Case study · Fitness & Wellness
A replatform where the search rankings survived
Most Magento-to-Shopify migrations lose organic traffic for a quarter. A sports retailer could not afford that, so we treated URL continuity as the primary requirement rather than a launch-week task.
Project overview
A replatform judged on what did not happen: lost traffic and lost orders.
- Industry
- Sports & fitness retail
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- Magento to Shopify replatform
- Platform
- Shopify Plus
- Engagement model
- Dedicated programme team
- Scope
- Catalogue, customers, orders, URLs, integrations
- Catalogue
- 40,000 products
- Constraint
- Organic traffic must not drop
- Target
- Lower running cost
Expected business outcomes
What the replatform delivered
The headline number is a cost saving. The number that mattered was zero.
-
−58%
Platform running cost
Hosting, Magento maintenance, security patching and the specialist contractor retainer all disappeared, replaced by a platform fee and a much smaller maintenance surface.
Measured across annual platform cost before and after
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0%
Organic traffic lost through cutover
Every indexed URL was mapped and redirected before launch, and organic sessions in the month after cutover matched the month before rather than dipping.
Measured across organic sessions for 90 days either side of cutover
-
+37%
Mobile conversion rate
The new storefront is substantially faster than the Magento build it replaced, and most of the conversion improvement is concentrated on mobile where the old site was slowest.
Measured across mobile sessions after cutover
Business challenges
A platform costing more than it returned
Magento was the right choice once. It had stopped being one.
The business
A sports and fitness retailer with a 40,000-product catalogue, selling online and through two stores.
The starting point
A long-running Magento build requiring specialist hosting, regular security patching and a contractor on retainer for anything non-trivial.
The trigger
Platform cost had grown to a meaningful share of margin, an upgrade was overdue, and no in-house developer could safely change the site.
What they wanted
A move to Shopify Plus without losing organic traffic, which was the majority of their acquisition.
Constraints
Organic search is the primary channel and cannot dip · 40,000 products with inconsistent data quality · years of customer accounts and order history · store systems and the ERP must keep working throughout.
Proposed solution
What we did
A replatform planned around its biggest risk.
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URL continuity
Complete inventory, mapping and redirect testing.
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Catalogue migration
40,000 products, cleaned and consolidated.
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Customer migration
Accounts and order history with a designed first login.
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Integrations
ERP, store and fulfilment rebuilt and run in parallel.
-
Storefront
Built for speed, especially on mobile.
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Cutover
Rehearsed, with a tested rollback.
Architecture
How it fits together
Simplified — the shape of the system rather than every service in it.
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Catalogue migration
- 40k products
- Data cleaning
- Attribute mapping
Migrated and improved rather than copied.
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URL continuity
- Complete inventory
- Mapping
- Redirect testing
The primary requirement, treated as such throughout.
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Customers & orders
- Accounts
- Order history
- First-login flow
History preserved, with the password reset handled deliberately.
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Integrations
- ERP
- Stores
- Fulfilment
Rebuilt and run in parallel before cutover.
URL mapping started in week one and was tested continuously, not compiled in the fortnight before launch. That is the difference between this migration and the ones that lose a quarter of traffic.
Key capabilities
What it does day to day
Six workstreams in the programme.
| Capability | Runs | Refresh | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catalogue migration | Programme | One-off | 40,000 products migrated with data cleaned and consolidated |
| URL mapping | Programme | Continuous | Complete inventory mapped and redirect-tested before cutover |
| Customer migration | Programme | One-off | Accounts and order history with a designed first-login flow |
| Integrations | Programme | Parallel run | ERP, store and fulfilment connections rebuilt and proven |
| Storefront | Programme | Build | New storefront built for speed, particularly on mobile |
| Cutover | Programme | One event | Rehearsed, with a tested rollback available |
Integrations
How the moving parts plug in
Nothing connected for the first time on launch day.
Before cutover
- URLs mappedAnd tested
- Catalogue migratedAnd reviewed
- Integrations parallelBoth platforms live
Cutover
- DNS switched
- Redirects liveAll of them
- Rollback readyTested
After
- Organic monitoredDaily
- Orders reconciled
- Magento decommissionedOnly after a month
Magento stayed available for a month after cutover. It cost a month of hosting and removed every scenario where rollback was impossible.
Security & data
What made the cutover survivable
A replatform has one moment where everything can go wrong.
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Tested rollback
The old platform kept live and switchable for a month after cutover.
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Redirect verification
Every mapped URL tested automatically before and immediately after cutover.
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Parallel integrations
ERP, store and fulfilment connections proven before launch day.
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Customer data handling
Accounts and history migrated with a deliberate, communicated reset flow.
Project requirements
The catalogue is the work; the URLs are the risk
Migrating 40,000 products is laborious but predictable. What sinks replatforms is organic traffic, because the damage appears weeks after launch when everyone has moved on and the cause is hard to unpick.
We made URL continuity the first workstream rather than a launch checklist item, and it is the reason the traffic did not move.
