How to Migrate Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus: A Phase-by-Phase APAC Playbook

Quick Answer: To migrate Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus, export your product catalog and customers via direct SQL queries, transform data to Shopify's format, map all extensions to Shopify equivalents, create 301 redirects for every indexed URL, and execute a phased cutover during low-traffic hours. Plan 10-16 weeks for enterprise stores.

Picture this: your e-commerce store is live on Shopify Plus, processing orders across Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. Your total cost of ownership dropped 40%. Your dev team ships storefront changes in hours instead of weeks. No more emergency Magento patches at 2 AM.

Related reading: Shopify Plus vs SHOPLINE B2C Taiwan Hong Kong: A Founder's Verdict

That's the end state. Getting there is the hard part.

I've led multiple Adobe Commerce (Magento 2) to Shopify Plus migrations for enterprise retailers across Asia-Pacific — including a 14-week full migration for a multi-brand retailer with 12,000 SKUs, five currencies, and integrations with local payment gateways like PayMe, GrabPay, and Atome. This guide is the exact playbook we use at Branch8, distilled into copy-pasteable steps.

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If you're figuring out how to migrate Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus, most guides give you a vague five-step overview. This one gives you the data export schemas, the SQL queries, the extension gap matrix, and the APAC-specific payment and logistics re-integration details that actually determine whether your migration succeeds or fails.

Related reading: How AU Startups Reduce Tech Costs With APAC Squads: A Step-by-Step Guide

Prerequisites Before You Touch a Single Line of Code

Before starting, confirm you have:

• Shopify Plus account provisioned — request via Shopify's enterprise sales team. Expect 1-2 weeks for contract and sandbox access. Your Shopify Plus plan includes up to 9 expansion stores, which matters for APAC multi-market setups.
• Adobe Commerce admin access with database read permissions (MySQL/MariaDB). You need direct DB access, not just admin panel exports.
• SSH access to your Adobe Commerce server for running CLI exports and verifying file structures.
• A staging domain (e.g., staging.yourstore.com) pointed to your Shopify development store.
• Shopify CLI installed (v3.x or later):

1npm install -g @shopify/cli@latest
2shopify version
3# Expected output: @shopify/cli/3.x.x

• Node.js 18+ and Ruby 3.x (for some data transformation scripts).
• A complete list of your Adobe Commerce extensions — run this in your Magento root:

1php bin/magento module:status --enabled | grep -v Magento_ > enabled_extensions.txt
2cat enabled_extensions.txt

This outputs every third-party module. You'll need this for the extension gap analysis in Step 3.

• Google Search Console access for your production domain — you'll need the full URL list for redirect mapping.
• Documented API credentials for every integration: ERP, PIM, OMS, payment gateways, shipping providers, CRM.

Step 1: Export and Transform Your Product Catalog

Shopify Plus accepts product data via CSV import or the Admin API. For catalogs under 50,000 SKUs, CSV works. Above that, use the API with bulk operations.

Extract Products from Adobe Commerce

Run this SQL query against your Magento database to extract a denormalized product export:

