If you’re switching from Square to Shopify, you’re likely looking for a platform that can scale with your ambitions—and bring online and in-person selling together in one place.

While migrating your store’s data and operations requires careful planning, the right approach makes all the difference. This guide provides a phased road map for moving from Square to Shopify, so you can protect your data, minimize downtime, and set your store up for long-term growth.

Why migrate from Square to Shopify? 

Square is a common starting point for many small businesses, but when you’re ready to scale, Shopify is the commerce platform for you. The main reason retailers make the switch is to unify their online and in-person operations into a single ecosystem that doesn’t limit growth. In one survey, 88% of Square replatformers said Shopify better unifies in-store and online selling.

Here are four benefits of moving your business to Shopify:

Scalability without limits

As your product catalog and customer base grow, your commerce platform needs to handle the pressure. Shopify is stress-tested for high-volume retail, capable of processing more than 10,000 checkouts per minute with 99.9% uptime. Shopify also lets you:

• Manage complex catalogs. Add unlimited SKUs and up to 2,000 variants per product without slowing down your site.
• Expand globally. Use a single account to manage up to 1,000 locations and sell in more than 175 countries with localized currencies and duties.

True unified commerce

Many “connected” systems still feel like two separate businesses. Shopify brings online and offline selling into one system that offers:

• Real-time inventory. Display accurate product availability online based on stock at specific store locations or warehouses.
• Flexible fulfillment. Offer buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) and ship-from-store options to close more sales.
• Endless aisle. Staff can sell out-of-stock items in-store by shipping them directly to the customer’s home from another location.

Unmatched innovation

Shopify invests heavily in research and development (to the tune of $1.7 billion in 2023 alone) to make sure merchants have access to the latest commerce technology. 

Unlike other platforms split between hospitality and retail, Shopify is focused only on commerce. With more than 200 product updates yearly, you get access to new features before your competitors do.

Infinite extensibility

No two businesses are alike. That’s why Shopify’s ecosystem lets you build a tech stack that fits your needs. You don’t have to change your business to fit the software. 

Choose from more than 100 professional themes or use headless commerce architectures to build a completely custom brand experience. Plus, access thousands of apps for loyalty, marketing, and staff management in the Shopify App Store to extend your store’s functionality.

📚Read: Shopify vs. Square Comparison

Your complete Square to Shopify migration checklist

Use this final checklist to ensure you have covered every critical step before launching your new Shopify store.

Planning and team

• [ ] Back up data: Exported and safely stored all current Square data (Products, Customers, Orders).
• [ ] Team assembled: Assigned roles for project management, data migration, and store development.
• [ ] Timeline set: Established a launch date and a code freeze date for data migration.

Data migration

• [ ] Products cleaned: Deleted old or discontinued items from the export file.
• [ ] Products mapped: Formatted the Product CSV to match Shopify’s template (headers, handles, weights in grams).
• [ ] Customers formatted: Formatted the Customer CSV (split names, fixed phone numbers, added country ISO codes).
• [ ] Import test: Ran a small test import of five to 10 products/customers to verify data integrity.
• [ ] Full import: Successfully imported all products and customer history.
• [ ] Validation: Manually spot-checked prices, inventory counts, and customer addresses.

Store setup

• [ ] Theme customized: Designed the storefront and verified mobile responsiveness.
• [ ] Payments active: Enabled Shopify Payments (or third-party provider) and disabled test mode.
• [ ] Shipping zones: Configured shipping rates, zones, and package dimensions.
• [ ] Taxes: Set up tax collection settings for all applicable regions.
• [ ] Legal pages: Created Return Policy, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy pages.
• [ ] Redirects: Created URL redirects (301s) for old product/page links to prevent 404 errors.

POS and hardware

• [ ] Hardware check: Verified which existing Square hardware is compatible.
• [ ] New hardware: Ordered and installed any new card readers, printers, or scanners.
• [ ] Staff training: Added staff accounts and trained the team on the new POS interface.
• [ ] Test transaction: Processed a real credit card transaction on the new POS to confirm connectivity.

Launch

• [ ] Domain transfer: Pointed your custom domain (e.g., yourstore.com) to Shopify.
• [ ] Notifications: Customized email order confirmations and shipping notification templates.
• [ ] Go live: Removed the store password and announced the launch to your email list.

