Moving from Shopify: what comes with you

Six things come with you from Shopify: products, customers, reviews, orders, old links and your domain. One thing you make again: the theme.

Four come from an export you already have: products, customers, reviews and old links. Orders come through the connected store. The domain is two records at your domain company. For each file, btab shows what it will do and writes nothing until you press. You can undo most steps afterwards. You cannot undo orders or redirects.

The packing list

You can undo the latest products update within 7 days, the latest customers import within 30 days, and a whole reviews import.

What does not come

The theme. A Shopify theme is template code. A btab theme is colours, fonts, style settings and a stack of blocks: data, not code, so you build it instead of moving it. The guide: How to build a storefront theme for btab.

There is no import for discount codes, gift cards, pages or blog posts. Nor for your store's Google title and description, under Website → SEO: leave them empty and btab fills them.

Products: check the Vendor column, then one file

btab's word for whoever makes a product is maker; your makers are listed on your Suppliers page. Each Vendor in your Shopify file must match one of them, or its rows are flagged "maker not found" until you add the maker and upload again.

In Shopify, go to Products, press Export, choose All products and the CSV.

In btab, go to Products → My Products and press Update from your Shopify export. Say what is in it: only some of your products, or your whole range. Whole range takes any product not in the file off sale; nothing is deleted.

Press Preview what changes, then Update my products. Only your latest update can be undone, within 7 days. Help page: How do I refresh my catalogue from a Shopify export?

Customers: a file, or the connected store

In Shopify, go to Customers, press Export, choose All customers and the CSV.

In btab, go to Sales → Customers and press Import, top right. Pick a CSV file, or My Shopify shop, which reads your connected store with no file. Press Preview.

Passwords do not come; Shopify cannot export them. btab never overwrites a customer it already has: it fills empty fields only. Nothing is emailed to anyone.

Undo covers the latest import for 30 days: customers it added are removed, unless they have ordered since, and fields it filled are cleared.

Reviews: dates kept, marked Imported

In Judge.me, go to Manage Reviews → Reviews Dashboard, open Import & Export and press Export Reviews → Export published reviews. Shopify removed its own Product Reviews app in May 2024, so the file comes from an app like Judge.me.

In btab, go to Sales → Reviews and find Import reviews from your previous shop. The card takes a Judge.me or Shopify Product Reviews export, or any CSV with a rating, a date, the text and a SKU, handle or product name.

Reviews keep their dates and show as "Imported", never "Verified purchase". Each one finds its product by SKU, then handle, then name; a name-only match is a suggestion you tick. Your replies and photos come too.

A whole import undoes under Past imports. Help page: How do I bring my reviews from Shopify or Judge.me?. More: Bring your reviews, keep your links, handle returns in one place.

Orders: connect the store, from today

Past orders do not come by file.

In btab, go to Settings → Operations and find Orders from Shopify. Under Shop address, type yourshop.myshopify.com and press Connect with Shopify. btab asks for read-only access and never changes anything in your Shopify.

New orders appear in Orders within a few minutes. An order placed before you connected is left alone, so nothing is handled twice. An order with a SKU btab does not know waits as "Needs a product" until you pick the product once.

There is no undo for an imported order. Cannot see the card? Ask the btab team. Help page: How do I connect my Shopify store's orders?

Old links: the file Google cares about

A Shopify product link, /products/leather-sofa, does not keep working on btab by itself. Its new address is /products/leather-sofa-42: the handle, then the product's number. A redirect from old to new keeps the link alive.

In Shopify, go to Content → Menus, open URL redirects and press Export. That file holds only the redirects you made in Shopify. For your product links, add one row per product: the old /products/handle, then the product's new btab address. Or set each product's web address by hand to its old handle: How do I set a product's web address and describe its photos?

In btab, go to Website → SEO, open URL redirects and press Import from CSV. Two columns, old then new; a Shopify "Redirect from, Redirect to" export works as is. Press Check first; nothing is written. Then press Import N redirects. Without a redirect, an old handle that ends in digits, such as desk-42, lands on product 42.

Redirects have no undo button. You remove a wrong one from the Your redirects list.

Domain: the cut-over, so do it last

Publish the store first: go to Website → Publish. Then go to Website → Domain, type yourstore.com under Already have a domain? and press Connect.

At your domain's company, set two records: an A record pointing yourstore.com at the address on your card, and a CNAME pointing www at sites.btab.app.

The card says Connecting, then Live, usually within the hour. Once live, your free yourstore.btab.app address sends shoppers to your domain. Full walk-through: Connect your own domain to your store.

The order to do it in

1. Check the Vendor column: each Vendor in your file is a maker on your Suppliers page.
2. Products. Reviews and orders find their product by SKU and handle.
3. Customers: the file, or the connected store.
4. Reviews.
5. Connect the store for orders. They start the day you connect.
6. Redirects, while shoppers still land on Shopify. Check, then import.
7. Domain last. When the card says Live, the move is done.

Orders placed on Shopify meanwhile still arrive in btab through the connection.

Bring what matches first; move the address last.