1SELECT 
2  cpe.sku,
3  cpev_name.value AS name,
4  cpev_desc.value AS description,
5  cpev_short.value AS short_description,
6  cped_price.value AS price,
7  cped_special.value AS compare_at_price,
8  cpev_url.value AS url_key,
9  cpei_status.value AS status,
10  csi.qty AS inventory_qty,
11  cpev_meta_title.value AS meta_title,
12  cpev_meta_desc.value AS meta_description
13FROM catalog_product_entity cpe
14LEFT JOIN catalog_product_entity_varchar cpev_name 
15  ON cpe.entity_id = cpev_name.entity_id AND cpev_name.attribute_id = 73 AND cpev_name.store_id = 0
16LEFT JOIN catalog_product_entity_text cpev_desc 
17  ON cpe.entity_id = cpev_desc.entity_id AND cpev_desc.attribute_id = 75 AND cpev_desc.store_id = 0
18LEFT JOIN catalog_product_entity_text cpev_short 
19  ON cpe.entity_id = cpev_short.entity_id AND cpev_short.attribute_id = 76 AND cpev_short.store_id = 0
20LEFT JOIN catalog_product_entity_decimal cped_price 
21  ON cpe.entity_id = cped_price.entity_id AND cped_price.attribute_id = 77 AND cped_price.store_id = 0
22LEFT JOIN catalog_product_entity_decimal cped_special 
23  ON cpe.entity_id = cped_special.entity_id AND cped_special.attribute_id = 78 AND cped_special.store_id = 0
24LEFT JOIN catalog_product_entity_varchar cpev_url 
25  ON cpe.entity_id = cpev_url.entity_id AND cpev_url.attribute_id = 97 AND cpev_url.store_id = 0
26LEFT JOIN catalog_product_entity_int cpei_status 
27  ON cpe.entity_id = cpei_status.entity_id AND cpei_status.attribute_id = 96 AND cpei_status.store_id = 0
28LEFT JOIN cataloginventory_stock_item csi 
29  ON cpe.entity_id = csi.product_id
30WHERE cpei_status.value = 1
31ORDER BY cpe.sku;

Important: Attribute IDs vary by installation. Verify yours by running:

1SELECT attribute_id, attribute_code FROM eav_attribute WHERE entity_type_id = 4;

Transform to Shopify CSV Format

Save the export as magento_products.csv, then use this Python script to map it to Shopify's expected format:

1import csv
2
3def transform_product(row):
4    return {
5        'Handle': row['url_key'],
6        'Title': row['name'],
7        'Body (HTML)': row['description'] or row['short_description'] or '',
8        'Vendor': 'Your Brand',
9        'Type': '',  # Map from Magento categories separately
10        'Tags': '',
11        'Published': 'TRUE',
12        'Variant SKU': row['sku'],
13        'Variant Price': row['price'],
14        'Variant Compare At Price': row['compare_at_price'] or '',
15        'Variant Inventory Qty': int(float(row['inventory_qty'] or 0)),
16        'Variant Inventory Policy': 'deny',
17        'SEO Title': row['meta_title'] or row['name'],
18        'SEO Description': row['meta_description'] or '',
19    }
20
21with open('magento_products.csv', 'r') as infile, \
22     open('shopify_products.csv', 'w', newline='') as outfile:
23    reader = csv.DictReader(infile)
24    fieldnames = ['Handle','Title','Body (HTML)','Vendor','Type','Tags',
25                  'Published','Variant SKU','Variant Price',
26                  'Variant Compare At Price','Variant Inventory Qty',
27                  'Variant Inventory Policy','SEO Title','SEO Description']
28    writer = csv.DictWriter(outfile, fieldnames=fieldnames)
29    writer.writeheader()
30    for row in reader:
31        writer.writerow(transform_product(row))
32
33print('Transformation complete. Output: shopify_products.csv')

For configurable products with variants, you'll need a second pass that groups child simple products under the parent's Handle. Shopify represents variants as additional rows with the same Handle value.

Step 2: Migrate Customers and Historical Orders

Customer data is the most legally sensitive part of any e-commerce replatforming project. In APAC, you're dealing with PDPO (Hong Kong), PDPA (Singapore, Thailand), and Australia's Privacy Act — all of which require explicit consent for data transfer between processors.

Export Customer Data

1SELECT 
2  ce.email,
3  cev_first.value AS first_name,
4  cev_last.value AS last_name,
5  ce.created_at,
6  ca.telephone AS phone,
7  ca.street,
8  ca.city,
9  ca.region,
10  ca.postcode,
11  ca.country_id
12FROM customer_entity ce
13LEFT JOIN customer_entity_varchar cev_first 
14  ON ce.entity_id = cev_first.entity_id AND cev_first.attribute_id = 5
15LEFT JOIN customer_entity_varchar cev_last 
16  ON ce.entity_id = cev_last.entity_id AND cev_last.attribute_id = 7
17LEFT JOIN customer_address_entity ca 
18  ON ce.entity_id = ca.parent_id AND ca.entity_id = (
19    SELECT MIN(entity_id) FROM customer_address_entity WHERE parent_id = ce.entity_id
20  )
21ORDER BY ce.email;

