Migrating from Etsy to Shopify: A Tactical Guide for 2026

Most handmade and vintage sellers who have been on Etsy for 3+ years eventually ask the same question: is it time to move to Shopify? The answer is usually yes, but the migration is where most sellers stall. Moving products, preserving reviews, keeping SEO, and communicating with existing customers all have traps.

Here is the tactical guide we use when we do this migration for clients.

First: should you actually migrate?

Migrate to Shopify if:

• Etsy fees are costing you more than $200 per month
• You have 30+ SKUs
• You have a growing email list of past Etsy customers
• Your brand is recognizable enough that customers search for you by name, not just by product category
• You want to run paid ads (Etsy makes this nearly impossible)

Stay on Etsy only if:

• You have fewer than 15 unique SKUs
• You rely heavily on Etsy's internal search to find buyers
• Your margins cannot absorb Shopify's $39 per month base fee
• You genuinely do not have time for the migration (fair answer)

Best move for most: run both in parallel. Shopify as the primary home, Etsy as a secondary channel for search-discovery demand. Most of our clients who move to Shopify keep Etsy running for the first 6 to 12 months.

The 14-day migration timeline

Here is what a realistic migration looks like.

Days 1 to 3: Setup

Register Shopify. Use the 3-day free trial, then commit to Basic ($39/mo). Don't pay for Advanced or Plus yet.

Pick a theme. Free themes that work: Dawn, Spotlight, Colorblock. Paid themes worth it for boutique brands: Impulse ($380), Warehouse ($400). Install the theme, don't customize yet.

Register or transfer your domain. If you already own a domain, you'll transfer it to Shopify later. If you don't, register one now (Namecheap, Cloudflare Registrar). $15/year.

Configure essentials:

• Business info, currencies, timezone
• Shipping zones and rates
• Sales tax (Shopify auto-calculates US multi-state)
• Shopify Payments (link to your bank)
• Order notification emails

Days 4 to 7: Product migration

Export from Etsy. Shop Manager > Settings > Download Data. You get a CSV with listings, orders, and customer info.

Clean the CSV. Etsy's export has fields Shopify does not use. Map columns to Shopify's import format: title, description, SKU, price, inventory quantity, weight, product type, tags.

Images. Etsy hosts your images. You can scrape or re-upload. Re-upload is cleaner. Use high-resolution originals where possible.

Import to Shopify. Shopify admin > Products > Import CSV. Shopify will queue the import. For 100+ products, expect 1 to 2 hours.

QA. Check every product after import. Common issues: variant mapping wrong, images out of order, descriptions with Etsy-specific language ("This listing is for a single item...") that should be rewritten.

Apps that help: LitCommerce, Etsy Integration by Bucket, or manual CSV (most control).

Days 8 to 10: Reviews and content

Reviews are the hardest part. Etsy does not let you export reviews programmatically. Your options:

1. Manual copy-paste. Screenshot reviews, add them as customer reviews on Shopify via Judge.me or Loox. Slow but clean.

2. Testimonials page. Dedicate a /testimonials or /reviews page where you manually transcribe the best 20 to 30 reviews from Etsy with customer first names and general locations.

3. Ask customers to re-review. After migration, email past customers asking them to review on the new Shopify site. 10 to 20 percent conversion rate. Slow but real reviews count.

Content migration. Move your Etsy Shop "About" content to your Shopify About page. Translate any Etsy-specific language. Etsy's FAQ section becomes your Shopify FAQ page.

Days 11 to 12: SEO and redirects

Keyword mapping. Your top Etsy listings rank on Google for certain keywords. Your Shopify listings need to rank for those same keywords.

For each Etsy listing, note the URL, title, and main keyword. On Shopify, use the same H1, similar meta description, and ensure the new product page targets the same keyword.

Internal linking. Link from relevant blog posts (if you have a Shopify blog) to product pages. Link from collection pages to bestsellers.

Sitemap submission. Shopify generates /sitemap.xml automatically. Submit to Google Search Console the day after you launch.

What you lose. Etsy SEO equity does not transfer. Etsy owns those URLs. Plan for 3 to 6 months of SEO recovery on the new site.

Days 13 to 14: Launch and customer communication

Domain cutover. Point your domain DNS to Shopify. Takes 4 to 48 hours depending on registrar and TTL settings.

Test checkout. Run 3 to 5 test orders on yourself. Desktop and mobile. Make sure emails fire correctly.

Announce to customers. Email every past Etsy customer (you have their emails in the Etsy data export):

"Hi [Name], I've just launched my own website at [URL]. My full product catalog is there, plus some new things not on Etsy. As a thank you for being a past customer, here's 15% off your next order: [CODE]. I'll keep Etsy running as well, but everything I make will land first on the new site."

Keep it short. Include a primary CTA button to the new site.

Announce on Instagram and Facebook. Same message, social format.

Keeping Etsy running in parallel

Most sellers should keep Etsy active. Reasons to keep it:

• Etsy drives discovery traffic from people searching Etsy directly
• Removing your Etsy shop loses 3+ years of review equity
• Etsy and Shopify can cross-promote (Etsy listings can link to your website)

Sync inventory. Use an app like Trunk or Etsify to sync inventory between the two platforms. Prevents selling items on one platform when you are out of stock on the other.

Pricing strategy. Keep identical prices across both. If Etsy fees are 11 percent and Shopify is 3 percent, you absorb the 8 percent delta on Etsy sales. This is fine; Etsy sales are bonus on top of your direct sales.

Over time. Many brands phase Etsy out over 12 to 24 months as their Shopify site grows. Some keep it forever as a secondary channel. Either is fine.

Common mistakes

Migrating to Shopify before launching an email program. You need to capture customers. A site without email capture leaks future repeat revenue.

Not setting up analytics before launch. Install GA4 and Meta Pixel on day 1, not day 30. Early data is important.

Over-designing the site. Dawn theme, 5 to 10 hours of customization, live. Iterate after launch. Stores that spend 3 months on design before launching lose 3 months of sales.

Skipping customer communication. Customers who come back to Etsy and see you are gone will not always find your new site. Email them. Post on socials. Tell them directly.

Missing the shipping profile nuances. Etsy ships everything in one flow. Shopify needs shipping profiles configured per product weight band or SKU. Miss this and your first customers overpay or underpay shipping.

The realistic numbers

Migration project cost if DIY: roughly 40 to 80 hours of your time over 2 weeks.

Migration cost if hired: $800 to $3,000 depending on catalog size and complexity.

Expected revenue dip during migration: 30 to 60 percent decline in month 1 as SEO recovers and customers find the new site. Back to Etsy baseline by month 3 for most brands. Exceeding Etsy baseline by month 6 to 9 for most.

Fee savings after migration: typical boutique brand saves $200 to $800 per month on platform fees by moving to Shopify. That alone pays for the migration within 6 to 12 months.

When to get help

If your Etsy shop has under 30 products, DIY is very doable.

If you have 100+ products, variants, or multiple categories, professional help usually pays back. Our Shopify migration service handles Etsy-to-Shopify migrations as $497 to $1,997 flat-fee projects depending on catalog complexity.