When Doug Watt, founder of Mach5 - a renowned Australian aviation-themed merchandise brand, decided to move his Shopify store to WooCommerce, he expected a straightforward migration process: transfer products, customers, and orders from one eCommerce platform to another. But as soon as he started, he realized that the store migration is not just about “moving data.” Instead, it is about understanding how each platform organizes data and translating it into a format the new platform can understand, while preserving accuracy, structure, and SEO value.
This is Doug's story of how he overcame initial confusion and unexpected errors to finally achieve a fully successful migration. Next-Cart became his trusted partner, solving every technical roadblock and guiding him every step through this journey.
A very human mistake at the beginning
To get the migration started, we need to activate the migration license, and Doug made a simple input error that anyone could make. He accidentally entered the wrong Shopify store URL: instead of entering the correct one, mach5.myshopify.com, he typed mach5.shopify.com. This tiny typo stopped the migration before it even started.
As soon as Doug’s email arrived, Next-Cart’s technical manager, Martin, fixed the license immediately. He updated the stored URL to the correct one and told Doug, “The license is updated. Please try running the migration again.”
No lecture. No complicated instructions - just a quick fix and move on.
Unexpectations during the first migration run
Once the migration started running, Doug noticed several unusual things that worried him about something going wrong.
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He couldn’t select a single Collection to migrate for a test.
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T-shirt products were migrated only by color variant, while size variants were missing.
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Some products appeared in triplicate.
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While the process indicator sat at 10%, the Media Library and product lists already appeared, but looked odd.
Unsure whether to stop the process, Doug reached out to Next-Cart support and reported the issues. Harry, our developer & customer support, explained the situation calmly and clearly:
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Partial Collection migration requires customization. By default, the tool migrates collections in bulk. If Doug wanted to migrate only one Collection for a test run, Next-Cart needed to configure a custom migration filter. Our team asked Doug for the Collection ID to help the customer with this.
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Variants can appear incomplete in the middle of the run. Shopify - WooCommerce variant mapping only displays the complete data after the full migration is finished, not while it is loading.
Harry advised Doug to let the migration continue and reassured him that Next-Cart would review the results after the run. The detailed explanation and guidance turned Doug’s anxiety into cautious confidence, and he knew someone experienced was watching the whole process.
The issue of duplicated T-shirt images (6 times)
After the first migration for about 1,500 products, Doug found that each T-shirt image in WooCommerce appeared 6 times - every color variant had six identical image files. As a result, the Media Library ballooned with redundant files.
Being aware of this issue, Next-Cart took a precise and hands-on approach:
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Harry asked for temporary access to both Shopify and WooCommerce stores, along with some example products experiencing the problem, to analyze.
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The team investigated the data flow and customized the migration tool to prevent the duplication logic that had produced multiple copies.
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When the customization process was complete, Next-Cart instructed Doug to rerun the tool with the “Clear Data” option to rebuild the WooCommerce site cleanly.
The second migration run ended up with no duplicate images. Doug recognized Next-Cart not just as a “turn-on-and-go” agency, but a team of specialists who could dig in and modify the migration process until it worked exactly right.
When the migration process took a month, and the store still needs updates
After the big migration, Doug and his team needed about one month to configure and build the new WooCommerce site. But during that month, the Shopify store was still fully operational:
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New customers every day
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New orders placed
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New products or product updates added
Doug worried that if he migrated the available data, including customers, orders, and products, he would have to rerun the full migration later. And, he might risk overwriting manual changes he had already made on the new site.
Next-Cart introduced him to “Continue the previous migration.” This feature exactly resolved his concerns: import only new data that hasn’t been migrated before, not overwrite previously migrated items, and leave renamed images intact to keep Doug’s manual tweaks.
SEO challenges with image renaming and entity plan upgrade
When reviewing the Media Library on the WooCommerce Store, Doug noticed that Shopify’s image file names were meaningless strings, such as jdhs99a.png. That negatively influenced SEO and content maintenance.
Doug asked the Next-Cart team whether images could be renamed to a more SEO-friendly format, ideally including the product name and color, such as product-name-red.jpg.
In addition, Doug realized the existing migration package only covered up to 2,000 entities, while his store then had over 3,600 customers and over 4,100 orders. This means the current package was insufficient for all current data volumes. Doug brought this to Next-Cart, and Harry clearly explained the upgrade paths.
Regarding the image renaming, Next-Card was transparent about the technical constraints: Shopify stores variant images randomly, which complicates including color in file names. Instead, the team suggested a robust, SEO-friendly alternative: automatically renaming images to a consistent pattern, such as product-name-1.jpg, product-name-2.jpg, etc. This structure made it easy to discover images and keep the Media Library organized while still supporting on-page SEO.
Harry guided Doug to purchase an Entity Limit Upgrade. Once the upgrade was complete, Next-Cart customized the tool to rename images to SEO-friendly file titles during the migration.
The final stretch with a 5-star ending
Across the Shopify-WooCommerce migration project, Doug experienced:
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A quick license-URL fix.
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Clear explanations about migration behavior.
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Customization for single Collection migration for testing.
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Investigation and fix of image duplication.
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A workflow for incremental migrations while the old site stayed live.
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Guidance and a straightforward upgrade path for the higher entity package.
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A customized SEO-friendly image renaming.
Migration projects rarely go perfectly on the first try, and neither did Doug’s. But the key point is that Doug never had to fix things on his own. Next-Cart’s team always appeared on time and adapted the tools to align with Doug’s goals.
Once Harry confirmed all customizations were complete, he told Doug, “You can run the migration anytime.”
Then, Doug ran the final migration overnights. It finished with all products and variants in the right structure, images appropriately renamed, complete and accurate customer and order data, and no duplication.
Doug’s feedback: “Everything looks great.” And he left a 5-star review on TrustPilot - not because he was asked, but because he felt support throughout the whole journey.
Final thoughts: more than a technical fix, it’s about trust
From Doug’s story, we would like to tell that eCommerce store migration is more than a technical conversion. It is the story of a business owner who wanted to get the best online store after the migration, but encountered a range of unexpected issues. It is also a story of a dedicated team with experts valuing creating trust, always available to support and adapt tools to real-world data quirks
Next-Cart’s value came from more than software; it also came from our people, who explained the complexity to the customer, customized the tools when needed, and stood with Doug until the job was done entirely.
For us, migration is not only moving files and entries; it’s about moving operations and business continuity from one platform to another.
If you are planning a migration and want a trusted partner to go along with you, Doug’s experience is a strong example of the right team that is always supportive and can make things successful.