Phase 1: Pre-migration planning

Before you start your migration, it is important to lay the groundwork for a smooth transition.

Build your migration team

A successful move from Square to Shopify requires a dedicated team. Here’s who you can hire:

• Project manager. Oversees the entire migration and keeps everything on schedule.
• Data specialist. Handles transfer of sales, customer, and product information.
• Shopify developer. Sets up the Shopify store and integrates necessary systems.
• Operations specialist. Manages inventory transfer, staff training, hardware installation, and developing new SOPs for POS processes.

If you’re working with a small team, one person may cover multiple roles—as long as each responsibility has a clear owner.

Back up your Square store data

Save a copy of all your Square data before starting your move to Shopify. This protects your business data if anything goes wrong when switching POS providers. 

Think of this as a rollback plan. If something breaks during import, you can restore everything to how it was and try again without losing information.

Decide on your migration method (CSV, App, or Expert)

When moving to Shopify, choose what information is worth keeping. This is a good time to clean house and leave behind anything that isn’t working well.

You may want to migrate:

• Products. Descriptions, images, prices, and inventory counts.
• Customers. Contact details and purchase history.
• Historical orders. Transaction records and order information.
• Reviews. Customer testimonials. 

Choose how to migrate each type of content. Common methods include:

Phase 2: Migrating your store data with CSV files

This guide will cover using CSV files for product and customer migration. CSV imports are flexible, but formatting issues can cause problems if they’re missed. 

1. Export and format your product data

Follow these steps to export your product data.

• From your Square account, go to Items & orders > Items.
• Click Actions > Export Library.
• In the modal, select Export to CSV, and then click Export.
• Name the file SquareProductDownload.csv, and then save the file to your computer.

Menu labels in Square can vary slightly by account. If you don’t see these options, look for a similar item or catalog export option.

2. Import products into Shopify and verify

Download and view the product CSV template, then edit your “SquareProductDownload.csv” file to match the format. Copy the column headers, then paste your Square import data into the Shopify product CSV template. 

💡Make sure your CSV file contains only the product CSV template data from your Square store before you import it.

Review the following details:

• The sample file shows how to format your data with one example product. When making your own file, delete these example entries before importing your actual products.
• Use the “Variant Inventory Qty” column to set stock levels if you have just one store location. You’ll need to use a separate inventory CSV file instead for multiple store locations.
• The file includes columns for international pricing, but they’re empty since these products don’t need special prices for different countries. Learn more about Shopify International CSV columns.

Review this table to see how Square’s data matches Shopify’s. Delete any columns from your Square file that aren’t shown here. Note that Shopify has some extra columns not found in your Square export. You may need to look these up separately.

After editing your SquareProductDownload.csv, import it to Shopify.

• From your Shopify admin, go to Products.
• Click Import.
• Click “Add file,” and then select the SquareProductDownload.csv.
• Deselect “Publish new products to all sales channels,” and then click “Upload and preview.”
• Review the details about the import, and then click “Import products.”

After uploading, you’ll get a confirmation email at the address linked to your Shopify store.

Confirm and organize products

After importing your products, check that everything is transferred properly. Look at important details like prices, weights, and inventory counts.

Some common issues you might encounter:

Next:

• Review your product details, like description, images, variants, price, and meta description.
• Create product collections so they are easier to find. 

3. Export and format your customer data

Migrating your customer data lets you continue communicating with them on Shopify. If you plan to email these customers after migration, make sure their marketing preferences align with consent requirements in your region. Export your data to a CSV file.

• From your Square account, go to Customers > Customers.
• Click Directory.
• Click Import / Export > Export Customers.
• In the modal, choose which customers you want to export:
• To export all customers, select All Customers, and then click Export.
• To export specific customers, select Specific Groups, and then click Export.
• In the next modal, click Download.
• Name the file SquareCustomerDownload.csv, and then save the file to your computer.

4. Import customers into Shopify and verify

Download the customer CSV template and then edit your SquareCustomerDownload.csv to match it. 

💡Make sure your file matches Shopify’s layout exactly. Your file must have the same headings as the customer CSV template. There is no data mapping support for customer CSV imports.

