Shopify rebuilt Shopify Sidekick on October 28. The AI assistant in every Shopify admin can now write code, and it asks the merchant to approve each change. Before the week was out, someone on your Magento team had probably forwarded the news with one question under it.

Do we have that?

To answer it, you first need to know what Sidekick does on a normal day in a Shopify admin, and which of those jobs your own store would hand to an assistant. Some are questions about sales and stock. Others are the small changes that wait weeks in a developer queue while a peer on Shopify types the same request into a chat box. Those weeks, and the agency hours attached to them, are the stakes.

What is Shopify Sidekick?

Shopify Sidekick is the AI assistant built into the Shopify admin. You ask in plain language, and it answers questions about your store data, writes content, builds reports and automations, and drafts store changes for you to review. Sidekick is included with your Shopify plan, and its features and usage limits vary by plan.

You open Sidekick by clicking the purple glasses icon on Shopify Home or any other admin page, with no setup. Since the admin redesign announced on October 28, 2026, it also appears as a floating chat at the bottom of every page. Every staff member can use it based on their admin permissions, so a limited role sees less than the owner, and it adapts to your store’s language settings.

What Shopify says sets this AI assistant apart from a general chatbot is access: it has direct access to your Shopify data and takes action in your admin, which generic AI tools can’t do. Apps can plug in through Sidekick app extensions, so Sidekick can search an app’s data and take you to the right page in it. The details are on Shopify’s Sidekick page.

What happened to Shopify Magic?

Shopify introduced Sidekick on July 26, 2023, in its Summer ’23 Edition, as the centerpiece of Shopify Magic, its set of AI features for commerce.

Today Shopify’s pages don’t use the Magic name. shopify.com/magic shows the Sidekick page, and the Help Center groups the same features under AI-powered tools, with Sidekick listed as an AI assistant in your Shopify admin (checked November 2, 2026).

Shopify Sidekick features after the October 2026 rebuild

Since the Fall ’26 Edition on October 28, 2026, Shopify Sidekick can run calculations, write code, search the internet and remember what a merchant teaches it. It presents changes for review before applying them, and it can’t change the live store without the merchant’s approval. Canvas, for editing the whole store with Sidekick, is in early access.

What Sidekick does day to day

On a normal day, Sidekick in Shopify answers questions about your store data, such as what sold last week or what is running low. It writes content and generates images, with transparent backgrounds since October 24, 2026. It builds Shopify Flow workflows for repeated work, and since October 13, 2026, it helps you customize checkout and customer accounts. Sidekick Pulse surfaces recommendations on Shopify Home without a prompt. On the Basic, Grow, Advanced or Shopify Plus plan, it can also generate small admin apps, from a desktop browser only and within hourly and weekly limits, and those apps work only inside the admin. The Shopify Help Center lists each feature with its conditions.

What the October 2026 rebuild added

The Fall ’26 Edition, published on October 28, 2026, is the Shopify Sidekick news that reached Magento teams. Sidekick now keeps what a merchant teaches it, through skills you save and preferences it picks up, and it can write and run its own code to forecast, compare or summarize store data.

Canvas shows your entire store on one canvas so you can edit it with Sidekick, from small tweaks to full redesigns, and it is in early access. The same day’s changelog added AI-tested storefront suggestions: Sidekick stages storefront changes in a draft, tests them with AI-simulated shoppers (SimGym), then shows you the recommendation. One Help Center caveat: in some stores, Sidekick can’t run code.

What Sidekick can’t do

The Help Center lists four limits. Sidekick can’t talk to your customers or handle support conversations for you. It can’t share data from other Shopify merchants. It can’t change your live store without your approval. And it can’t edit images within a store theme or your product list.

So it is a tool for the people who run the store, and it works only in the admin. A shopper-facing chat is a different kind of tool, and our guide to AI shopping assistants covers that side.

Is there a Sidekick for Magento?

No. Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce have no assistant like Shopify Sidekick that you open in the admin and ask to change the store. Adobe’s published AI work for Commerce helps shoppers find products and helps teams write content and App Builder code. Magento stores add a Sidekick-style assistant from outside.

Magento comes in two editions, Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce, and neither includes an assistant of this kind in the admin.

Adobe’s published AI work is aimed elsewhere. The Commerce Developer Agent helps developers move existing module code to App Builder or start new App Builder development. Adobe calls it “a starting-point generator, not a fully autonomous developer,” no code generates without approval, and its page gives no release date or edition scope. Adobe’s July 2026 release notes for Commerce add Brand Concierge and semantic search for shoppers, plus Agentic Development and Agentic Authoring for teams that build storefronts and manage content.

None of these is something a merchandiser opens in the Magento admin to ask for a store change, and we found no Adobe announcement of one with a release date (checked November 2, 2026). If the gap makes you question the platform itself, our look at whether Magento is dying has the data.

What Magento stores can use instead of Sidekick

Magento alternatives to Shopify Sidekick fall into two groups. Admin chat extensions and MCP connectors read and update store data, such as products, orders and prices, inside the admin’s permissions. AI agents like Ari change the store itself, including code, themes and extensions, on a copy of the store, and a person approves each change before release.

Here is what each kind of tool can change, who signs off and what it costs (vendor pages, checked November 2, 2026).

