WooCommerce to Shopify launch day: the cutover playbook (2026)

Launch day — the day you switch your domain from WooCommerce to Shopify — is the riskiest day of the migration. All your prep work leads to this moment. Having a clear, step-by-step playbook ready before launch day eliminates the panic of making decisions under pressure while customers are watching. This guide is that playbook.

Pre-launch day prerequisites

Before launch day, everything on this list must be done:

• All products migrated to Shopify and validated
• Shopify theme configured (logo, colors, navigation)
• Payment gateways configured and tested (use Shopify's test payment)
• Shipping zones and rates configured
• Tax configuration complete
• Email notifications configured (order confirmation, shipping)
• URL redirects imported to Shopify
• Domain registered and accessible in your domain registrar
• Shopify store fully tested via the .myshopify.com URL
• SSL certificate on Shopify (automatic, but verify in Settings → Domains)
• DNS TTL reduced to 300 seconds (5 minutes) — do this 24–48 hours before launch day

Reducing DNS TTL in advance

DNS TTL (Time To Live) determines how long DNS resolvers cache your DNS records. Your current TTL is probably 3600 (1 hour) or 86400 (24 hours). If you switch DNS and then realize something is wrong, it takes up to TTL seconds for everyone to see the change.

48 hours before launch day: lower your domain's A record TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes). This means after launch day, DNS changes propagate in ~5 minutes instead of hours. After migration is stable, you can raise it back to 3600.

Where to change TTL: in your domain registrar's DNS settings panel, or in Cloudflare (if you use Cloudflare for DNS).

Choosing the right launch time

Pick the lowest-traffic window for your store:

• Best: Tuesday–Thursday, 2am–6am in your primary customer timezone
• Acceptable: Any weekday, late night/early morning
• Avoid: Friday–Sunday (highest ecommerce traffic), holidays, promotional campaign days
• Avoid: Immediately before or after major marketing events (email campaigns, flash sales)

The day before launch: final preparation

T-24 hours: Freeze WooCommerce

• Pause any product price changes on WooCommerce
• Confirm no new products need to be added (or add them now)
• Take a full backup of your WooCommerce database (use UpdraftPlus or your host's backup tool)
• Do a final sync run in k-sync to catch any late inventory changes

T-12 hours: Final Shopify verification

• Place a test order via Shopify's test payment — full order flow
• Verify SSL certificate is active on Shopify
• Confirm domain is added to Shopify (not yet as primary — still pending)
• Verify all redirect imports are complete
• Have your domain registrar login ready

Launch day: step-by-step

T-2 hours: Enable maintenance mode on WooCommerce

Put WooCommerce into maintenance mode to prevent new orders from coming in during the DNS transition:

• Option A: Use WP Maintenance Mode plugin — shows a maintenance page to visitors
• Option B: Disable WooCommerce checkout (WooCommerce → Settings → uncheck "Enable guest checkout" and add password protection to checkout page)
• Option C: Password-protect the entire WooCommerce site at the server level (better — prevents any access)

Display a message: "We're upgrading our store. We'll be back shortly. New orders can be placed at [your-new-shopify-URL or just say 'check back soon']."

T-90 minutes: Final inventory sync

• Export current inventory levels from WooCommerce
• Update Shopify inventory to match (especially for high-velocity products)
• This is the last sync — once you switch DNS, WooCommerce inventory is frozen

T-60 minutes: DNS change

Switch your domain's DNS from your old server to Shopify.

What to change in your domain registrar

Shopify provides these records (Admin → Settings → Domains → [your domain] → DNS records):

• A record: @ → Shopify's IP (23.227.38.65)
• CNAME record: www → shops.myshopify.com

In Cloudflare: set A record and CNAME with proxy status → DNS only (orange cloud OFF) initially — Shopify handles SSL themselves.

Important: if you have email (MX records), your A record change should not affect email — MX records are separate. Verify your MX records are untouched after the DNS change.

