What actually transfers from Etsy to Shopify
Not everything comes with you, and the guides that say "it's easy, no coding required" quietly skip this part. Here is the honest split.
Moves cleanly (via CSV): product titles, descriptions, images, prices, tags, and variant/pricing data export via Etsy's built-in CSV download from Shop Manager → Settings → Options → Download Data, and import into Shopify admin under Products → Import.
Moves, but needs work: product images are not included as importable URLs in the Etsy CSV — you will need to download them manually or use a migration tool that handles image transfer. Descriptions often need reformatting because Etsy and Shopify handle line breaks and HTML differently. On Shopify you can use rich HTML, embedded videos, and comparison charts that Etsy's character-limited fields never allowed. Complex variants also need hands-on cleanup: Etsy's two-option-type limit can cause variant combinations to go missing in the CSV, so spot-check variant-heavy products after import.
Does not move at all: personalization fields, shipping profiles, and customer reviews do not transfer automatically. Your Etsy search ranking does not follow you, and your Etsy shop URL and SEO authority also do not carry over, which makes redirect planning critical. Order history and customer emails are exportable, but as a separate job — and email addresses are restricted by Etsy's privacy policy, so your customer list will be incomplete.
That last group is why a migration is a project, not a button.
Why sellers leave Etsy
The friction compounds over time. Transaction fees sit at 6.5% per sale, you can't access customer emails for remarketing, branding is heavily restricted, and your visibility depends entirely on Etsy's algorithm rather than your own marketing. Shopify removes all of that: you get a fully owned storefront, your own domain, direct customer data, and a checkout experience you control entirely.
For print-on-demand sellers specifically, owning your store also means you can run Meta and Google ads to your own audience, set your own pricing without Etsy's algorithm penalizing you for it, and collect customer emails to build repeat-buyer flows — none of which are fully available on Etsy.
The four ways to transfer Etsy to Shopify
There is no single "transfer" button, so pick the method that matches how much data you have.
1. Shopify's own Store Migration app
Shopify ships a first-party Store Migration app that pulls products from Etsy straight into your Shopify admin (Shopify Help Center). It is the cleanest option when it works — but availability varies by store, so check whether it appears in your admin before relying on it.
2. Manual CSV export and import
Export your listings from Etsy's Shop Manager, clean up the CSV so it matches Shopify's column template, and upload it in Shopify admin → Products → Import. Free and full-control, but the column mapping is fiddly and large catalogs get tedious. Best for stores under roughly a hundred listings.
3. A dedicated migration app
Apps like Easy:Import, LitExtension, Matrixify, and Cart2Cart handle products — and some handle orders and customers too. LitExtension transfers products, customers, orders, blogs, and reviews in three steps without disrupting your store's operations. They cost a small one-time or monthly fee and save hours of column-wrangling. Best for large or variant-heavy catalogs.
4. Run both stores in parallel
Shopify's Marketplace Connect app lets you keep selling on Etsy while managing everything from Shopify, syncing listings, orders, and inventory. Keep Etsy for discovery traffic while you build your own Shopify audience — just make sure to use an inventory sync tool, because overselling a handmade or POD item on two channels simultaneously causes refunds. This is less a migration and more a hedge — good if you are not ready to leave Etsy's built-in traffic behind.
Step-by-step: exporting Etsy and importing to Shopify
Here is the order that keeps you from re-doing work.
- Export your Etsy data. Pull your listings CSV from Shop Manager → Settings → Options → Download Data. Separately, export your order and buyer data — they are a separate job.
- Set up Shopify first. Create the store, pick a plan, and build your shipping zones before you import anything, because products land without shipping rules attached.
- Rewrite your SEO titles. On Etsy, titles are stuffed with keywords for the search algorithm. On Shopify, write natural titles that appeal to humans while being keyword-rich for Google. This is also a good time to expand descriptions — Shopify has no character limit, so you can add specifications, size guides, and comparison sections.
