Note: This article covers migrating data from STORES, a Japan-only e-commerce platform, to Shopify. The information below will not be directly relevant if you are not selling in Japan or do not use this Japan-specific service.
Some people running an e-commerce site on STORES may be considering migrating to Shopify for reasons such as flexibility in design and features, or support for selling overseas.
However, STORES has no feature to export product data in bulk, and some data cannot be carried over as-is, such as order history, subscription sales contracts, and custom domains.
This article first reviews the differences between STORES and Shopify, then explains which data can and cannot be migrated, the steps for migrating product and customer data, and points to watch when you switch.
*This article contains affiliate links for Shopify.
What to check before migrating from STORES to Shopify
Before you start the migration, review the differences between STORES and Shopify. Payment processing fees and design flexibility will change after you migrate, while the monthly fee may also increase depending on the plan.
For details on STORES features and pricing plans, see the article below.
Pricing and payment processing fees
| Service name | STORES | Shopify (annual billing) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Free plan: free / Standard plan: ¥3,300 | Basic: ¥3,650 / Grow: ¥10,100 / Advanced: ¥44,000 / Shopify Plus: ¥398,000 (¥368,000 on a 3-year term) |
| Payment processing fee | 3.6–6.5% | 2.9–3.55% |
*As of September 2026
The STORES Standard plan monthly fee is the annual-contract rate (monthly contract: ¥3,960), and the Shopify amounts are the monthly equivalent of annual billing. STORES payment processing fees are 5.5% on the Free plan and 3.6% on the Standard plan for credit cards, and 6.5% and 4.6% respectively for some payment methods such as PayPal and PayPay.
Shopify payment processing fees are the rates for domestic online credit card payments through Shopify Payments: Basic 3.55%, Grow 3.4%, Advanced 3.25%, and Plus 2.9%.
Moving from the STORES Free plan to Shopify's Basic plan lowers the credit card payment processing fee by 1.95 percentage points. The difference versus the Standard plan (3.6%) is 0.05 percentage points, so if you are migrating from the Standard plan, compare the total including the monthly fee and app usage fees.
Design and feature flexibility
Shopify has more than 1,200 design themes, and you can fine-tune the design and features through code editing in HTML and CSS and by adding apps.
STORES has 48 design templates. They do not support code editing, but you can edit them intuitively without specialized knowledge. If you want to fully develop your brand's look and feel, or use apps to add capabilities that the standard features lack, Shopify is a better fit.
International selling
On Shopify, you can display your store in up to 20 languages on the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans, and up to 30 languages on Shopify Plus. It also supports selling in multiple currencies and international payment methods, so it is easier to sell directly to overseas customers.
STORES can also accept orders from overseas by integrating with the international selling service "WorldShopping BIZ", but overseas buyers are charged a purchasing agent fee (10% of the product price and domestic shipping).
Support
| Shopify | STORES |
|---|---|
| Help Center / 24-hour chat support | FAQ page / phone consultation / inquiry form |
Shopify has a Japanese Help Center, and 24-hour chat support is available on all plans. STORES provides a phone consultation desk in addition to an FAQ page and an inquiry form.
Data you can and cannot migrate
When migrating from STORES to Shopify, the method differs by type of data. Review the overall picture before you start the migration.
| Data | Export from STORES | Import into Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| Product data | No bulk export feature (manual entry or scraping) | Bulk import via CSV is possible |
| Customer data | CSV download is available on paid plans | Bulk import via CSV is possible (passwords cannot be migrated) |
| Order history | Can be exported as an order CSV | Standard CSV import is not supported (use a migration app or the API) |
| Subscription sales contracts | No method is documented for transferring contracts or card information | Install a subscription app and ask buyers to re-subscribe |
| Custom domain | Cannot be transferred (owned by STORES) | Prepare a new domain |
Products and customers can be migrated using the steps in this article, but order history and subscription sales need separate handling. Details are explained in "How to handle order history and subscription sales".
