Shopware → to Shopify

Shopware to Shopify: leaving self-hosted commerce without leaving Europe behind

Shopware stores are usually German or Dutch, usually multi-language, and usually run by a team that is tired of hosting, upgrades and plugin conflicts. Shopify Markets, B2B and Shopify Plus now cover the things that used to keep those stores on Shopware. This guide is how we move Shopware 5 and Shopware 6 stores to Shopify with sales channels, languages, currencies and B2B pricing intact.

Why stores leave Shopware

• Hosting and upgrades are your problem. Shopware 6 major versions, plugin compatibility, PHP upgrades and security patches all land on your team or your agency’s invoice. Shopify has no infrastructure to run.
• The Shopware 5 end of life. Shopware 5 support ended in 2024. Stores still on it face a Shopware 6 migration that is itself a replatform, at which point Shopify is a fair comparison.
• Plugin cost and conflict. Shopware’s store is smaller than Shopify’s and the plugins are more expensive to license and maintain.
• Checkout conversion. Shop Pay and checkout extensibility outperform a self-hosted checkout in every migration we have measured.
• Talent. Shopify developers are easier to find than Shopware developers outside the DACH region.

What migrates from Shopware to Shopify

Data	Source on Shopware	Moves to Shopify?
Products, variants, properties, prices, tier prices, stock, manufacturers, categories, media	Shopware 6 Admin API or Import/Export profiles; Shopware 5 API or CSV export	Yes. Variant properties map to options. Manufacturers become vendors. Product properties and custom fields become metafields so filtering and specs are preserved.
Translations	Per-language product and category data	Yes. Imported as Shopify translations through the Translate and Adapt app or by API, per market.
Sales channels, currencies, countries, tax rules	Shopware settings	Rebuilt as Shopify Markets: one store, per-market currency, language, pricing and domain.
Customer groups and B2B pricing	Customer groups, tier prices	Shopify B2B companies, catalogs and price lists on Shopify Plus, or tag-based pricing on standard plans.
Orders with line items, totals, VAT, shipping, status, tracking	API or export	Yes. Real orders with original numbers, VAT lines and per-shipment tracking.
Customers with addresses, groups and consent	API or export	Yes. Consent carried one to one, which matters under GDPR.
Passwords	Not exportable	No. Reset on first login or passwordless accounts.
SEO URLs	Shopware SEO URL tables	Redirected. Shopware’s per-language SEO URLs and the legacy /detail/index/sArticle/ form are all mapped.
Shopping Experiences and CMS pages	Shopware CMS	Rebuilt with Shopify theme sections and metaobjects.
Theme and plugins	Shopware theme, plugins	No. Design rebuilt; each plugin mapped to a Shopify app or dropped.

Tools

Cart2Cart and LitExtension support Shopware 5 and 6 as sources for products, customers and orders. Neither handles translations, tier prices, customer-group pricing or tracking numbers well, and those are the parts that make a Shopware store a Shopware store. We use the Shopware Admin API directly for the full dataset, reconcile against the database counts, and handle Markets, B2B and translations as configuration work rather than data migration.

How we run it

1. Audit. Sales channels, languages, currencies, customer groups, plugins, integrations (ERP, PIM, payment providers) and URL structure. Fixed-price scope.
2. Build in a free Shopify development store. Markets configured to mirror the sales channels, theme, checkout, payments including local methods such as SEPA, iDEAL and Klarna, shipping and VAT.
3. B2B design on Shopify Plus where customer groups and tier pricing exist.
4. Sample import and sign-off in each language.
5. Full run of products, translations, customers, orders and fulfillments.
6. Redirects per language and per legacy URL form, tested against the live domain.
7. Integrations reconnected: ERP through the Shopify connector for your system or an iPaaS, email, reviews, shipping.
8. Cutover with a delta sync, then a 30-day watch.

Timeline and cost

Scope	Timeline	From
Single-language store, under 1,000 products	8 to 10 weeks	$8,500
Multi-language, multi-currency, several sales channels	10 to 14 weeks	Quoted after audit
B2B with customer groups, ERP integration, Shopify Plus	14 to 20 weeks	Quoted after audit

Fixed price after the audit, 50 percent to begin and 50 percent once the store is live and you are fully satisfied with the figures. You pay Shopify nothing until launch.

Data model mapping in detail

Shopware and Shopify disagree on what a property is, and getting this right is most of the catalog work.

Shopware concept	Shopify equivalent	Notes
Variant-generating property groups (Size, Color)	Options and variants	Up to three options and 2,048 variants per product. Products with more than three property groups are split.
Non-variant properties used for filtering (Material, Fit, Certification)	Metafields with definitions, exposed as filters in Search and Discovery	This is where most Shopware catalogs lose data in automated tools, because the tools only see variant options.
Custom fields	Metafields	Typed definitions so the theme and filters can use them.
Categories and dynamic product streams	Manual and automated collections	Stream conditions become collection rules on tags, vendor, price and metafields.
Manufacturers	Vendor plus a brand metaobject for logo and description	Brand pages survive.
Cross-selling and accessories	Complementary and related products through Search and Discovery	Native, no app needed.
Rule Builder rules for prices, shipping and payment availability	Shopify Functions, Markets settings and discount conditions	Rules are redesigned, not copied. We inventory every active rule in the audit.
Promotions with codes and conditions	Discount codes and automatic discounts	Stacking rules differ; each promotion is checked.
Sales channels per language and currency	Markets	One store, per-market domain, language, currency and pricing.
Customer groups with net or gross display	B2B companies and catalogs on Plus	Net pricing for trade customers is native on B2B.

