discount rules

  • Blog posts and CMS pages

BigCommerce feature → Shopify equivalent

Every feature has a Shopify-side answer.

The thing most migration vendors leave vague: which Shopify app, theme, or Function replaces each piece of your existing stack. We tell you in week one.

BigCommerce Shopify equivalent
BigCommerce B2B Edition → Shopify B2B (Plus)
Stencil theme → Shopify Online Store 2.0 theme + sections
Native faceted search → Shopify Search & Discovery (filters via metafields)
Page Builder → Theme sections + theme blocks
Multi-storefront → Shopify Markets / Markets Pro
Klevu / Searchspring integration → Same vendors keep working, just re-install on Shopify
Channel manager (Amazon, eBay, Walmart) → Shopify channel apps (Amazon, eBay) or CodisTo
How the migration runs

A staged migration. Not a weekend sprint.

4-6 weeks of structured work, discovery, scripts, theme rebuild, redirect map, UAT, launch. Every phase has a deliverable you keep.

  1. 01, Stack audit + pricing math

    We model your current BigCommerce TCO (license + apps + revenue tier) against the Shopify equivalent so the migration ROI is on paper before scoping starts.

  2. 02, Data modelling

    We map custom fields → metafields, modifiers → variants, customer groups → B2B companies. Sign-off before any data moves.

  3. 03, Theme rebuild on Shopify

    We rebuild the storefront on Online Store 2.0 with sections, accessible markup, and Core Web Vitals targets baked in.

  4. 04, Migration scripts + dev store

    Products, customers, orders, and metadata move via scripts to a Shopify dev store. You review on staging before cutover.

  5. 05, Redirect map + SEO transfer

    We generate 301s for every URL, preserve canonical tags, and migrate structured data. Sitemaps re-submitted to Search Console post-launch.

  6. 06, Launch + 30-day stabilisation

    DNS cutover with monitoring on conversion, 404 reports, page speed, and integration health for 30 days.

If you’re under $400k/year and BigCommerce works, stay, if you’re scaling and the platform is starting to feel like a ceiling, the move is worth running the numbers on.

Where the work actually is

The data migration is straightforward, BigCommerce exports cleanly. The leverage in the project is in (a) re-mapping custom fields and modifiers into Shopify’s metafield/variant model so your theme reads them correctly, and (b) rebuilding the front-end on Online Store 2.0 instead of porting the Stencil layout one-for-one.

What we don’t do

  • We don’t migrate stores actively earning under $200k/year unless there’s a B2B or international expansion driver, the maths usually doesn’t justify it.
  • We don’t carry over Stencil-era theme code. The architecture differences are too deep to retrofit cleanly.
  • We don’t promise zero downtime; we promise zero customer-facing downtime. There’s a brief DNS propagation window where some visitors hit either side.
Recently migrated or redesigned
BigCommerce migration FAQ

Common questions about BigCommerce → Shopify.

We're on BigCommerce Enterprise, does Plus make sense for us?

Almost always. The Plus license recovers itself against your current Enterprise spend within 1-2 quarters once you factor in the apps you can drop and the dev hours you stop burning on Stencil quirks.

Can you preserve our B2B setup?

Yes, Shopify B2B (Plus) supports company accounts, multiple buyers per company, customer-specific price lists, draft orders, and NET payment terms. We map your existing groups into companies.

How much SEO do we lose in the move?

With our redirect map and metadata preservation, near zero. Most BigCommerce migrations recover full pre-launch organic traffic within 4-6 weeks.

What about our Stencil customisations?

We don't port them code-for-code. We rebuild the same merchandising surface with Online Store 2.0 sections, which is faster to maintain after launch and renders meaningfully quicker.

Can we keep Klevu / Searchspring / Yotpo?

Yes, most major third-party vendors have Shopify apps. We re-install and re-configure as part of the migration.

What's the all-in cost?

We scope every migration after a free audit. Most stores save up to 70% versus a like-for-like quote on platforms with revenue-tier pricing, but the exact number depends on your catalog size, customisations, and integrations.

Read next

Pair your bigcommerce migration with the right reading.

The service page covers scope and pricing; the field notes cover what's actually broken before we touch it.

Send your store

Ready to leave BigCommerce?

Send us your BigCommerce URL. We'll write back within 48 hours with a migration plan, a redirect strategy, and a fixed quote.

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