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Welcome to Vortex Staging. This page is the start point for understanding how Vortex Staging moves your store data from a source Shopify store to a destination Shopify store, what gets carried across, and how the platform keeps relationships such as products, collections, customers, and orders correctly stitched together. If you are coming from the V1 help centre, the same content is here, refreshed for the current Vortex Staging UI and reorganised so you can find answers faster.

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What gets migrated

Vortex Staging supports more than 20 entity types covering catalogue, customers, content, store configuration, commerce, and metaobjects. Here is the high-level breakdown. For per-field detail on every entity, see Field mapping and data.

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How migration works

The migration follows a deterministic seven-step pipeline.
  1. Connect your stores. You authorise the Vortex Staging app on each Shopify store (source and destination). Vortex IQ holds the OAuth tokens; no API keys are passed around in the open.
  2. Select what to migrate. Choose entity types from the bulk migration screen, or browse and pick specific items in selective migration.
  3. Data extraction. The platform reads source store data through Shopify’s official GraphQL Admin API with cursor-based pagination, respecting Shopify’s API rate limits.
  4. Intelligent mapping. Data is transformed for the destination store. Products match by handle, customers by email, orders to customers by email, collections to products by handle, inventory to locations by name. Missing locations are auto-created in the destination.
  5. Duplicate detection. Before creating, Vortex Staging checks if a record with the same matching key already exists in the destination, and if it does, it is skipped (Ignore mode) or deleted and recreated (Delete and Recreate mode, non-production destinations only).
  6. Creation in destination. New records are created. Original Shopify IDs cannot be preserved (Shopify generates new IDs), but the relationships are kept via handles, emails, and SKUs.
  7. Progress tracking. Per-entity progress, status, and downloadable error logs are exposed in Migration history in real time.

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Intelligent mapping in detail

The matching keys used for duplicate detection are deterministic and documented: If a matching record exists, Vortex Staging skips that record and marks it as successful in the migration log. This is the default behaviour and is safe for repeated runs.

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What happens to original IDs

Shopify assigns new unique IDs when records are created in the destination. The original IDs from the source store cannot be preserved (this is a Shopify platform constraint, not a Vortex Staging limitation). Vortex Staging maintains relationships through identifying fields (email addresses, product handles, SKUs, location names) so that a customer migrated alongside their orders is still linked to those orders in the destination, even though both records have new internal IDs. For best results, migrate data in this order. Vortex Staging will not enforce it, but the dependency chain is real and skipping it causes broken associations.
  1. Locations (if using multi-location inventory)
  2. Metaobject Definitions (before any Metaobjects that depend on them)
  3. Metaobjects
  4. Files (so product images are present)
  5. Customers (so orders can link to them)
  6. Products (your catalogue)
  7. Collections (which reference products)
  8. Gift Cards (linked to customers by email)
  9. Discount Codes (which may reference products and customers)
  10. Orders (which reference customers and products)
  11. Content (Pages, Blogs, Articles)
  12. Navigation Menus and URL Redirects
  13. Store Policies
  14. Delivery Profiles, Markets, Catalogs and Price Lists

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Common use cases

  • Complete store migration. Replatforming from one Shopify store to another. Select every entity type and let Vortex Staging handle the data transfer.
  • Merging multiple stores. Consolidating regional stores into one. Run separate migrations from each source. Duplicate detection ensures customers and products do not duplicate.
  • Testing on a development store. Migrate to a Shopify development store to test theme changes or app installs against production-shaped data. Use customer data anonymisation when sensitive PII would otherwise leave production.
  • Customer database transfer. Migrate just Customers when you need to move a list to a new store while preserving marketing consent and addresses.

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FAQ

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Will the source store be modified during migration?

No. Vortex Staging is read-only against the source. Source data is never modified or deleted. Migration only reads from the source and writes to the destination.

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Can I run a migration multiple times?

Yes. Duplicate detection means already-migrated records are skipped on retry, so re-running a migration is safe. Failed records can be retried after the underlying issue is fixed.

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How long does a migration take?

A small store (under 1,000 products) typically completes in 15-30 minutes. Medium stores (1,000-10,000 products) take 1-3 hours. Large stores can take several hours, particularly when orders, customers, files, and metaobjects are all selected.

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Are customer passwords migrated?

No. Shopify encrypts passwords and they cannot be transferred between stores. Customers will need to use Forgot Password to set a new one in the destination.