Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus Migration for US Brands

Brands in the United States move from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus when costs or ticket backlogs become overwhelming to handle. Salesforce Commerce Cloud, which many U.S. teams still call “Demandware,” charges based on GMV (according to Salesforce).

This means the bill often rises each time your sales hit a milestone. Meanwhile, a merchandiser who wants to reorder a collection must open a ticket and find a developer who knows cartridges. On Shopify Plus, merchandisers can make the change themselves, thus saving time.

Signs to Move on from Salesforce Commerce Cloud

• Introducing a new page layout or component type in Salesforce Commerce Cloud often requires a developer and a code release, meaning campaigns that depend on it miss their window.
• Since Salesforce prices Commerce Cloud on GMV and lists B2C as the contact for pricing, budgets can be difficult to forecast as sales increase. Shopify lists Plus starting from $2,300 per month on a three-year term. Companies with higher volume move to a variable charge based on revenue and business model.
• The PWA Kit was introduced as an alternative to SFRA. Salesforce documentation now refers developers to Storefront Next or PWA Kit. Each path is its own funded project. Any cartridge-related activity requires a specialist. Hence, the Cartridge Roadmap relies on the calendar of a specialist.
• Any cartridge-related activity requires a specialist. Hence, the Cartridge Roadmap relies on the calendar of a specialist.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud vs Shopify Plus for US Brands

Mapping Salesforce Commerce Cloud Cartridges to Shopify Plus

Since cartridge codes cannot be migrated directly to Shopify Plus, they must be recreated from scratch. At Codilar, a Shopify Plus partner, our experts begin this migration by identifying all cartridge codes on the way, from LINK cartridges from different partners to custom ones, and moving the code safely.

Additionally, each record describes the functionality of the cartridge and is categorized into one of these three buckets:

• Shopify does it out-of-the-box. There is a corresponding feature in the storefront.
• There is an App Store app for it. A check from the LINK vendor reveals if there is such an app in Shopify.
• Custom coding is required. Custom pricing or validation logic ends up being implemented as a Shopify Function or a custom app.

This allows us to understand precisely what we need to do.

Mapping SFCC Catalogs and Multiple Sites to Shopify Plus

Salesforce models a product as a master with variants and groups related items into variation groups. Shopify uses a single product with options and variants, so each SFCC structure gets its own mapping decision.

A master with more than three variation attributes exceeds Shopify’s three-option limit. Those products get restructured, for example as separate products grouped with the Combined Listings app on Plus.

Deep category trees usually get flattened into fewer collection levels. Sorting changes too. SFCC sorting rules can blend several attributes with weights, while a Shopify collection applies one sort option at a time, such as best-selling or price.

Moving an SFRA or PWA Kit Storefront to Shopify

SFRA or PWA Kit Storefront Migration to Shopify. Just like cartridge code, SFRA and PWA Kit storefront code cannot be migrated, thus the storefront will be rebuilt on Shopify using either of these two methods.

A Shopify theme. The best option for most US brands. The SFRA templates will be turned into theme sections and blocks which can then be edited within the theme editor. The Page Designer pages and content assets are rebuilt as sections while structured content is rebuilt as metaobjects.

Hydrogen. For teams that are using PWA Kit but want to remain headless, Hydrogen on Oxygen can be used. It restores the front-end codebase that needs to be maintained.

Salesforce’s documentation now points new builds to Storefront Next or PWA Kit. A team weighing another Salesforce rebuild can price it against the Shopify route first.

Migrating Promotions and Price Books from Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Promotions from Salesforce Commerce Cloud are migrated as Shopify Functions. This is a method of providing custom discounts using Shopify. The previous way of doing so via Plus checkout on Shopify Scripts is no longer available from 30th June 2026, as mentioned in the Shopify Developer Changelog.

Campaigns in Salesforce include promotions. The promotions can be qualified by coupons and customer groups. There is only one currency used in the price book. The volume price table includes discounted prices for higher volumes. The coupon codes are maintained as is.

The restrictions set by Shopify affect the process of the rebuild. As per Shopify’s Help Center, there is a limit on how many active discounts can be used on a store at any point in time. A maximum of 25 discounts can be used, and discounts made using an application are counted under the limit. Stacking can only be done on Shopify Plus.

Migrating Customer Data from Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Profiles, addresses, opt-in status, and custom attributes all move. Shopify’s customer CSV has a fixed set of columns, so extra attributes such as birth date need metafields or an app. Customer groups become tags and segments, or B2B companies for wholesale buyers.

Passwords do not migrate. Shopify states that passwords are encrypted outside Shopify, so a CSV import cannot carry them. New customer accounts sign in with a one-time code.

Single sign-on needs a plan. According to Shopify’s documentation, Multipass only works with legacy customer accounts. Brands that sign customers in from another system, such as a loyalty portal or a mobile app, should look at connecting an OIDC-compliant identity provider to new customer accounts.

Orders can be imported via the API. The admin CSV does not support importing orders, only products and customers. You can push your orders using the API or a migration app. You will need to push products, then customers, then orders. This will ensure that the orders are linked to the right products and customers. You will also want to import consents to ensure that the customers' email and SMS opt-ins are still there.

Protecting SEO During the Migration

All SFCC URLs will have to change. SEO friendly URLs are constructed based on logic. A sample for product URL can be /shoes/sandals/red/water-sandal/12414.html and SFCC will use /products/ and /collections/.

Your 301 redirect mapping will be created based on your internal URL mapping, existing redirect maps and full crawling. All indexed URLs will be mapped to 1:1 redirect. Redirecting a large number of URLs to the homepage is just a waste of authority.

SFCC will perform the redirect only if the old URL returns a 404 on SFCC. URLs having query strings won’t redirect properly. Test your SFCC controller-style URLs on the live domain. Make sure that metadata and alt text remain the same as before. Upload the new sitemap to Google Search Console within an hour of going live.