Migrations & Replatforming
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Common Questions
How do we communicate a subscription-platform migration to active subscribers so they don't think their subscription was cancelled or their payment failed?
A subscription migration needs four subscriber messages to avoid reading as a cancellation: a notice 14 days before cutover, a portal-change note on cutover day, a payment-update prompt wherever a card did not transfer, and a confirmation on the first charge day (Deploi practice, not a Shopify requirement). Shopify's customerPaymentMethodSendUpdateEmail mutation sends the secure update link (per shopify.dev, September 2026).
How do split shipments and partial fulfillments in historical order data migrate to Shopify's fulfillment-order model without breaking the audit trail?
Split shipments survive as fulfillment records, not as the original fulfillment orders. Shopify states plainly that fulfillment orders are created automatically when an order is created and that it is not possible to manually create fulfillment orders (per shopify.dev, September 2026). The audit trail you keep is tracking numbers and line-item quantities, not timestamps.
How do serial numbers, lot numbers, or expiration-date tracking (common in specific verticals) migrate to Shopify's inventory model from a platform with native support for them?
Shopify's inventory model tracks a quantity per variant per location and carries no lot number, batch or expiry date. Regulated verticals keep that data in an app or an ERP, which then becomes the system of record for traceability. Freshly Batch Inventory prices at $24 per month for batch tracking with FEFO rotation (Shopify App Store, September 2026).
How does a legacy platform's affiliate-marketing plugin map onto Shopify's affiliate app options, and is native affiliate tracking even comparable?
Shopify Collabs, the native affiliate option, is creator-first rather than a full affiliate platform: free to install, 2.9% commission processing fee on automatic payouts. Refersion at $39 to $199 per month and UpPromote at $29.99 to $199.99 per month carry the tracking depth a legacy plugin had (all verified September 2026).
How do we communicate a subscription-platform migration to high-LTV, long-tenured subscribers specifically, versus the general subscriber base?
High-LTV subscribers need a named-sender email before the migration, not a system notice after it. Send a personal note from a real person 10 to 14 days ahead, name the change, confirm the price and cadence are unchanged, and give a direct reply address. Reserve the generic transactional notice for the rest of the base; tenure-weighted revenue justifies the extra handling.
What questions should we ask a migration agency specifically about their subscription-migration track record before trusting them with an active subscriber base?
Ask a migration agency 3 questions: the subscriber count of their last three subscription migrations, the payment-method transfer rate achieved on each, and the name of the destination platform. Vague answers to those three are disqualifying. Agencies that have really done this will also volunteer the parallel-run length and who handled the support surge, because both are where the work actually lives.