Import via Shopify Admin API

Shopify Plus does not support customer CSV imports natively for large datasets. Use the Admin API:

1curl -X POST "https://your-store.myshopify.com/admin/api/2024-10/customers.json" \
2  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
3  -H "X-Shopify-Access-Token: YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
4  -d '{
5    "customer": {
6      "first_name": "Mei",
7      "last_name": "Wong",
8      "email": "[email protected]",
9      "phone": "+85291234567",
10      "addresses": [{
11        "address1": "88 Queensway",
12        "city": "Admiralty",
13        "province": "",
14        "country": "HK",
15        "zip": ""
16      }],
17      "send_email_invite": false
18    }
19  }'

Critical note on passwords: Magento uses SHA-256 hashed passwords. Shopify cannot import these. Customers must reset passwords on first login. Plan a "Welcome to our new store" email campaign timed to launch day. According to Baymard Institute, 18.75% of cart abandonments are caused by account-related friction — so get this communication right.

For historical orders, use Shopify's Order API or a migration app like Matrixify (formerly Excelify) which handles bulk order imports with original timestamps intact.

Step 3: The Extension Gap Analysis That Prevents Failure

Here's a statistic that should concern you: according to a 2023 Gartner survey, 75% of e-commerce replatforming projects exceed their original timeline, and the number one cause is underestimated integration complexity. In APAC markets specifically, e-commerce replatforming project failure causes often trace back to local payment and logistics integrations that have no direct Shopify equivalent.

Take your enabled_extensions.txt from the prerequisites and build a gap matrix:

Extension Mapping Framework

For each Magento extension, classify it into one of four categories:

• Native in Shopify Plus — no action needed (e.g., basic promotions, customer groups via Shopify Functions)
• Shopify App equivalent — install and configure (e.g., Klaviyo for email, Yotpo for reviews)
• Custom Shopify app required — build via Shopify App Bridge (e.g., custom B2B pricing logic)
• Functionality deprecated — feature no longer needed or handled differently

Here's what this looked like on a recent Branch8 engagement. We migrated a Hong Kong-based luxury retailer from Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 to Shopify Plus over 14 weeks. They had 43 enabled third-party extensions. The breakdown:

• 11 had native Shopify Plus equivalents
• 18 mapped to Shopify App Store apps
• 8 required custom Shopify Functions or Apps
• 6 were deprecated (including a custom-built Magento cron job for inventory sync that we replaced with Shopify Flow + a webhook listener)

The 8 custom builds took 60% of our development time. Identify these early.

APAC-Specific Integration Gaps to Watch

• Payment gateways: Shopify Plus supports Stripe, PayPal, and Adyen natively. For APAC-specific methods like PayMe (HK), FPS (HK), GrabPay (SG/MY), Atome (SG/MY/HK), or LINE Pay (TW), you'll need Shopify Payments' additional methods or third-party gateways. Check Shopify's payment gateway directory for your specific market.
• Logistics: SF Express, Kerry Logistics, Yamato (Japan), and BlackBuck (India) require custom carrier service integrations via the CarrierService API.
• Tax calculation: Magento's per-store-view tax rules for GST (Australia/Singapore), VAT (Japan), and zero-rated exports need rebuilding in Shopify's tax engine or via a tax automation app like Avalara.

Step 4: SEO URL Mapping — Where Most Migrations Lose 30% of Organic Traffic

According to Ahrefs, an average site migration causes a 10-30% drop in organic traffic if redirects are mishandled. This step is non-negotiable.

Extract All Indexed URLs from Adobe Commerce

1SELECT request_path, target_path, redirect_type 
2FROM url_rewrite 
3WHERE store_id = 1
4ORDER BY request_path;

Also pull your full indexed URL list from Google Search Console > Performance > Pages.

