PrestaShop to Shopify migration: a guide for EU and Indian stores

A PrestaShop to Shopify migration means exporting your products, customers and orders, mapping every old URL (in every language) to a 301 redirect so you keep your rankings, rebuilding the theme on Online Store 2.0, and cutting over in a tested launch. EU stores also configure payments, VAT and OSS, translations and cookie consent. Indian stores connect a third-party gateway. Most migrations cost ₹1,50,000 to ₹4,50,000 and take two to five weeks.

I'm a senior Shopify developer in New Delhi and a Shopify Partner, with 62+ brands shipped over 5+ years. I've moved self-hosted stores off PrestaShop, WooCommerce and Magento for brands in India and abroad. Much of PrestaShop's user base is in Europe, so this guide covers the EU setup alongside the India details.

Why move off PrestaShop at all?

PrestaShop is a capable open-source platform. If it works for you, you don't have to move. The brands who call me have usually hit the same wall. PrestaShop is self-hosted, so you own the hosting bill, security patches, PHP upgrades and every module conflict that breaks checkout late at night.

That cost stays hidden until an upgrade clashes with three paid modules, or the server slows down during your biggest sale. Shopify takes hosting, security and checkout maintenance off your plate, in exchange for a monthly plan and less server-level control. For a brand whose job is selling, that's usually the right trade. If you're still weighing it, is Shopify worth it in India goes deeper on the decision.

What actually moves from PrestaShop to Shopify?

Passwords never migrate from any platform, because they're stored as one-way hashes. On Shopify's newer customer accounts, buyers sign in with a one-time 6-digit code sent to their email, so most of them won't notice.

How do the SEO-safe 301 redirects work?

This is where migrations succeed or fail. A PrestaShop product URL often looks like /12-blue-widget.html or /en/blue-widget, depending on your friendly-URL settings. Shopify uses fixed paths: /products/blue-widget, /collections/widgets, /pages/about.

Switch platforms without mapping those and every indexed URL returns a 404. That's the most common way stores lose traffic in a migration, and it's avoidable. The fix is a one-to-one 301 redirect map:

I crawl the live site, cross-check against Search Console's indexed pages and your top pages by traffic, and build the map so no URL with rankings or backlinks is left behind. Shopify imports the map as a CSV under Content, then Menus, then URL redirects. Titles and meta descriptions carry across, and the sitemap is resubmitted.

Multi-language stores need one extra pass. Each language version of each page has its own URL and its own rankings in that country. A German product page should redirect to the German Shopify page, not the English one. Test every language's redirects on staging before launch. The full method is in Shopify migration without losing SEO.

What changes for EU merchants moving to Shopify?

Payments

Shopify Payments is available in 26 EU countries, including Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Germany, plus Norway, Switzerland, the UK, Liechtenstein and Gibraltar. Check the list for your country. Slovakia wasn't on it when I checked in October 2026. Stores on Shopify Payments pay no third-party transaction fee. Shopify's help pages list Klarna, iDEAL | Wero, EPS and Bancontact as local methods that fully support local-currency pricing.

If you keep an outside provider, Shopify adds its third-party fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. Plan prices in euros vary by country, so check Shopify's pricing page from your location.

VAT and OSS

From Shopify's EU tax guide:

• Below €10,000 a year of cross-border EU sales, you can charge your local VAT rate under the micro-business exemption.
• Above €10,000, you charge the VAT rate of the customer's country. Most merchants do this with an OSS registration from their home tax authority and file one return.
• In Shopify, go to Settings, then Taxes and duties, then European Union. Use "Collect VAT in an EU country" for a local registration, or "Collect VAT cross-border" for OSS or micro-business.
• OSS only works if your store uses Shopify Tax or Basic Tax. Basic Tax is available in the EU only to stores set up to collect tax there before 13 May 2026. New stores use Shopify Tax or manual settings.
• Shopify charges the VAT at checkout. It doesn't file or remit it for you.

Merchants outside the EU, including Indian brands selling into Europe, can register for IOSS and collect VAT at checkout on orders of €150 or less. Check your setup with your accountant.

Languages and currencies

PrestaShop handles languages natively. On Shopify, you set which languages each market uses under Shopify Markets, and translate content with Translate & Adapt. It's free, auto-translates up to two languages at no cost, and lets you add manual translations with no stated limit. You can also use Shopify's AI translations. If you sell in three or more languages, plan how the third one gets translated: manually, by importing your existing text, or with another app.

Your existing PrestaShop translations can be imported, so you don't have to start from machine translations. Markets also handles local currencies and prices per market.

GDPR and cookie consent

Shopify's Customer privacy settings live under Settings, then Customer privacy. New stores get automated privacy settings by default, and the cookie banner switches on for active markets that require it, including the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. You need a published privacy policy before the banner works.

Two catches. Shopify's banner covers Shopify's own tools, so third-party pixels or scripts added in theme code may need a separate consent app. If you add one, match its regions to your Customer privacy settings. Also, non-essential data is collected only after consent, so session-based metrics can drop after launch. Carry each customer's email marketing consent across exactly as PrestaShop recorded it.