Import your customer data from Square:

• From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.
• Click Import.
• Click “Add file,” and then select the SquareCustomerDownload.csv.
• Click “Import customers.”
• Review the details about the import, and then click “Import customers.”
• Review customer import summary, and then click “View all customers.”

After import, spot-check a small sample of customer records to confirm names, email addresses, and location details appear correctly.

Phase 3: Migrating reviews and order history using apps

Don’t forget to import your customer reviews and historical orders. 

Importing your customer reviews

You can’t migrate reviews from Square to Shopify natively. Instead, reviews are typically imported using a third-party reviews app, depending on how your existing reviews are stored. You can add them using the following apps from the Shopify App Store:

• Judge.me
• Loox
• Yotpo

Importing your historical orders

Historical order imports are commonly used for reference, reporting, and customer support rather than fulfillment. Most businesses choose either a full import or a specific cutover point, depending on how they want to use the data.

• From your Square account, go to Online > Orders.
• Click Export Orders.
• Name the file SquareOrdersDownload.csv, and then save the file to your computer.

Import your order history to Shopify using one of three apps:

• EZ Importer
• LitExtension
• Matrixify

Phase 4: Post-migration online store setup

Now that your products and customers are in Shopify, you can finish setting up your online store before you point your domain and start selling.

Choose and customize your theme

Every Shopify store includes a free theme that you can customize. You can also buy a theme from elite designers in the Theme Store. 

Shopify lets you test themes through a preview function to see how your products and brand will look. Experiment with customizations in the editor and compare features across many theme options to find the best fit. 

Configure payments, shipping, and taxes

To take credit card payments, you need a payment provider. You can use Shopify Payments if it works in your country or pick a third-party payment provider.

Using Shopify Payments helps you save money on fees, and you can see all your payments right in your Shopify dashboard.

Turn on Shopify Payments in your admin area and decide how you want to collect payments in your store. After that, you need to set up your checkout to handle orders:

• Set up order fulfillment.
• Add your store policies.
• Edit your checkout’s customer information settings.

Set your shipping prices and options before you start selling. This helps avoid having to refund money if you charged too much or ask customers for more if you charged too little.

• Make sure your store address is accurate so shipping rates are calculated correctly. Add any other places you ship from.
• Pick where you’ll ship to, such as which countries or states.
• If you use shipping companies to figure out rates, add your packages’ sizes. They often need the height, width, and depth to calculate costs.
• Set your shipping prices for each area you’ll ship to.
• Consider how you’ll handle shipping for your business. Look at different choices to find what works best.
• Decide if you’ll pack and ship orders yourself or use a fulfillment service that does it for you.

Tax rules vary by location. Look into how to set up taxes in Shopify before you start selling. Shopify can automatically add the right tax based on where your customers live, and you can change rates manually if needed.

👉 Make tax time easier with Shopify Tax. It automatically calculates, tracks, and files taxes, all from your dashboard. Use Shopify Tax to save time, follow tax rules, and focus more on growing your business.

Set up staff accounts and permissions

Create separate login accounts for your store staff to use your POS and online store. You can control which parts of your store each person can access, which keeps important store information (like revenue reports and performance metrics) safe.

Separate accounts also make it easier to see who made changes and manage access as your team grows.

Implement your SEO redirect strategy

One of the biggest risks during a platform migration is losing the search engine ranking you’ve built over time. Shopify’s URL structure differs from Square’s, so your old links will break if you don’t set up redirects.

A 301 redirect tells Google that a page has permanently moved to a new location. Without this, customers clicking old links or Google crawling your old URLs will hit a 404 error, which hurts your user experience and SEO.

• Map your old URLs to new ones. Before you switch your domain, create a spreadsheet with two columns: “Old Square URL” and “New Shopify URL.”
• Identify high-traffic pages. Use Google Analytics or your Square dashboard to find your most popular product and category pages. Prioritize these.
• Create URL redirects in Shopify. Decide exactly where each old link should land on your new site. If a specific product no longer exists, redirect that link to its relevant collection page rather than the home page.
• Disconnect any existing domains you want to transfer from Square’s settings. Follow these steps to add your domain to Shopify.

Once your redirects are in place and your domain is connected to Shopify, check a sample of key pages—such as your homepage, top collections, and bestselling products—to confirm they load correctly and don’t return 404 errors.