- Import products. Use the CSV, the Store Migration app, or a migration app. Then spot-check ten listings for broken formatting, missing images, and collapsed variant combinations.
- Download and re-upload images. The Etsy CSV does not carry importable image URLs, so download product photos separately and re-upload them in Shopify, or use a migration tool that automates this step.
- Set up URL redirects. Your Etsy listings had their own URLs. Plan redirects for any Shopify product pages you want Google to find, especially your bestsellers.
- Move customers. Etsy does not hand you a clean customer list, so this is its own task — and email addresses are restricted, so expect gaps.
- Move order history. If you want past orders for records and repeat-buyer marketing, import them with an order-migration app.
- Rebuild reviews. Etsy's review system is platform-specific, so you'll need to rebuild social proof on Shopify using an app like Judge.me. Expect some to be unrecoverable; many sellers treat reviews as a fresh start.
Budget a weekend for a small store and a week for a large one. Product data is fast; the cleanup and the reconciliation are what eat the hours.
What to do about Etsy SEO after migration
This is the subtopic most migration guides skip. Etsy SEO and Shopify SEO are different; a proper URL redirect and keyword strategy is essential post-migration. Etsy's algorithm rewards keyword-stuffed titles; Google rewards readable, intent-matching copy. When you move, you lose Etsy's marketplace authority and the search traffic it brought — so you need to replace it with your own organic presence and paid traffic.
For POD sellers, the paid-traffic replacement is usually Meta or Google ads. Running both stores in parallel during the transition lets Etsy's search traffic keep coming in while you build Shopify's own audience. See our guides on how to make Facebook ads for Shopify step by step and Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: which is best for POD sellers to plan that transition.
The fee math nobody runs (the profit angle)
Every other guide lists fees and moves on. But the fees are the reason people move — so let us actually run the numbers, because Etsy and Shopify take their cut in completely different shapes.
On Etsy, transaction fees sit at 6.5% per sale, plus a per-listing fee and payment processing on top. On Shopify, there is no per-listing fee and no transaction fee when you use Shopify Payments — you pay a flat monthly plan fee instead. On a $50 sale, you save approximately $3.35 per order on Shopify vs Etsy in transaction fees alone (according to Easy Apps Ecom's 2026 fee comparison).
The break-even logic: divide your Shopify monthly plan cost by your per-order savings. Below that order count, Etsy's pay-per-sale model may still be cheaper. Above it, Shopify's flat fees win — and the gap widens with every additional sale. That calculation is exactly what the "just switch!" articles never show you.
For POD sellers, the margin math gets a further layer: Printify and Printful production costs eat into every order, and once you are running ads to replace Etsy's built-in traffic, your ad spend is a third cost line. See our breakdown of Printful's shipping and production costs for US t-shirt orders and our guide to print-on-demand mugs for POD sellers to run the numbers on your specific products before you migrate.
What breaks after you migrate: the reconciliation problem
Here is the trap. Once you are on Shopify and running your own Meta or Google ads to replace Etsy's built-in traffic, your numbers stop agreeing with each other — and it is not a bug.
Shopify counts a sale when a real order completes. Meta claims a sale whenever its ad was clicked or even just seen inside its attribution window, so a gap between Meta-reported purchases and actual Shopify orders is normal on the default window. Then your bank deposit is a third number entirely, because a Shopify payout subtracts processing fees, refunds, and chargeback fees before the cash lands.
So one week of sales can show up as several different totals: ad-platform purchases, Shopify orders, total sales after refunds, and cash in the bank. None is wrong; they answer different questions. Understanding Google's attribution model matters here too — see our guide to Google Ads data-driven attribution for POD sellers to understand why your Google-channel numbers can look different from Shopify's.
This is the part of leaving Etsy that catches sellers off guard. On Etsy, the platform hid the fees and the attribution inside a single dashboard. On Shopify, you own the whole stack — which is more control and more moving parts.