What changes for Indian stores?

Shopify Payments is not available in India. Indian stores connect Razorpay, PayU, Cashfree, PhonePe PG or CCAvenue. Each prepaid order pays the gateway fee, GST on that fee and Shopify's third-party fee. Cash on delivery, as a manual payment method, pays no Shopify fee.

Prices exclude GST, which Shopify adds unless you submit a GSTIN. The full breakdown is on the Shopify pricing hub for India, and gateway and COD details are in Shopify payments, COD and GST in India.

How do PrestaShop modules map to Shopify?

None of your modules run on Shopify. List every active module, note what it does, and match it:

• Product reviews to Judge.me, Loox or Okendo
• Faceted navigation to Shopify Search & Discovery (free) or Searchanise
• Multi-currency and multi-language to Shopify Markets and Translate & Adapt
• Cookie consent to Shopify's cookie banner, plus a consent app if you run third-party pixels
• Newsletter and abandoned cart to Klaviyo or Omnisend (see Klaviyo vs Omnisend vs Mailchimp)
• Custom checkout logic to public apps built on Shopify Functions, which work on any plan. Custom apps with Functions need Plus.

Bespoke overrides, such as custom pricing rules or a modified checkout, sometimes need rebuilding. That's why the module audit happens first. It's also a good moment to drop modules you were only tolerating, since every app adds performance and monthly cost.

What are the migration steps?

1. Audit and scope. Product count, combinations, modules, overrides, languages, multi-store setup and top-traffic URLs. This produces the fixed quote.
2. Export the data. Back-office CSV exports, or the database for larger catalogs.
3. Map and clean. Combinations to variants, categories to collections, manufacturers to vendors.
4. Import to a staging store. Nothing customer-facing changes yet.
5. Rebuild the theme on Online Store 2.0. Custom theme vs premium theme explains the choice.
6. Set up payments, taxes, languages and consent for each market.
7. Build the redirect map, every language included.
8. Test checkout, payment methods, VAT, shipping, emails, translations, the cookie banner and redirects.
9. Cut over. Point DNS to Shopify, import redirects, resubmit the sitemap, keep PrestaShop read-only for a short window.
10. Watch Search Console for each language and fix what real traffic surfaces.

How long does it take?

Each extra language adds translation import and redirect testing. Tens of thousands of SKUs, multi-store setups and heavy overrides stretch the clock further. See how long a Shopify migration takes.

What does it cost?

These prices cover the migration work. The Shopify plan is separate.

Every engagement starts with a written scope and a fixed price. The full list by source platform is on my migration expert page.

Do you need Shopify Plus?

Most PrestaShop stores fit on Grow or Advanced. PrestaShop's customer-group pricing used to push people toward Plus. Native B2B now works on Basic, Grow and Advanced with up to 3 catalogs. Plus adds unlimited and company-specific catalogs, deposits and partial payments. See Shopify Plus B2B and wholesale.

Plus is also needed for custom apps built on Shopify Functions and for checkout UI extensions in the information, shipping and payment steps. Markets and multi-currency work on every plan. When to upgrade to Shopify Plus walks through the thresholds.

The most common PrestaShop migration mistakes

1. No redirect map, or one that skips the language URLs.
2. Copying the old theme pixel for pixel instead of rebuilding.
3. Leaving the module audit until cutover, when a surprise override blows the budget.
4. Launching without VAT and consent tested for each EU market.
5. Cutting over during peak season. Pick a quiet window and keep PrestaShop read-only as a fallback.

What I'd do

I'd start with three exports: every indexed URL in every language, every active module and what it does, and last year's sales by country. The third one tells you which markets need their own language, currency and VAT setup on day one, and which can wait.

For an EU store, I'd activate Shopify Payments, set up OSS in the tax settings before launch, and test the cookie banner from an EU connection. For an Indian store, I'd connect the gateway and COD, and test a prepaid and a COD order end to end.

The closest proof I can point to is Mum & You, a UK brand I moved from Magento to Shopify Plus between April and June 2025. It needed a full redirect map and rebuilt subscriptions, finished with zero data loss, and sales grew afterwards. A PrestaShop move follows the same discipline.

If you're on PrestaShop, send me a project brief with your catalog size, modules, languages and top-traffic URLs, and I'll come back with a fixed quote and timeline.

Related reads

• Shopify migration checklist
• Shopify migration without losing SEO
• Selling internationally with Shopify Markets
• How long a Shopify migration takes

Sources

• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Payments supported countries
• Shopify Help Center: primary gateways for international and local pricing
• Shopify Help Center: EU taxes
• Shopify Help Center: setting up EU taxes
• Shopify Help Center: EU tax reference (IOSS)
• Shopify Help Center: languages
• Shopify App Store: Translate & Adapt
• Shopify Help Center: customer privacy settings
• Shopify Help Center: URL redirects
• Shopify Help Center: new customer accounts
• Shopify developer changelog: variant limit is now 2,048
• Shopify India pricing
• PrestaShop official documentation