Generate the Redirect Map

Magento URL structure: /catalogsearch/result/?q=, /catalog/product/view/id/123, or clean URLs like /product-name.html

Shopify URL structure: /products/handle, /collections/handle, /pages/handle

1import csv
2
3def map_url(magento_path):
4    path = magento_path.strip('/')
5    # Product pages
6    if path.endswith('.html'):
7        handle = path.replace('.html', '').split('/')[-1]
8        return f'/products/{handle}'
9    # Category pages
10    if path.startswith('catalog/category') or '/' in path:
11        handle = path.split('/')[-1]
12        return f'/collections/{handle}'
13    return f'/pages/{path}'
14
15with open('magento_urls.csv', 'r') as infile, \
16     open('shopify_redirects.csv', 'w', newline='') as outfile:
17    reader = csv.DictReader(infile)
18    writer = csv.DictWriter(outfile, fieldnames=['Redirect from', 'Redirect to'])
19    writer.writeheader()
20    for row in reader:
21        writer.writerow({
22            'Redirect from': '/' + row['request_path'],
23            'Redirect to': map_url(row['request_path'])
24        })
25
26print('Redirect map generated: shopify_redirects.csv')

Upload this CSV via Shopify Admin > Online Store > Navigation > URL Redirects > Import. Shopify Plus supports bulk redirect imports up to 100,000 URLs.

Verify after upload by spot-checking 20 high-traffic URLs with curl:

1curl -I https://your-new-store.com/old-product-page.html
2# Expected: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
3# Location: https://your-new-store.com/products/old-product-page

Step 5: Building a Composable Commerce Platform Selection Scorecard for 2026

Before you commit fully, pressure-test whether Shopify Plus is actually the right target platform. We use a weighted scorecard for every client, and I'd encourage you to do the same — especially as composable commerce platform selection in 2026 involves more viable options than ever.

Rate each factor on a 1-5 scale:

• Total Cost of Ownership (3-year) — Shopify Plus starts at USD $2,300/month. Compare against Adobe Commerce Cloud (typically USD $40,000-$200,000/year according to Adobe's published pricing tiers) and newer entrants like Commerce Layer or Medusa.
• APAC market readiness — multi-currency, multi-language, local payment support
• Developer velocity — time-to-deploy for a typical feature change
• Headless/composable flexibility — Shopify's Hydrogen framework vs. Adobe's PWA Studio vs. pure headless
• Integration depth for your specific tech stack — ERP, PIM, OMS compatibility

If your score for Shopify Plus is under 3.5 average, pause and evaluate alternatives. This scorecard prevented a Branch8 client in Taiwan from making an expensive mistake — their B2B requirements (custom quoting, net-30 terms, multi-buyer accounts) were better served by staying on Adobe Commerce with a headless frontend, rather than forcing Shopify Plus into a use case it handles less natively.

Step 6: Apply AI Automation ROI Calculations to Your Operations Team

A platform migration is the ideal moment to introduce automation. When you're rebuilding workflows anyway, embedding AI-driven automation from day one costs a fraction of retrofitting it later.

Here's how we calculate AI automation ROI for operations teams during migration planning:

1Annual savings = (Hours saved per task × Hourly labor cost × Task frequency per year)
2Implementation cost = (AI tool subscription + Integration development + Training)
3ROI = ((Annual savings - Implementation cost) / Implementation cost) × 100

Concrete example from a recent migration: a Singapore-based fashion retailer had 3 customer service agents spending 4 hours daily categorizing and routing support tickets in Zendesk, which was integrated with their Adobe Commerce store. During the Shopify Plus migration, we implemented Shopify Flow combined with a GPT-4o-powered classification layer that auto-tags and routes 78% of incoming tickets.

• Hours saved: 3 agents × 3.1 hours/day × 260 working days = 2,418 hours/year
• Labor cost savings at SGD $25/hour: SGD $60,450/year
• Implementation cost: SGD $18,000 (custom Shopify Flow + OpenAI integration)
• Year 1 ROI: 236%

To keep ongoing costs reasonable, apply AI model inference cost optimization strategies: batch requests where possible, use GPT-4o-mini for classification tasks (roughly 15x cheaper than GPT-4o per token according to OpenAI's 2024 pricing), and cache frequent responses. Our client's monthly inference cost settled at SGD $340 — trivial compared to the labor savings.