T-30 minutes: Monitor DNS propagation

Check DNS propagation with these tools:

• whatsmydns.net — check A record propagation globally
• dnschecker.org — verify Shopify IP appearing in different regions
• Your own browser: clear DNS cache (ipconfig /flushdns Windows, sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder Mac) and reload your domain

With TTL at 300, propagation should be visible in most locations within 5–15 minutes.

T-0: Verify Shopify is live on your domain

1. Open your domain in a browser — Shopify store should load
2. Verify SSL padlock (HTTPS) — Shopify auto-provisions SSL but it may take 30–60 minutes after DNS resolves
3. Click through 5–10 pages to verify navigation works
4. Test a redirect: go to an old WooCommerce product URL — verify you're redirected to the Shopify equivalent
5. Add a product to cart and proceed to checkout — do NOT complete a real order yet
6. Check mobile experience

T+0 to T+1 hour: Post-launch verification

• Place a real test order (use your own card for a $1 product if possible)
• Verify order confirmation email arrives
• Verify order appears in Shopify Admin → Orders
• Check Google Analytics: verify pageviews are tracking (GA4 events firing)
• Check Google Search Console: no immediate spike in 404 errors
• Verify marketing pixels: Facebook pixel, GA4 — check browser console for event fires
• Disable WooCommerce maintenance mode (but keep WooCommerce live for order history reference)

T+1 to T+24 hours: Monitor

• Monitor Shopify Admin → Orders for incoming orders
• Watch for customer support tickets about broken links, missing products
• Check Shopify Analytics → Online store sessions — verify traffic is flowing
• Respond quickly to any issues — launch day is not the day for slow support response

What to do if things go wrong

SSL not provisioned (HTTPS not working)

Shopify SSL provisioning takes 30–60 minutes after DNS resolves. If over 2 hours:

1. Shopify Admin → Settings → Domains → [domain] → "Verify"
2. Ensure no conflicting A records or CNAME records for the root domain
3. Check if Cloudflare proxy is ON (it shouldn't be — set to DNS only)

Redirects not working

If old product URLs return 404 instead of redirecting:

1. Shopify Admin → Online Store → Navigation → URL Redirects — verify the redirect exists
2. Check the exact URL format — check trailing slash vs no trailing slash
3. Shopify redirects are exact path matches — check for any discrepancy

Payment not processing

If test checkout fails:

1. Verify payment gateway is activated (not just configured) in Shopify Admin → Settings → Payments
2. Check if you're still in test mode — disable test mode for live orders
3. Verify billing info in Shopify account is complete (required for Shopify Payments)

Rollback plan

If something is critically broken and you need to revert:

1. Revert DNS: change A record and CNAME back to your old hosting server's IP
2. With TTL at 300, this propagates in 5–10 minutes
3. Disable WooCommerce maintenance mode
4. WooCommerce is back live — all data untouched (migration never modifies source)

This is why you run WooCommerce in parallel and never delete or modify it during migration. The rollback path must always be available.

First week after launch

• Daily: check Shopify Admin for orders and support requests
• Day 2: submit Shopify sitemap to Google Search Console (Admin → Settings → Domains → "View sitemap")
• Day 3: check Google Search Console for crawl errors and 404s from missed redirects
• Day 7: verify first week revenue and order count are on track vs WooCommerce baseline
• Week 2–4: track keyword rankings — expect some fluctuation, verify recovery trend

Launch day quick reference card

T-48h  Lower DNS TTL to 300
T-24h  WooCommerce freeze + database backup
T-12h  Final Shopify test order + SSL verify
T-2h   WooCommerce maintenance mode ON
T-90m  Final inventory sync
T-60m  DNS change (A record + CNAME → Shopify)
T-30m  Monitor DNS propagation
T-0    Verify Shopify loads on domain
T+1h   Real test order + pixels + analytics check
T+24h  Remove maintenance mode, monitor orders
D+2    Submit sitemap to Google Search Console
D+3    Check Google Search Console for 404s

A calm, prepared launch day is the result of thorough pre-launch testing. The playbook above is simple when everything has been validated in advance. Print it out, follow it line by line, and you'll have a smooth cutover.