It is not possible – isn’t it?

Shopify is stating on their webite, that they can’t import passwords and the recommended way to migrate customers is to send them an invite/activation link.

I’m sure you can imagine that you’ll lose a lot of customer accounts by doing this. That means as well you might lose newsletter, SMS and other GDPR approved contact details.

First migrate the passwords, then migrate the store

So we want to offer you an alternative: First migrate the passwords. The problem with passwords is, that in every modern web application the passwords are hashed and therefore you don’t know the password and can’t decrypt them, because they are not encrypted. To migrate the passwords, we need the original password, and it might look like, there is no way to get it, but there is! When the customer logs in, you have the password!

So to migrate the passwords, you need time and patience. Here is the order of execution:

1. Get a Shopify shop/BigCommerce
2. Implement an app/plugin/module for your old store
3. Each and every time a customer logs in, check wether the account already exists and either update the password or create the account with the password
4. Check on a regular basis how much accounts are already created.

Depending on how often your regulars visit you store, you can migrate the passwords in weeks, maybe it takes months. But sooner or later you reach the moment, were it doesn’t make sense to wait any longer and you migrate to the new system. Now you can migrate all other accounts and send out the activation/invite link – but you already reduced the amount of lost customers.

And this works for every Software as a Service, like Shopify, BigCommerce, etc.

If you need help with your migration, drop us an email, we are happy to help!

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