Journal · Platforms

Leaving Shopify: the honest checklist

3 Jun 20266 min readBy the Valipen desk

This note is for the store owner who has done the math: RM 300 to RM 500 a month across plan and apps, a theme that looks like the competitor's, and a feeling that the platform owns the store more than you do. Leaving is not risky when it is sequenced properly. Here is the sequence.

Before you decide anything

Run the three year numbers first: plan, apps, transaction fees, theme updates. Then read our honest Shopify math, including the part about when you should stay. If you are still validating your first product, stay. This checklist is for stores that already sell.

The checklist

  1. Export everything while calm. Products, customers and order history all leave Shopify as CSV. Do it before any deadline pressure exists.
  2. List what your apps actually do. Reviews, bundles, popups, loyalty. In a custom build these become features written in once, so nothing on this list should scare you.
  3. Build in parallel. The new store grows on a private staging link while the old one keeps selling. There is never a gap, because there is never a teardown day.
  4. Map every URL to its twin. Every product and collection URL gets a 301 redirect to its new address. This is the single step that protects your Google rankings, and the one cheap builders skip.
  5. Rebuild the payment rails. FPX, cards and ewallets through a Malaysian gateway, tested with real small transactions before launch night.
  6. Move the reviews. Social proof is an asset. It comes across with the catalogue, not left behind in an app you stop paying for.
  7. Switch after closing time. The change is a domain pointing at a new server. Done at night, morning traffic never notices.
  8. Keep the old store intact for 30 days. It costs one month of the basic plan and buys you a full safety net. If anything feels wrong, the domain points back in minutes.

What usually breaks, and how it is prevented

Rankings break when redirects are skipped; the URL map prevents it. Email flows break when they lived inside an app; they are rebuilt on your own domain, which also fixes deliverability. Data breaks when an app holds it hostage; that is why the export happens first, calmly, before anything else.

Want the checklist run against your actual store? Send the link through the free review on our home page. You get the five points that matter for your exact stack, in writing, within one working day.

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