Overall migration flow
If you migrate while continuing to sell on STORES, proceeding in the following order helps prevent trouble.
- Sign up for Shopify and prepare the store while keeping it unpublished
- Migrate product data and customer data
- Configure shipping rates, taxes, payment services, the legal notice under the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions, and so on
- Place a test order and check payment, shipping calculation, and order notification emails
- Set a switch date, align STORES inventory with Shopify inventory, then publish your Shopify store
- After outstanding STORES orders and sales payouts are complete, cancel your STORES account
Around the switch, the same products may sell on both STORES and Shopify. Just before the switch date, stop selling on STORES or adjust inventory counts. After migrating product data, also confirm that product names, prices, inventory counts, and variants are registered correctly.
Steps to migrate product data from STORES to Shopify
The steps to migrate product data from STORES to Shopify are as follows.
- Prepare the product data to migrate from STORES
- Sign up for Shopify
- Download the product CSV sample in Shopify
- Enter product data in Google Sheets
- Import the completed CSV into Shopify
We explain each step in detail below.
1. Prepare the product data to migrate from STORES
STORES has no feature to export item information such as product names, descriptions, and images in bulk (as of September 2026). On paid plans, "Bulk inventory CSV update" lets you download a CSV of all items, but it is a feature for updating inventory counts, so it cannot be used as migration data.
For that reason, the basic approach when migrating to Shopify is to enter product data manually. If you have a large number of products to migrate, you can also retrieve the data with a "scraping tool" that automatically extracts information from a website.
There are various scraping tools, such as "Octoparse" and "Scraper". Many are also available for free, so choose a tool that is easy for your company to use.
When using a scraping tool, check the STORES terms of use and any access restrictions. Also, inventory information and unpublished product information that cannot be retrieved from public product pages must be confirmed separately.
Export product data with a scraping tool
Open the scraping tool and enter the URL of a product page published on STORES.
Once the product page has loaded, select the fields you need for migration, such as product name, price, description, and image URL, and export them in CSV format.
2. Sign up for Shopify
Image source: Shopify
Proceed with signing up for Shopify. Go to the Shopify website and click the "Start free trial" button.
Follow the on-screen instructions, enter your email address and other details, and create an account.
Image source: Shopify
3. Download the product CSV sample in Shopify
Log in to the Shopify admin, open "Products", and click "Import" at the top of the page.
Image source: Shopify
On the page that appears, click "Download sample CSV" to download it.
You have now downloaded the CSV format for product registration.
4. Enter product data in Google Sheets
Next, import the downloaded sample CSV into Google Sheets.
Then either enter product data manually, or paste the data retrieved with the scraping tool to match the column fields. When it is complete, download it in CSV format (UTF-8).
5. Import the completed CSV into Shopify
Click "Import" at the top of the Shopify Products page.
Click "Add file", select the completed CSV, and click "Upload and preview".
Check the preview, and if there are no problems, click "Import products" and load the file to complete the product data migration.
Steps to migrate customer data from STORES to Shopify
You can migrate customer data from STORES to Shopify using a CSV file.
On STORES, if you are on a paid plan, you can bulk-download customer information as CSV from the customer management feature. It is not available on the Free plan, so consider switching to a paid plan if needed.
To import multiple customer records into Shopify at once, follow the steps below.
- Download customer data from STORES in CSV format
- Enter the data into Shopify's CSV format
- Import the completed customer data
1. Download customer data from STORES in CSV format
Log in to the STORES admin and download customer data from the customer management page.
The steps to download customer data are as follows.
- From the STORES admin, open "Customer management β" on the "Online shop" tab.
- Check the customer information you want to export as CSV.
- Click "CSV download" at the top right of the page.
Depending on the admin layout, use "All customers" on the "Customers" tab instead. The CSV download feature is available from a computer only.
2. Enter the data into Shopify's CSV format
Log in to the Shopify admin, select "Customers" > "Import" in that order, and click "Download sample CSV" for customer data.
