A realistic mid-market migration takes about 12 weeks for a standard catalogue and 16 to 20 weeks with larger catalogues, multiple storefronts or B2B price lists. Ten weeks is possible only if scope is narrow. Your instinct that it is fantasy is probably right for a typical mid-market store, and the board needs to hear which scope makes ten weeks real and what each week of compression costs.
Below is a phase-by-phase view, what can and cannot compress, and a risk register. Our Shopify migration service plans against these phases, and our Magento cost and loss answer shows how cost scales.
A phase-by-phase timeline
Assumes about five to twenty-five thousand products, one storefront and two to three locales.
| Weeks | Phase | Outputs |
| 1 to 2 | Discovery, catalogue audit, schema mapping | Catalogue export, URL crawl, integration inventory |
| 2 to 3 | Theme and component architecture | Design system, Functions inventory |
| 4 | Redirect map and migration SEO plan | Every legacy URL mapped |
| 5 to 6 | Catalogue and customer data migration on staging | Parity checks, older orders archived |
| 6 to 8 | Integrations, Functions and storefront build | Integrations reconnected |
| 9 to 10 | QA, UAT and migration SEO validation | Checkout, account and redirect testing |
| 11 | Pre-launch hardening and dress rehearsal | Runbook with named owners, freeze window set |
| 12 | Cutover and day-one support | Final delta sync, DNS, redirects live |
Source: a published twelve-week Magento to Shopify Plus plan. Phases overlap, and larger scopes extend several of them.
What can compress and what cannot
Be explicit with the board.
Rule of thumb: compress the build, never the discovery, the redirects or the data.
The ten-week scenario
What scope makes it possible.
- Catalogue under about 1,000 products.
- No B2B requirements.
- A standard theme in Liquid, not a headless build.
- A clean integration matrix with few systems.
- One storefront and few locales.
- A decision-maker on the client side with fast approvals.
- Tens of thousands of products or complex attributes.
- B2B price lists, quoting or ERP-driven pricing.
- Multiple storefronts or regions.
- Custom checkout rules and several integrations.
- Large order history to validate.
The cost of compressing
Speed is paid for in one of four ways.
| Compression move | What you pay | Typical consequence |
| Cut discovery | Late surprises | Scope growth and slipped dates |
| Run data before redirects | Rework | Weeks lost, and ranking risk |
| Shorten UAT | Bugs in production | Support load and lost sales |
| Add more people | Coordination overhead | Little gain after a point |
| Phase the launch | A second cutover | More total effort, less risk |
Agency guides describe these trade-offs. We have no measured figures for your project.
Risk register for a rushed migration
Track these weekly.
| Risk | Early sign | Response |
| Poor redirect map | Map not done by week four | Pause data migration until done |
| Late integration discovery | New systems appear after kickoff | Freeze scope, re-baseline dates |
| Checkout rule missed | Functions inventory incomplete | Audit every discount and shipping rule |
| Order history fidelity | Tax and discount mismatches | Archive older orders instead |
| Cutover surprises | No rehearsal planned | Rehearse on staging twice |
| Stakeholder drift | Frequent scope changes | Weekly decision log |
Timeline claims, and what we cannot show
We plan migrations phase by phase. We do not publish a median duration by catalogue size, so we will not state one here.
Read more: our Shopify migration service
Share your catalogue size, integrations and target date, and our migration planning team will send a phased timeline and tell you what ten weeks would require.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a mid-sized catalogue with one storefront, about 12 weeks is a common benchmark. Larger catalogues, multi-storefront setups or B2B price lists can run 16 to 20 weeks.
Only with a narrow scope: a catalogue under about 1,000 products, no B2B, a standard theme and clean integrations. Otherwise ten weeks is a fantasy for a mid-market store.
Storefront build and the QA buffer can compress. Discovery, the redirect map and data migration cannot be cut safely.
No. We do not publish a median migration duration by catalogue size because we have not compiled one we can stand behind. Ask for references matching your size.
A poor redirect map, because the ranking loss takes months to repair, and late discovery of integration or checkout rules. See how to protect SEO in a migration.