Step 7: The Cutover Sequence — Going Live Without Downtime

Plan your cutover for a low-traffic window. For APAC e-commerce stores, that's typically Tuesday or Wednesday between 2-6 AM HKT.

Cutover checklist (execute in order):

• T-48 hours: Final full data sync — products, customers, inventory levels
• T-24 hours: Freeze content changes on Adobe Commerce. Run a delta export of any orders placed in the last 24 hours
• T-4 hours: Update DNS records. Set TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes) at least 48 hours before cutover
• T-2 hours: Import delta orders and inventory adjustments to Shopify
• T-0: Point your domain to Shopify's IP addresses:

1# For your apex domain, add an A record:
2@ A 23.227.38.65
3
4# For www, add a CNAME:
5www CNAME shops.myshopify.com

• T+1 hour: Verify SSL certificate provisioned (Shopify auto-provisions via Let's Encrypt)
• T+2 hours: Run automated smoke tests — place test orders with each payment method, verify email notifications, check redirect sample
• T+24 hours: Monitor Google Search Console for crawl errors. Check Shopify Analytics for conversion rate anomalies

1# Quick DNS propagation check
2dig +short your-store.com A
3# Expected: 23.227.38.65
4
5dig +short www.your-store.com CNAME
6# Expected: shops.myshopify.com.

What to Do Next

Once you've completed the migration and confirmed stable operations for 2-4 weeks, focus on these priorities:

• Performance benchmarking: Compare your Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS) pre- and post-migration using Google PageSpeed Insights. Shopify's global CDN typically improves LCP by 20-40% versus self-hosted Adobe Commerce setups, based on data from HTTP Archive's 2024 Web Almanac.
• Sunsetting Adobe Commerce: Don't rush this. Keep your old server running in read-only mode for 90 days. You'll inevitably need to reference historical data that didn't migrate cleanly.
• Theme optimization: Shopify Plus's Dawn theme scores 95+ on Lighthouse out of the box. If your custom theme scores below 80, you're leaving conversion rate on the table.
• Staff training: Budget 2 weeks for operations teams to adapt. The Shopify admin is simpler than Adobe Commerce, but muscle memory is real.

Who this guide is NOT for

This playbook assumes a B2C or B2C-dominant use case with under 100,000 SKUs. If you're running a pure B2B operation with complex quoting workflows, customer-specific catalogs with thousands of price lists, or deep ERP-driven inventory allocation, Shopify Plus may not be your best target. Adobe Commerce (or a composable stack with commercetools or Medusa) could serve you better — and I'd rather you know that upfront than discover it mid-migration.

Also, if your Adobe Commerce store relies heavily on custom Magento cron jobs, background queue processors, or server-level customizations, expect a longer timeline. Shopify Plus is opinionated by design. That's its strength for most retailers, but it's a constraint for edge cases.

If you're planning how to migrate Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus for a multi-market APAC operation and want a team that's done this before — with real SQL queries, not slide decks — reach out to Branch8. We'll start with a free extension gap analysis and give you an honest assessment of timeline and cost within a week.

Sources

• Baymard Institute, "49 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics 2024": https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate
• Gartner, "Survey Analysis: Digital Commerce Technology Replacement Cycles": https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4021086
• Ahrefs, "Site Migration & SEO: The Complete Guide": https://ahrefs.com/blog/site-migration/
• Shopify Developer Documentation, "Admin API Reference 2024-10": https://shopify.dev/docs/api/admin-rest
• HTTP Archive, "Web Almanac 2024 — E-commerce Chapter": https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2024/ecommerce
• OpenAI, "API Pricing": https://openai.com/api/pricing
• Adobe Commerce Pricing: https://business.adobe.com/products/magento/pricing.html