For over 15 years, Go Natural (iGoNatural) relied on Volusion to run two parallel online stores: one serving the Canadian market and the other serving the United States and international customers. Over time, the aging platform appeared to have limitations. It became difficult to manage the eCommerce operations with cross-border selling and multi-currency.
The business decided to move to Shopify - the platform allowed them to consolidate two Volusion stores into a single store. They could also preserve every customer relationship and every order history without disrupting a live store.
This case study presents a highly customized Volusion-to-Shopify migration by the Next-Cart team. It required a lot of technical skills, including CSV-based data handling, customer merging across stores, and strict currency accuracy using Shopify Markets.
The client later described the result as “VERY IMPRESSIVE.”
Let’s see how it worked!
Understand the client background and migration context
GO-NATURAL INC., represented by Michele Kish, was located in the United States. They had operated two independent Volusion stores for approximately 15 years. One served Canadian customers using Canadian dollars, while the other handled orders from the United States and international markets in US dollars.
As the business must be split evenly between the two regions, it was essential to handle currency and market separation accurately.
When they made the migration decision, the team had already launched a new Shopify store at igonatual.shop. This store was live, fully functional, and already receiving orders.
Regarding products, they had rebuilt manually in Shopify, so the migration did not involve them at all. Instead, the focus was on customers and orders. It required transferring complete historical data from both Volusion stores without disrupting Shopify operations.
What needed to be migrated - and what didn’t
Unlike a typical full-store migration, this project had a selective migration scope.
Firstly, all customers from both Volusion stores needed to be migrated to Shopify. Duplicated accounts must be merged by email into unified customer profiles.
Next, all historical orders from both stores had to be imported with complete order details. At the same time, these orders must be correctly linked to customer accounts and to products already present in Shopify.
Another non-negotiable requirement was currency accuracy. Orders from the Canadian stores had to be imported and displayed in CAD, while those from the US and international markets needed to remain in USD and fully align with Shopify Markets.
As mentioned earlier, products were excluded from the migration process. There was only one product with multiple variants that had already been rebuilt in Shopify. Also, discounts were excluded at the customer’s request.
In fact, this selective scope increased complexity rather than reducing it. The process was actually about migrating only customers and orders into a store that already contained live data, and it required a precise link without duplication or data loss.
Core challenges behind the scenes
1. Volusion API limitations and CSV-only migration
One of the most significant constraints in this project was the unusable Volusion API. Volusion had limited its API, so it could no longer provide customer and order data for a complete migration. As a result, the entire project had to use CSV exports from both Volusion stores.
When fully supporting CSV-based migrations, Next-Cart had to execute additional validation, mapping, and manual verification. This added an extra layer of complexity.
2. Merging two stores into one Shopify
Each Volusion store had its own extensive customer base and order history. The Canadian store had 5,684 customers and 9,658 orders, while the US and international store had 7,216 customers and 10,667 orders. In addition, many customers had placed orders in both stores.
To address this, Next-Cart implemented a custom customer-merging feature based on email. This prevented duplicate customer records and ensured that all historical orders were linked to the correct customer profile.
3. Preserving existing Shopify orders
The Shopify store contained between five and eleven new orders. These orders could not be deleted or altered during the migration process. The client requested that they remain untouched.
Next-Cart’s technicians then excluded these orders during cleanup and carefully executed all deletions and re-migrations around them.
4. Maintaining currency accuracy
During the initial import, due to default store currency settings, Canadian orders were transferred to USD. This issue was immediately flagged. Shopify’s API does not allow order currency to be changed.
The only visible solution was to delete the incorrect Canadian orders, rerun the migration with explicit currency mapping, and verify it before proceeding further.
Only once Canadian orders were confirmed did the team continue with the US store migration in USD. This sequencing ensured complete alignment with Shopify Markets.
5. Managing CSV and Verification
Multiple CSV uploads were sent via email. It became even more challenging when some Canadian files were resent by accident and several US files were mislabeled.
The Next-Cart team needed to review file contents, timestamps, and naming conventions to ensure the correct datasets at each stage.
How the migration was executed
Step 1: Test migration
To minimize risk, the project began with a test migration. 50 customers and 50 orders were imported into Shopify without deleting existing data. The client was delighted and approved moving forward with the full migration.
Step 2: Tool setup and customization
Once approved, the client purchased two Volusion-to-Shopify migration tools - one for each store. He also chose a custom migration service to handle customer merging and order linking.
Then, the Next-Cart team began customizing the migration logic to support two source stores feeding into a single Shopify destination. The result must maintain clean customer records and historical accuracy.
Step 3: Full migration from Canada to the USA and international
The full migration was performed in stages.
The Canadian store was migrated first to handle and validate CAD currency independently. When the currency issue was identified, the team promptly cleared the affected orders and reran the migration.
After the client confirmed that all Canadian orders displayed correctly in CAD, the team proceeded with the US and international store in USD.
To prevent thousands of automated emails from being sent while orders were being imported, the team temporarily disabled Shopify admin order notifications. This would also prevent unnecessary disruption during the process.
Final outcome
By the end of the migration, approximately 20,000 customer records and 10,000 historical orders were successfully imported and merged into the Shopify store.
Canadian orders were displayed accurately in CAD, and US and international orders in USD. Also, all customer accounts reflected order histories across both former Volusion stores.
Importantly, existing Shopify orders remained untouched. The store continued operating without interruption.
The client confirmed that everything looked correct and functional, exactly as expected.
Client feedback
The client was not only satisfied with the technical outcome but also relieved to have handled such a demanding migration. After struggling with other tools and services that required extensive manual CSV work, Go Natural described Next-Cart as “The Dream Team.”
The client emphasized that all customer accounts and order history were preserved perfectly without them with technical details.
The client’s comment captured the emotional and operational impact:
“If you are needing to migrate your store/shopping cart – LOOK NO FURTHER…
I call them ‘The Dream Team’…
Two 15-year-old stores into one Shopify store – 50/50 USD and CAD – with the same customers ordering for over 15 years…
NEXT-CART did it – and did it PERFECTLY.
ALL CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS AND ORDER HISTORY WAS PRESERVED.”
Post-migration follow-up
Months after the migration was finished, the client returned with a question about cleaning invalid email addresses.
Next-Cart explained that Shopify already blocks invalid email addresses during customer import. Also, remigrating customers could break the links between customers and their historical orders.
Instead, the team advised the client that, at the time, the ultimate solution was to work directly with Shopify Support to achieve long-term data integrity rather than quick fixes.
In conclusion
This case study is a clear example of what complex migration projects truly require besides tools: expertise and customization at every step.
Two long-running Volusion stores were successfully merged into a single Shopify store, with all customer history, order accuracy, and currency integrity preserved while the store remained live.
For Go Natural, this platform change was a confident step forward into scalable eCommerce.
Next-Cart successfully delivered a solution that balanced technical aspects with real-world business needs.
