The ecommerce industry and the platforms supporting it are constantly evolving and changing. What may have been the most popular, top ecommerce platform 5 years ago might actually be considered a clunky mess today. Due to this, many online stores are built on failing platforms that are slowly but surely eating away at the sanity, time, and budgets of those who originally had the highest hopes and most faith in them.
As an ecommerce agency that has been around for over a decade, we’ve seen the writing on the wall for many platforms over the years–the most recent being Adobe Commerce/Magento. As ecommerce platform migration and setup experts, we understand how an outdated or overly complex platform can stifle a business’s growth.
Sometimes, this shift happens immediately, while for others, it’s a slow descent into madness that you don’t see coming until the problem intensifies and your issues begin to snowball out of control.
If you’re currently running your store on Magento, this article will break down all the signs to look for that you might need to consider replatforming from Magento to Shopify: its leaner, more modern, streamlined alternative.
What is Ecommerce Replatforming? Why not Ecommerce Migration?
Before we get into how to determine if you need to replatform, we should first explain what ecommerce replatforming is, what it entails, and why we use the term “replatforming” instead of simply “migration.”
Replatforming refers to the strategic decision to switch your online store from one ecommerce platform to another to better align with your business goals. It’s a holistic process that often involves:
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Evaluating platforms for scalability, cost, and ease of use.
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Redesigning workflows or user experiences to leverage the new platform’s strengths.
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Addressing pain points (e.g., high maintenance costs, poor performance) of the current system.
This differs from ecommerce migration in the sense that migration is the actual technical execution of moving your store’s data, configurations, and operations from one platform to another. It focuses on:
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Transferring product catalogues, customer data, order history, and payment integrations.
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Ensuring SEO continuity (e.g., preserving URLs, metadata).
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Testing functionality post-move to avoid disruptions.
Simply put, migration is just one part of an entire replatforming strategy. Due to the very involved, highly technical nature of a Magento replatforming project, it’s important to ensure that your store will actually benefit from changing ecommerce platforms before starting the process.
Magento to Shopify Replatforming - Signs the Time is Now
Here’s how to determine if a Magento/Adobe Commerce migration and replatforming project is worth the undertaking for your ecommerce store.
1. Your Platform is Technically Unstable
Adobe will tell you its platform has a “very sophisticated architecture” to explain why certain tasks/processes, like indexing, must be done manually or on a set schedule. That said, a glitchy indexer can nuke product listings, leading to lost sales.
If your indexer fails in the middle of the process, your data suddenly becomes incorrect, or your store goes down, you won’t be able to get that time and money back. This leads to unnecessary frustration for merchants and customers alike, who might have to deal with slow shopping experiences that lead to cart abandonment.
If you consistently encounter issues that make selling your products more challenging than necessary, you might consider switching to an easier-to-manage platform like Shopify.
The Shopify Solution: Shopify offers automated, seamless backend processes without manual indexing so that your store consistently provides visitors with accurate information and a speedy shopping experience.
2. You’re Over-Reliant on Technical Experts
If scenarios like product disappearance, checkout errors, or mysterious bugs that require developer intervention occur more frequently than you’d like, it might be time to consider a change.
No one enjoys relying on tech people who respond with technobabble when all your products suddenly disappear. Even worse, they constantly have to explain why these recurring messes aren't their fault yet must consistently get exceptionally clever to resolve them.
If you’re using an internal development team, this takes away time they could spend on other tasks that will actually increase sales or improve ROI. Leveraging a development agency? This can get costly, and no one likes to rely on external experts for things vital to your company’s well-being.
The Shopify Solution: Shopify doesn’t require external development skills or knowledge out of the box. Its intuitive admin interface and 24/7 support empower non-technical teams to manage the site. Now, you can save those costly developer hours for building custom features and functionality to make your store run how you like and stand out against the competition.
3. You Have to Upgrade… Again
Regarding Magento, platform users often state that if you don’t consistently keep up with updates, you’ll quickly find yourself buried in tech debt. Add in custom modules, and there’s a further increase in code review to fix issues when things get changed or deprecated.
This quickly increases the time developers spend fixing things that used to work rather than working on other projects, siphoning money from your development budget.
If you feel you’re spending money on Adobe security patches and reactive fixes that do not add new functionality and have minimal ROI, it might be time to consider Shopify.
The Shopify Solution: Shopify offers automatic updates, built-in security, and transparent pricing. Because security updates and patches happen behind the scenes, you can focus your funds on growth rather than tedious and costly upkeep.
