Big Cartel → to Shopify

Big Cartel to Shopify: keep the look, the fans and the order history

Big Cartel is built for artists, bands and makers, and it does that job well. A Big Cartel to Shopify migration usually happens when the shop has done so well that the plan limits, the checkout or the app list start getting in the way. This guide covers what Big Cartel lets you take with you, how the URLs and domain move, the tools that help, and what we charge to do the whole thing for you. Many Big Cartel shops are small and simple, and that is fine: the process is the same, it just runs with fewer surprises.

Why shops leave Big Cartel

• Product caps. The free Gold plan lists 5 products, Platinum lists 50 and Diamond lists 500, and hidden products still count toward the limit. A shop with a deep back catalog, or one that releases a lot of limited runs, hits the ceiling.
• Features behind the top plan. Scheduled drops, password-protected products and automatic discounts are Diamond only. Platinum shops get five images per product; Diamond gets 25.
• A fixed checkout. Big Cartel’s checkout page cannot be edited. Payments run through Stripe or PayPal only.
• A short app list. Big Cartel connects to print-on-demand services, Mailchimp, Omnisend and Zapier on Diamond. Shopify’s app ecosystem covers reviews, loyalty, wholesale, bundles, email and fulfillment in far more depth.
• Selling in more places. Shopify POS, marketplace channels, wholesale and multiple currencies all run from one inventory.

To be fair to Big Cartel, it is inexpensive, takes no cut of your sales beyond payment processing, and is easy to run alone. If the shop is working and none of the points above hurt, staying is a reasonable choice.

What migrates from Big Cartel to Shopify

Big Cartel has no product export button and no customer list export. It does have an order CSV export, a public product feed on every shop, and an API (JSON:API format, OAuth for partner apps) covering products, orders, categories, artists, discounts, shipments and pages. Between them, the data is all reachable.

Data	Source on Big Cartel	Moves to Shopify?
Products with name, description, price, status, images and categories	API, or the shop’s public product feed	Yes. Descriptions come across as HTML and images are pulled from Big Cartel’s servers, so the shop must stay open until the import is verified.
Variants and variant groups (up to three dropdowns, per-variant price and stock)	API	Yes. Three variant groups map directly to Shopify’s three product options, and Shopify now allows up to 2,048 variants per product.
Categories	API	Yes, as Shopify collections. A product in several categories joins several collections.
Artists (the label or collective field)	API	Yes, usually as the product vendor, so each artist can have a filter and a collection.
Orders with line items, totals, tax, shipping and status	Orders, Export orders (CSV), or the API	Yes. Imported as real Shopify orders with the original number and date, so customer histories and reports are correct.
Customer names, emails and addresses	Held on each order; there is no separate customer export	Yes. We build customer records from the order history, one per email address.
Mailing list and marketing consent	Mailchimp, Omnisend or whichever tool collects signups	Yes, from that tool, with consent carried exactly. Buyers who never opted in are imported unsubscribed.
Discount codes	API, or the Discounts list	Recreated on Shopify with the same codes and rules.
Custom pages (About, FAQ, policies)	API, or Shop designer, Pages	Yes. Content moves to Shopify pages and is laid out in the new theme.
Digital product files	Uploaded to each digital product	Re-uploaded to Shopify’s Digital Downloads app.
Theme and custom code	Shop designer	No. Design never migrates between platforms. The store is rebuilt on a Shopify theme.

URLs, redirects and your domain

Big Cartel uses a short, predictable URL scheme, which makes the redirect map straightforward:

• Products: /product/screen-print-tee becomes /products/screen-print-tee
• Categories: /category/posters becomes /collections/posters
• All products: /products becomes /collections/all
• Custom pages: /about or /return-policy become /pages/about and /pages/return-policy
• Contact: /contact becomes /pages/contact

We build the map from your shop’s own sitemap and product feed rather than guessing slugs, keep every product handle the same where Shopify allows it, and test each redirect after launch.

Two things need care. First, your yourshop.bigcartel.com address stays with Big Cartel, so Shopify cannot redirect links that point to it. We list where that address appears (link-in-bio pages, band sites, Bandcamp, old posters with QR codes) so you can update the ones you control. Second, the custom domain moves by changing DNS at your registrar. Big Cartel points www with a CNAME and forwards the root domain; Shopify takes an A record on the root and a CNAME on www. Expect a short interruption while DNS propagates, typically an hour or less.

Tools

Two automated services support Big Cartel as a source. Cart2Cart, an RDA partner, lists products, categories, customers and orders for Big Cartel to Shopify. LitExtension connects to Big Cartel directly, offers the same core entities and has an option to create 301 redirects. Both are fine for a first pass on products and customers, and we use them where they save time.

They have limits we plan around. Neither carries shipment tracking numbers onto orders, refunded orders tend to arrive as plain paid orders, and automatic redirects are built from guessed slugs rather than your real URLs. We finish those parts ourselves: tracking and refund status from the API, and redirects from the sitemap. Shopify’s own Store Migration app does not list Big Cartel among its supported sources, so it is not an option here.

