How to move your Etsy shop to Shopify, step by step

What moves across, and what doesn't

It helps to know this before you start, so nothing comes as a surprise halfway through.

• Moves across: product titles, descriptions, prices, photos, tags and variations like size or colour. All of it comes out of Etsy as a spreadsheet.
• Doesn't move: your reviews, your Etsy web address and its place in Etsy search, your shop favourites and followers.
• Needs care: your past buyers. Etsy gives you their details so you can send their orders, not so you can market to them. Don't add them to a mailing list unless they've said yes.

The reviews are the loss people feel most. Screenshot a handful of good ones now, while they're easy to find, and ask those customers if you can show them on your new shop.

Step 1: Download your listings from Etsy

In Shop Manager, go to Settings, then Options, then the Download Data tab, and download the CSV of your current listings. A CSV is a plain spreadsheet file that opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. Each row is one listing, with its title, description, price, quantity, tags, variations and links to its photos.

While you're there, find the original photo files on your computer or phone and keep them in one folder. The photo links in the spreadsheet only work while the Etsy listings are live, and your originals are usually better quality anyway.

Step 2: Open your Shopify store and choose a theme

Start a Shopify trial and pick the Basic plan. For most sellers coming from Etsy it has everything you need, and you can change plan later. We list every running cost, in dollars and pounds, in how much a Shopify store really costs.

Then choose a theme, which is the design of your shop. A good free theme set up in your colours, with your photos, is plenty to start with. If you're unsure, Shopify template vs custom theme explains when it's worth paying for more.

Step 3: Bring your products across

There are two ways to get your listings into Shopify:

• Use an Etsy import app from the Shopify App Store. You upload the Etsy CSV and the app creates the products, photos and variations for you. Some charge a small fee per product, so check the price against the size of your shop.
• Use Shopify's own product spreadsheet. Download Shopify's sample CSV, copy your Etsy columns into the matching Shopify columns and import it. It's fiddly for big shops but fine for twenty or thirty products.

Either way, the import is only the first draft. Go through every product and check that the variations came through, the prices are right and the photos are in the order you want. Then group products into collections, which are Shopify's version of shop sections.

Step 4: Set up payments, shipping and taxes

• Payments: turn on Shopify Payments if it's available in your country. It saves you the extra fee Shopify charges on outside payment providers.
• Shipping: create shipping zones and rates that match what you charged on Etsy, so returning customers aren't surprised. Decide whether to offer free shipping above a certain order value.
• Taxes: switch on tax collection for the places you sell to. In the UK that means VAT if you're registered; in the US, sales tax rules depend on the state. Shopify has settings for both, but it won't turn them on for you.
• Policies: add your refund, shipping and privacy policies. Shopify has templates to start from. Etsy's policies no longer cover you once you're selling on your own site.

Step 5: Connect your own domain

Your domain is your web address, like yourshop.com or yourshop.co.uk. You can buy it inside Shopify or from a separate registrar and connect it. Whoever sets the shop up, register the domain in your own name and with your own email address, so it always belongs to you.

Step 6: Test everything before you tell anyone

1. 1Place a real order yourself with a 100% discount code, or pay and refund it.
2. 2Check the order confirmation and shipping emails on your phone. Do they have your logo, your words and the right contact details?
3. 3Ask two friends to buy something on their phones and tell you where they got stuck.
4. 4Check that every product page has photos, a price and a clear description.
5. 5Look at the shop on a slow mobile connection. Most of your visitors will arrive that way.

Step 7: Tell your Etsy buyers, within Etsy's rules

Etsy doesn't allow you to use its messages or listings to send buyers elsewhere to buy. You can still let people know your own shop exists:

• Your Etsy About section can link to your own website.
• A thank-you card in each parcel can carry your web address, a QR code and a small discount for next time.
• Your Instagram, TikTok and Facebook bios can point to the new shop.
• Your email signature, packaging and market stall signs can all show the new address.

Etsy updates its house rules from time to time, so read the current version before you add any links.

Step 8: Decide what happens to your Etsy shop

You have three choices. You can keep both running, which many sellers do for the marketplace traffic (we cover how in can you sell on Etsy and Shopify at the same time?). You can pause Etsy with vacation mode while the new shop finds its feet. Or you can close it once your own shop is selling steadily. Our advice is not to close it straight away. Give the new shop a few months, look at where your sales come from, and decide then.

How long does the move take?

For a shop with up to about a hundred products, plan on two to three weeks of evenings if you do it yourself, most of it spent checking products and rewriting descriptions. The technical steps are quick. Tidying listings that were written for Etsy's search is what takes the time, and it's also what makes the new shop look professional.

Mistakes we see often

• Launching with Etsy titles and descriptions left as they were.
• Forgetting to switch on taxes, then finding out at the end of the quarter.
• Buying the domain under a friend's or developer's account.
• Installing ten apps in the first week. Start with none and add one when a real need appears.
• Closing Etsy before the new shop has any visitors of its own.

Want someone to do it for you?

Our Shopify store setup covers the whole move: we bring your products across, tidy the listings, set up payments, shipping and taxes, connect your domain and test real orders. On launch day you get a how-to call, so you can run the shop yourself from the start.