If you use Google Search Console, submitting your sitemap after launch can help find any remaining issues.

Phase 5: Migrating your point of sale (POS)

Shopify POS connects your in-store sales to the same products, inventory, and customer data you’ve already set up online.

With careful planning and by avoiding common mistakes, you can switch from Square to Shopify POS without causing problems for your business.

Here’s a quick look at the important things to think about when planning your switch.

Set up the Shopify POS sales channel

If you sell in person at a store or at events, use Shopify POS. Here’s how to add it in your Shopify admin: 

• From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Apps and sales channels.
• Click Shopify App Store.
• Search in the Shopify app store for “Point of Sale.”
• Click “Point of Sale.”
• Click “Install.”
• In your Shopify admin, to accept the data access, click “Install.”

Shopify offers two plans:

• POS Lite (free with Shopify plans). Perfect for markets and pop-ups.
• POS Pro (monthly fee). Best for retail stores, includes advanced features like staff management and detailed reporting.

After installing the channel, download the Shopify POS app from App Store (iOS) or Google Play Store (Android). Log in with your Shopify credentials. 

Evaluate your POS hardware needs

Some of your current equipment might still work with Shopify POS when migrating from Square. Check the Supported Shopify POS Hardware list to see what equipment you can keep using.

If you are buying new POS hardware, what you need depends on where you sell:

• If you run pop-up shops or events, you’ll need a device and card reader.
• If you have a store, you’ll need a device, card reader, and receipt printer.
• If you have multiple stores or a warehouse, you’ll need all of the above, plus a barcode scanner and cash drawer.

After you receive your hardware, you can connect it to your Shopify POS app.

• From Shopify POS, tap ☰ > Connectivity.
• Tap “Set up hardware.”
• On the “Set up hardware” page, tap the type of hardware that you’re adding. For example, if you’re adding a card reader, then tap “Card reader.”
• Follow the prompts to connect your hardware.

Configure in-store payments and staff 

If you’ve already set up Shopify Payments earlier, activate it in your Shopify POS app.

• From Shopify POS, tap ≡ > Settings > Payment types.
• In the “Default payment types” section, verify that the Credit/Debit option displays Accepted.

This step ensures the same payment settings you use online are available in-store as well.

Process contactless payments on your iPhone or Android device with our mobile POS, Shopify Tap to Pay. Learn more about how to:

• Accept payments with Tap to Pay on iPhone
• Accept payments with Tap to Pay on Android

Then, add staff to your Shopify POS system in two ways. 

• Admin: These are for employees who need POS access but also might need access to other Shopify features. Think of store managers or full-time employees who might need to do more than just run the register.
• POS-only: Available if you have Shopify POS Pro. This option is for employees who only need to use the point-of-sale system, like cashiers or sales floor staff.

👉 Learn how to add POS staff to your new device. 

Set up in-store pickup and shipping

Shopify gives you different ways to get orders to customers. You can let them pick up items in your store or have their purchases delivered to their homes, whatever works best for them.

Pickup in-store

Let customers pick up their online orders at any location with in-store or curbside pickup. Set the pickup in-store location by following these steps:

• From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
• In the “Pickup in store” section, click “Set up” or the › icon.
• In the “Your locations” section, select a location that you want to set up in-store pickup for.
• Select “This location offers in-store pickup.”
• In the “Expected pickup date” section, select a processing time for in-store pickup from the dropdown menu. This information is displayed to your customers.
• In the “Order ready for pickup notification” section, enter pickup instructions for your customers. This field replaces any customizations that you have in the email_body variable in the Ready for pickup notification template.
• Click Save.

With Shopify POS Pro, you can send items from your store to customers. When a customer wants something delivered instead of taking it home from your store, you can add their items to the cart, put in their shipping address, and pick from the shipping options based on your settings.

Become a more efficient retailer with Shopify

Moving to Shopify transforms your retail operation from separate pieces into one unified system. By bringing all your sales channels, inventory, and customer data together on a single platform, you’ll gain the flexibility to grow without technical limitations.

While migrating from Square takes some upfront effort, a connected system can simplify day-to-day operations as your business grows. Make the switch to Shopify and join the retailers who are already delivering the seamless shopping experiences customers expect.

This article originally appeared on Shopify and is available here for further discovery.