Next, enter the customer information obtained from STORES to match Shopify's CSV format. STORES and Shopify use different CSV field names and formats, so you cannot import the file downloaded from STORES into Shopify as-is. Edit it to match Shopify's format and save it as UTF-8.
The main information to migrate includes the customer's name, email address, phone number, and address. Also check the email marketing consent status that was set in STORES, and enter "yes" or "no" in Shopify's "Accepts Email Marketing" column. CSV files that can be imported must be 15 MB or smaller.
3. Import the completed customer data
In the Shopify admin, click "Customers" > "Import" in that order. Click "Add file" and select the customer data you created.
Image source: Shopify
Click "Import customers" to complete the import.
How to handle order history and subscription sales
Import order history with a migration app or the API
STORES can export order data in CSV format. However, Shopify's standard features have no mechanism to import past orders via CSV, and Shopify Help also directs you to use a migration app or the API.
If you do not need to view past orders in Shopify, it is fine to keep the CSV exported from STORES on hand. If you often refer to order history for inquiries or sales management, consider using a migration app.
Ask buyers to re-subscribe for subscription sales
If you offer subscription sales on STORES, no method is documented for moving buyers' subscription contracts or card information to Shopify. To continue subscription sales on Shopify, you need to install a subscription app and have buyers sign up again in the new store.
If you delay notifying buyers, subscription shipments may be interrupted and lead to cancellations. Aim to share the switch date and how to sign up about 1 month before the migration.
Points to watch during migration
There are also several points to watch when migrating data to Shopify. Check these so that trouble does not occur after you migrate to Shopify.
After migrating customer data, explain how to log in
If you migrate customer information from STORES to Shopify, explain to customers how to log in on Shopify.
Customer password information cannot be imported into Shopify as CSV data. However, if you use Shopify "customer accounts", customers can log in with a 6-digit verification code sent to their email address, so they do not need to set a new password.
To help customers shop smoothly in the new store as well, it is a good idea to explain the new login method by email or similar before and after the migration.
Migrating multiple images for one product requires care in how you write the CSV
If you want to migrate multiple product images for one product, you need to format the CSV carefully. The three CSV fields you need are "Handle", "Image Src", and "Image Position".
| CSV field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Handle | Product handle (a per-product identifier used at the end of the product URL) |
| Image Src | Product image URL |
| Image Position | Which position to display the product image in |
Image URLs must be accessible from outside. If you use image URLs that were used on STORES, keep the original images accessible until the Shopify import is complete.
Announce the move because the domain will change
Custom domains obtained through STORES are owned by STORES, so they cannot be transferred to Shopify. The same applies to "stores.jp" URLs. After migration, you will operate on a new domain.
Shopify's URL redirects feature is set for URLs within the Shopify store. You cannot automatically forward old URLs on the STORES side to the new store, so the search reputation built on the old store is not carried over to the new domain.
At migration, guide customers from the old store to the new store with the following steps.
- Before closing the STORES store, announce the destination URL on the top page and in notices
- Update URLs listed on social media, ads, email newsletters, business cards, and elsewhere
- Register the new domain in Google Search Console and submit a sitemap
Cancel your STORES account only after confirming sales payouts
On STORES, you cannot cancel your account if outstanding orders remain or if sales payouts are not complete. If you are on a paid plan, you also need to cancel the plan first.
STORES sales are closed at month-end and paid at the end of the following month, so it can take up to about 2 months for the last sales to be paid out. Decide when to cancel after checking the payout schedule.
Summary: Prepare by type of data and proceed with the migration
Migrating data from STORES to Shopify requires preparation according to the type of data. Migrate each type with a suitable method, such as entering product data manually or using a scraping tool, and using a CSV file that can be downloaded on a STORES paid plan for customer data. Order history and subscription sales contracts cannot be moved with standard features, so you need to use a migration app or ask buyers to re-subscribe.
Also, because the domain will change, announcing the destination and updating URLs are essential. Cancel your STORES account only after confirming sales payouts, so you can start running your online store on Shopify smoothly.