How we run it

1. Audit. We count products, variants, orders and customers, list every integration and custom code snippet, and note which Diamond features you rely on.
2. Build in a free development store. As a Shopify Plus Partner we build in a Shopify development store, so you pay Shopify nothing until launch.
3. Catalog. Products, variant groups, stock, images, categories and artists, with titles and descriptions cleaned up where needed.
4. Customers. Records built from order history and matched to your mailing list, with consent kept exactly as collected.
5. Orders. Full history imported with original numbers, dates, tax, shipping and fulfillment status.
6. Redirects. Every product, category and page URL mapped and loaded.
7. Sample, then full import. A small batch first for you to check, then the full run, reconciled line by line against Big Cartel’s counts.
8. Cutover. A final delta sync of new orders, DNS switch, payment and checkout tests, and a live order.
9. Post-launch SEO evaluation. Once Google has re-crawled the store and the first real analytics exist, we review indexing, redirects, 404s and search performance and fix what needs fixing.

Cost and timeline

Big Cartel to Shopify migrations start from $2,500 for stores under 500 products and 5,000 orders, which covers every Big Cartel plan’s product limit. Shops with a longer order history start from $3,500. Most projects take six to eight weeks. The price is for a finished store, not only a data transfer: the design rebuilt on a Shopify theme with your artwork and brand, the full data migration, redirects, payment and shipping setup, email notifications, testing and launch. A small shop with a simple catalog still gets all of that; it simply takes less of the budget in data work and leaves more for design. Terms are 50% to begin and 50% once the store is live and you are fully satisfied with the figures.

Keeping the look of a hand-built Big Cartel shop

Many Big Cartel shops are the artist’s own work: a customized theme, hand-drawn headers, custom CSS in the Code section. None of that code carries over, because Shopify themes are built differently. What does carry over is the design itself. We start from a screenshot audit of your current shop, rebuild it on Shopify’s Horizon theme or a suitable alternative, and bring your fonts, colors, illustrations and layout choices across. Shopify gives you more room than Big Cartel did: full-width image sections, video, lookbooks, and product pages with as many images as you need.

Drops, pre-orders and limited runs

Big Cartel has no pre-order setting; sellers write the ship date into the description. Scheduled drops and password-protected products are Diamond features. On Shopify each of these has a proper home. Future publishing lets a product go live at a set date and time. Pre-orders run through Shopify’s pre-order purchase options, set up with a pre-order app, which can take full payment, a deposit or no payment up front. Inventory tracking stops a limited run at exactly the number you pressed, and a back-in-stock app collects emails for the next batch. For password-gated drops we use an app or customer-account access, depending on how exclusive the release needs to be.

Selling at shows and gigs with Shopify POS

Big Cartel’s mobile app has a cash register that takes card payments through Stripe readers. Shopify POS does the same job and more: the merch table, the market stall and the online store share one inventory, so a shirt sold at a show is not also sold online. POS Lite is included with every Shopify plan, card readers are available from Shopify, and in-person sales land in the same customer records and reports as online orders. We set up the products, tax and staff access before your first event.

Sales tax and digital downloads

Big Cartel collects and remits marketplace sales tax in certain US states on your behalf. A Shopify store is your own store, so that arrangement ends. Shopify Tax calculates rates at checkout and alerts you as you approach a state’s threshold, but registering and filing becomes your job or your accountant’s. We flag this in the audit and set up tax before launch.

Digital products, which Big Cartel delivers natively on paid plans, move to Shopify’s free Digital Downloads app. Files are re-uploaded, variants such as file formats or license types are rebuilt, and delivery is tested with a real order. Monthly subscriptions and donations, which Big Cartel runs through Stripe, move to Shopify Subscriptions or a subscription app; we plan how existing supporters move across during the audit.

What you get at handover

The project closes with a reconciliation ledger for products, variants, orders and customers that accounts for every record on Big Cartel, the redirect verification list showing the result for each old URL, a consent report showing how many customers came across subscribed and why, the tax and POS setup documented, and a recorded walkthrough of the Shopify admin. Most Big Cartel sellers run their shop alone, so the walkthrough covers orders, shipping labels, discounts, drops and inventory in plain terms.

Questions we settle in the survey

• Which Big Cartel plan you are on, and how many products, orders and customers you have.
• Whether you use variant groups, artists, digital products or subscriptions.
• Where your mailing list lives, and how signups were collected.
• Whether you sell in person, and how often.
• How much of the current design and custom code you want to keep.
• Who controls the domain and where it is registered.

Frequently asked questions

Tell us about your shop on the migration survey and we will come back with a first assessment. If you also sell on a marketplace, read our Etsy to Shopify guide, or compare the process with our Squarespace to Shopify guide.