Migrations & Replatforming
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Common Questions
What order-level custom fields (gift messages, engraving instructions, delivery-date selections) need special handling during an order-history migration?
Order-level custom fields migrate as order and line item custom attributes, which Shopify's own documentation describes as holding a gift message, delivery instructions, or internal notes (per shopify.dev, September 2026). Gift messages and engraving text survive as key-value pairs. Delivery-date selections need a metafield with a date type, or they arrive as unvalidated strings.
Do return/RMA records and their approval history migrate cleanly to Shopify's returns model or a returns app like Loop/AfterShip?
Return records do not migrate. Shopify's returnCreate mutation requires at least one fulfilled line item that has not yet been refunded, and the Return object exposes no field for backdating a request or importing prior approval history (per shopify.dev, September 2026). Historical RMAs land as order notes or a read-only archive, not as returns.
How do vendor/supplier records and purchase-order history migrate as data objects during a platform switch, given Shopify has no native supplier-management model?
Historical purchase orders cannot be imported into Shopify, and Shopify says so plainly (Shopify Help Center, September 2026). Supplier records have no documented CSV import and no Admin API object, so they are rekeyed by hand or held in the app or ERP that will own purchasing. Decide that owner before extraction, not after.
Does customer-specific product visibility (certain SKUs only shown to certain B2B accounts) migrate correctly to Shopify B2B's catalog-assignment model?
Per-account SKU visibility migrates as a binary, and the legacy models it comes from are three-state. SuiteCommerce Personalized Catalog Views offer Display Fully, Disable Purchase, and Disable Purchase and Hide Price (Oracle NetSuite docs, September 2026). Shopify catalogs offer in or out. A visible product the buyer cannot purchase has no native catalog equivalent.
Does blended B2B/DTC customer data (one person who buys both wholesale and retail) migrate correctly without duplicating or misclassifying the account on Shopify?
One person who buys both wholesale and retail stays one Shopify customer record. A customer can belong to only one company, a single email address can belong to only one customer, and the buying context follows whether that email is assigned to a company location (Shopify Help Center, September 2026). Two source logins must collapse into one.
Is it ever the right call to pause new subscription sign-ups during a platform migration, or does that hurt growth more than the migration risk justifies?
Pausing new subscription sign-ups during a platform migration is the wrong default for almost every mid-market merchant. Freeze the sign-up surface only for the hours around the actual billing cutover, not for the whole 60 to 90 day migration window (July 2026 research). A multi-week freeze costs compounding cohort growth to avoid a risk that rehearsal removes.