- URL inventory and mapping from week one
- Catalogue cleaned during migration, not copied
- Integrations run in parallel before cutover
- Old platform kept switchable for a month
What the programme had to protect
- 01Organic search as the primary acquisition channel
- 0240,000 products with inconsistent data
- 03Years of customer accounts and order history
- 04Store systems and the ERP, running throughout
Key challenges & considerations
Four risks in a replatform
Only one of them is the catalogue, and it is not the dangerous one.
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Losing organic traffic at cutover
A large catalogue has tens of thousands of indexed URLs. Miss a category of them and the traffic does not come back quickly, if at all.
What we did
Complete URL inventory from search data, analytics and crawl, mapped to new destinations and tested as redirects before cutover rather than after.
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Catalogue data that is worse than anyone admits
Years of merchandising leaves inconsistent attributes, duplicate products and categories nobody uses. Migrating it faithfully migrates the mess.
What we did
Data quality assessed and cleaned as part of migration, with merchandiser decisions on what to consolidate rather than an automated guess.
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Customer accounts and order history
Customers who cannot find their order history or have to reset a password at first login churn, and the churn is invisible until it is measured.
What we did
Accounts and order history migrated with a first-login flow designed for the password reset that the platform change necessitates.
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Integrations breaking at the worst moment
The ERP, stores and fulfilment all connect to the old platform. A cutover that breaks them stops the business.
What we did
Integrations rebuilt against the new platform and run in parallel before cutover, so nothing connects for the first time on launch day.
What we hold to on replatforms
- Start with the URLs, not the catalogue
- Clean the data during migration or inherit the mess
- Run integrations in parallel before cutover
- Keep the old platform switchable for a month
Development process
We started with the URLs, not the catalogue
The order of a replatform decides which risk you find late.
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URL inventory
Every indexed URL gathered from search console, analytics and a full crawl, in the first week.
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Mapping
Destinations assigned for every URL, with merchandiser input where categories were being consolidated.
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Catalogue migration
Products migrated with data cleaning, reviewed by merchandisers in batches.
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Parallel integrations
ERP, store and fulfilment connections built and run against both platforms before cutover.
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Rehearsed cutover
The full cutover rehearsed on a staging domain, then executed with the old platform kept switchable for a month.
Technology stack
Shopify Plus, replacing Magento
A smaller maintenance surface, and a team that can use it.
Commerce
- Shopify Plus
- Liquid
- Storefront API
Migration
- Catalogue migration
- Customer & order history
- Data cleaning
Search
- URL mapping
- Redirect testing
- Crawl verification
Integration
- ERP
- Store systems
- Fulfilment
Quality assurance & deployment
Every way an order can go wrong, tested first
A defect in a store costs money directly. Payments, stock, promotions and tax were tested deliberately, including the failure paths, before the store took its first real order.
- A payment test matrix: success, decline, timeout, duplicate and refund
- Stock, pricing and promotion rules tested under concurrent use
- Speed measured on real phones over mobile connections
- Cross-browser and device checks on the full checkout
- Redirects and search rankings checked before and after launch
Deployment
- 01Parallel integrationsERP, store and fulfilment connections built and run against both platforms before cutover.
- 02Rehearsed cutoverThe full cutover rehearsed on a staging domain, then executed with the old platform kept switchable for a month.
- 03Launch outside trading peaksThe switch was made at a quiet time, with a rollback ready and orders watched live.
- 04Monitoring and warrantyConversion, errors and speed monitored from launch, and six months of free bug fixing.
Business impact
What changed for the retailer
Three outcomes in the first year on Shopify.
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Platform cost down 58%
Hosting, patching and the contractor retainer all gone.
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Organic traffic intact
No dip through cutover, which is not the usual outcome.
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The team can change the site
Merchandisers and marketers work without a specialist contractor.
Final deliverables
Lower cost, faster site, and the traffic still there
Platform running cost is down 58%, mobile conversion is up 37%, and organic sessions in the ninety days after cutover matched the ninety days before.
The retailer's own team now changes the site without a specialist contractor, which was the reason the replatform was worth doing at all.
- Platform cost down 58%
- No organic traffic lost through cutover
- Mobile conversion up 37%
- 40,000 products migrated and cleaned
Handed over to the client
- 01Live storefrontTheme, apps and integrations configured
- 02Source codeTheme and custom code in the client's repository
- 03Integration documentationWhat connects to what, and how
- 04Admin trainingFor the team that runs the store
- 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery
Success metrics
What it runs at today
The business after cutover.
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40k
Products migrated
With data cleaned
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0%
Organic traffic lost
Through cutover
-
−58%
Platform cost
Annually
-
+37%
Mobile conversion
Post-launch
How success is measured
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Platform running cost | −58% | Measured across annual platform cost before and after |
| Organic traffic lost through cutover | 0% | Measured across organic sessions for 90 days either side of cutover |
| Mobile conversion rate | +37% | Measured across mobile sessions after cutover |
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