That is where PodVector fits. Victor, its AI employee, reads your live data from Shopify, Meta Ads, Google Ads, Printify, Printful, and Klaviyo, then computes your true per-order margin after every fee and ad dollar. When something is quietly losing money, Victor flags it and proposes a Shopify-side move — repricing a worst-margin SKU, adjusting a free-shipping threshold, or creating a discount — which you approve or reject before anything changes. He reads your ad data but does not touch your ad account. It is not a dashboard you babysit — it is an AI employee that does the reconciliation math you would otherwise do by hand every week. Learn how AI fits into a post-migration Shopify store in our guide to the POD seller's guide to Shopify generative AI.
Post-migration quick wins for POD sellers
Once your store is live on Shopify, a few moves pay off quickly:
- Connect Google Merchant Center. Getting your products into Google Shopping is one of the fastest ways to replace Etsy's organic discovery traffic. Our Shopify Google Merchant Center setup guide for POD sellers walks through the integration step by step.
- Set up a free-shipping threshold. Shopify lets you configure a free-shipping threshold that Etsy never gave you direct control over. A well-set threshold raises average order value and can improve conversion rate on paid traffic.
- Explore alternatives for product sourcing. If you have been using Printify, now is a good time to compare your options — see our guide to sites similar to Printify and which is best for POD sellers.
- Run both channels until Shopify traffic is proven. Closing your Etsy shop before you have replaced its traffic is the most common post-migration mistake. Keep it open, use Marketplace Connect to sync inventory, and treat the migration as a parallel build rather than a hard cutover.
FAQs
How long does it take to transfer Etsy to Shopify?
Product data moves in a few hours to a day, depending on catalog size and method. A fully reconciled store — products, customers, orders, reviews, shipping rules, URL redirects, and a spot-check — usually takes a weekend for a small shop and up to a week for a large, variant-heavy one. The copy is fast; the cleanup is slow.
Can I move my Etsy reviews to Shopify?
Not directly. Etsy's review system is platform-specific, so you'll need to rebuild social proof on Shopify using an app like Judge.me. You can export your Etsy reviews, convert the file, and re-import through a review app, but expect to lose some in the process. Many sellers treat it as a fresh start.
Will I lose my Etsy sales history?
Only if you skip the step. Past orders and customer data are exportable from Etsy and importable into Shopify with dedicated order-migration apps — they just do not ride along with your product import. Moving them is worth it for records and for marketing to past buyers.
Is Shopify cheaper than Etsy?
It depends on your volume. Shopify's flat plan fee plus lower per-order processing beats Etsy's per-sale fees once you clear your break-even order count. On a $50 sale, you save approximately $3.35 per order on Shopify vs Etsy in transaction fees alone (Easy Apps Ecom, 2026). Divide your monthly plan cost by that savings figure to find your personal break-even. Below it, Etsy's pay-as-you-sell model can be cheaper; above it, Shopify wins and the gap grows with volume.
Do I have to close my Etsy shop when I move to Shopify?
No. Keep Etsy for discovery traffic while you build your own Shopify audience. Shopify's Marketplace Connect app syncs inventory across both channels. Migrating your data does not force you to leave Etsy — and leaving too early, before Shopify traffic is proven, is the most common post-migration mistake.
What does not transfer from Etsy to Shopify?
Personalization fields, shipping profiles, customer reviews, favorites, and shop stats do not transfer. Your Etsy SEO rankings stay on Etsy. Customer email addresses are restricted by Etsy's privacy policy, so your exported customer list will have gaps. All of these are rebuild jobs, not blockers — but budget time for them.
Why don't my Shopify, Meta, and bank numbers match after migrating?
Because they measure different things. Shopify counts completed orders, Meta counts ad-influenced purchases inside its attribution window, and your payout reflects cash after fees and refunds. A gap between them is expected, not broken — the goal is to reconcile them into one true profit figure, not to force them to be equal. See our guide to Google Ads data-driven attribution for POD sellers for the deeper explanation of why attribution numbers diverge.