If features are changed and functionalities are deprecated–like the move from checkout.liquid to Checkout Extensibility, for example–Shopify provides its users with a large notice window, a multi-phase rollout period, and helpful guides to ensure that everyone has the time and information they need to make any necessary changes to their store.
4. You’ve Been Burned by Security Breaches
While some love Magento's open-source nature, this perk requires manual security hardening and poses a high risk for businesses without dedicated IT/tech teams.
If you’ve ever dealt with a hack, you know that the cost of dealing with security breaches goes beyond the stress endured as you rush to fix them. Development time costs money, but so does the reputational damage you incur from demonstrating that your customers' data may not be as safe in your hands as they might believe.
Patching vulnerabilities, conducting forensic cleanups, and going through the post-mortem process are both time-consuming and nerve-wracking.
The Shopify Solution: PCI compliance, SSL certification, and enterprise-grade security are all available with Shopify straight out of the box. Let Shopify handle the security so you don’t have to deal with unexpected, late-night issues. Instead, focus on growing your business and leave the tough stuff to the platform.
5. Poor Performance Hurts Conversions
Magento stores can easily become bloated, slow, bug-riddled websites if not properly maintained and optimized. If you’re auditing your store’s current performance and getting back single-digit Google Lighthouse numbers, while your CX team is constantly overwhelmed with complaints that people can’t checkout because of slow speeds or, worse, broken checkout pages, it might be time to consider a switch.
Slow load times, checkout errors, and mobile inefficiencies on Magento might not always be quick, easy fixes and can directly impact customer trust and revenue. If your store can’t handle regular customer volumes, imagine how much trouble you’ll have during high-revenue periods like BFCM. Let’s not even mention the constant risk that one of your products gains some popularity on social media, leading people to visit your website while you may not be completely prepared. Future-proof your store and start thinking about the value of a replatforming project.
The Shopify Solution: Shopify's optimized speed, 99.9% uptime, and mobile-first architecture make it an excellent choice for merchants who want speed, stability, and dependability. Its scalable infrastructure handles high traffic without a hitch and keeps your checkout running smoothly, especially when it matters most.
6. Your Tech Budget Should Fuel Growth, Not Maintenance
When the above issues compound and your team can’t gain any traction, you're not spending your money where it needs to be spent to fuel any innovation. If every minor tweak requires developer intervention, you’re stuck in a vicious cycle of downtime and frustrated users. This hurts conversions, lowers ROI, decreases revenue, and, most importantly, takes money away from growing your business.
If you’re spending money on upkeep, maintenance, and reactive bug fixes, you’re leaving less on the table that should instead go towards marketing, building new features, doing R&D on new products, and creating exciting and unique experiences for your shoppers. Every dollar spent on unproductive fixes is a dollar not spent on marketing or growth strategies, while constant fires in the backend can wear down morale and keep your team reactive instead of proactive.
The Shopify Solution: Unlike Magento’s hidden costs (developer time, upgrades, downtime, etc.), Shopify is much more reliable and easier to budget for. Shopify’s predictable costs and ROI-focused model enable merchants to free up resources for campaigns, new product lines, and other initiatives that actually drive revenue rather than maintaining the status quo.
Moving from Magento to Shopify - How to Replatform to Shopify Plus
With Shopify’s lower total cost of ownership, reduced technical complexity, built-to-scale performance, and excellent security/compliance, the choice is clear. …But how exactly do you start the replatforming process?
Your migration from Magento doesn’t have to be complicated. With Blue Badger’s Adobe Commerce/Magento to Shopify migration service, our team of skilled developers has the knowledge and experience you need to handle your ecommerce website’s migration project.
From consulting with you to ensure the fit is right, planning, Shopify store configuration, feature development, and data migration to securely transferring all your essential data–including product catalogues, inventory, customer accounts/profiles, order history, SEO, and more, we understand how to manage a replatforming project that improves overall customer experience from start to finish.
In addition to the actual replatforming project, we also offer post-migration support. Once you’ve successfully migrated to Shopify, our team provides ongoing support and training to familiarize your team with their new platform. Then, we focus our attention on driving value for your business and are available for any further changes, feature builds, or reconfigurations you may need.
Conclusion
If recurring technical instability, increasing costs, and security vulnerabilities stifle your Magento store, Shopify Plus offers a modern solution. Replatforming eliminates manual upkeep, fortifies security, and reallocates resources to growth—not maintenance.
As both a Shopify Plus and Adobe Solution Partner agency, Blue Badger is uniquely positioned to make your move from Magento to Shopify as smooth and quick as possible. Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help you switch ecommerce platforms without disruption.