Payments, shipping and the legal pages in DACH and the Netherlands

Shopify Payments in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands supports the local methods that matter: SEPA direct debit, iDEAL, Klarna, PayPal, Sofort where still offered, and cards, with Shop Pay on top. Purchase on account for trade customers is handled through B2B net payment terms on Plus. Shipping with DHL, DPD, Hermes and PostNL runs through the carriers’ own apps or a label platform such as Sendcloud, and pickup points are supported. The legal side is a checklist we complete on every European launch: Impressum, AGB, Widerrufsbelehrung and Datenschutz pages linked in the footer, price display with VAT included and base price per unit where the PAngV requires it, the checkout button wording the button-solution rule requires, and cookie consent through a certified banner. None of this is exotic on Shopify, but it has to be done deliberately because the defaults are American.

Common mistakes in Shopware migrations

• Migrating only the default language and discovering the other storefronts are empty.
• Letting an automated tool drop the filter properties, so the category pages lose every filter customers relied on.
• Recreating customer-group pricing with discount codes instead of B2B catalogs, which breaks the first time a trade customer checks out with a code.
• Forgetting the base-price-per-unit display, which is a legal requirement rather than a nicety.
• Redirecting only the current SEO URLs and leaving the legacy detail and listing paths, which still carry backlinks from years ago.

Checklist before you start

• List every sales channel with its language, currency, domain and customer group.
• Export the Rule Builder rules and promotions, and mark which are still active.
• Confirm API access to the Shopware admin, or arrange a database export from your host.
• List the plugins and, for each, whether it is essential, replaceable or retirable.
• Gather the current Impressum, AGB and Widerruf texts and the VAT settings per country.

Orders, invoices and VAT

German and Dutch stores have obligations around invoices and VAT that Shopware handles natively and Shopify handles with configuration and one app, and the migration is the time to get them right.

• Invoice documents. Shopware generates numbered invoice, delivery note and credit note PDFs. Shopify does not generate legally compliant invoices on its own, so an invoicing app such as Sufio or Order Printer Pro is installed and configured with sequential numbering, your company details and the correct VAT lines. Historical Shopware invoices are archived separately for the retention period rather than migrated.
• Net and gross display. Consumer markets show gross prices with VAT included; B2B customers see net prices. Shopify Markets sets tax inclusion per market and B2B catalogs show net pricing to company customers.
• VAT ID validation and reverse charge. B2B on Shopify Plus collects and validates VAT IDs at checkout and applies the reverse charge for intra-EU business customers. On standard plans this is handled with an app.
• OSS and distance selling. Shopify Tax applies the destination country’s VAT rate for EU consumers once you are registered for the One Stop Shop, and the reports you need for the OSS return are available.
• Historical orders. Orders import with their original VAT lines so reports for previous years still reconcile, and the Shopware order number is preserved.

Timeline in detail

Phase	Weeks	What happens
Discovery	1 to 2	Sales channels, rules, plugins, integrations, URL inventory, fixed-price scope
Markets and store build	2 to 6	Theme, Markets, payments, shipping, VAT, legal pages, B2B design
Data migration	4 to 8	Sample per language, full run, translations, reconciliation
Integrations and testing	7 to 10	ERP, email, reviews, shipping, invoicing; test orders per market
Launch	9 to 12	Delta sync, DNS per domain, Search Console per market, 30-day watch

What you get at handover

The migration closes with a reconciliation ledger per sales channel covering products, variants, translations, customers and orders; the redirect verification list per language with the status each old URL returned; the Rule Builder inventory showing which rules were rebuilt as Functions or discounts and which were retired with your sign-off; the invoicing app configuration and numbering scheme; the legal-page checklist signed off; and a recorded walkthrough of the Shopify admin in the language your team works in. Where an ERP is connected, the handover also includes the field mapping document for the connector so your ERP partner has what they need.

Why teams move now rather than later

Every Shopware 6 major release and every PHP upgrade is a project, and each one is a natural moment to ask whether the next project should be the last. The stores that migrate cleanly are the ones that decide before a forced upgrade, when there is time to run the parallel build and the cutover on a quiet week rather than against a support deadline. If you are on Shopware 5, that moment has already passed and the practical choice is between two replatforms; if you are on an early Shopware 6 version, it is coming.

Questions we settle in the survey

• Shopware version and hosting, and whether admin API access is available.
• Sales channels, languages and currencies, and which need their own domain.
• Customer groups and whether any require net terms, VAT ID validation or invoice payment.
• Which ERP, PIM or WMS is connected and who maintains that integration.
• The invoicing and document requirements your accountant expects.

Frequently asked questions

Start with the migration survey. For enterprise scope see the Shopify Plus migration page; for a comparable self-hosted platform, the Magento guide.