Content generators, chatbots and AI search tools are covered in our guide to AI tools for Magento.

Admin chat extensions: Magefan AI Agent and Elsner MIRA

An admin chat extension adds a chat panel inside the Magento (Adobe Commerce) admin that reads store data and makes admin edits within the signed-in user’s role. The Magefan AI Agent uses the Claude API, costs €134 one-off with a year of support and updates, and supports Magento 2.3.0–2.4.9. It answers questions such as low-stock products or orders missing invoices, and it can create and manage products, orders, customers, price rules, CMS content, caches and indexers. It follows the user’s Magento role permissions and stops working when you close the chat window. Its page doesn’t say whether it asks for confirmation before a change.

Elsner’s MIRA costs $149 for the Community edition. It answers questions about sales, orders, inventory and customers, and it can update products, prices, stock and coupons, cancel orders, and create invoices and shipments. Every action requires explicit confirmation before it applies to your live store.

Both suit data questions and admin edits. Neither changes code or themes. Magefan is also an Ari partner, and its extensions are in the Ari marketplace.

Your own assistant through an MCP connector

The second route uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that lets an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT call tools in another system. Install a connector, and the assistant your team already pays for can read store data and, within limits, update it.

Mirasvit’s AI Agent Connector costs $149 for the first year and $90 a year after that. Nine of its tools only read data and five can change it, each marked read-only or write, so Claude, ChatGPT and other clients ask you to confirm before a write. It supports Magento 2.3 to 2.4.9.

Our own open-source Magento MCP server is free under the Open Software License 3.0, with no paid tier. Its six content tools cover CMS pages, blocks, categories, products, Hyvä CMS content and Snowdog menus, and each appears in the admin role tree, so an admin role decides what the assistant can touch. It needs Magento 2.4.4 or later.

Shopify added the same idea in its Fall ’26 Edition, with connectors that link Shopify to the AI agents merchants already use. Teams with very specific needs sometimes commission a custom agent from one of the AI agent development companies that build them.

AI agent for Magento: Ari

Ari, the AI agent for Magento, is built by scandiweb and takes the third route: it changes the store itself. A store team asks for a change in chat, in any language. Ari builds it on a copy of the store, cloned once from your repository with customer data removed, the team checks it on a preview store, and a person approves it as a pull request before any release. Ari handles frontend and backend changes, extension installs and conflicts, version upgrades and security patches, ERP, PIM and carrier integrations, content and merchandising, and full Hyvä theme and checkout rebuilds. It has no access to the live store, the servers or the live database.

Releases go through the store’s usual pipeline, on your servers and schedule, merged by your developer, your agency or Ari engineers. Ari works on Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce.

Shopify Sidekick vs Agent for Magento (Ari)

Shopify Sidekick and Ari both draft a change and wait for a person to approve it. Sidekick works inside the Shopify admin, comes with every Shopify plan and runs only on Shopify. Ari works on a copy of a Magento store, returns each change as a pull request and costs from €99 a month per store.

Seats are unlimited on every Ari plan, so marketers, managers and developers can all ask for changes.

How approval works in each

Sidekick drafts, and you review. A prepared change appears on the Store changes card in the admin, where you click Start review to check and publish it. Sidekick can’t change your live store without your approval. Ari opens a pull request in its copy of your repository, a person reads the change and its results and approves it, and your pipeline deploys it. In both, the tool drafts and a person decides.

Where each one stops

Sidekick works only on Shopify. Features and limits depend on your plan, Canvas is still in early access, Sidekick can’t talk to your customers, and in some stores it can’t run code.

Ari works only on Magento. It never touches the live store, so every release still goes through your own pipeline, and it costs a monthly fee per store where Sidekick comes with the plan. Both limits come from the platform each tool was built for.

Sidekick or a Magento AI agent: how to choose

Choose Shopify and Sidekick if you are ready to move platforms and prefer an assistant that comes with the plan. Stay on Magento and add an AI agent such as Ari if your store depends on custom code and integrations. An admin chat extension or MCP connector is enough when you mainly need answers and quick admin updates.

Choose Shopify and Sidekick if:

• You are already leaving Magento for reasons beyond AI, such as hosting or upkeep costs.
• Your catalog, checkout and integrations work with Shopify apps and settings, without custom code.
• Your team mostly needs content, reports, discounts and Shopify Flow automations.
• You prefer an assistant that comes with the platform plan.
• You can fund a re-platforming project before the assistant saves you any time.

Sidekick on its own is rarely a reason to change platforms, so weigh it with costs, hosting and features in our Magento vs Shopify comparison. If you do decide to move, our Magento to Shopify migration guide walks through the project.

Stay on Magento and add an AI agent such as Ari if:

• Your store runs on custom modules and ERP or PIM integrations.
• The work is code: extension installs, version upgrades and security patches.
• You need every change built on a copy of the store and checked on a preview store first.
• You don’t want an AI tool connected to your live store, servers or live database.
• Marketers, managers and developers all need to ask for changes, with unlimited seats.

An admin chat extension or MCP connector is enough if:

• You mainly need answers from store data, such as sales, low stock or orders missing invoices.
• Your changes are admin edits: prices, coupons, products and CMS blocks.
• Your team already uses Claude or ChatGPT and needs it connected to the store.
• You prefer a one-off or yearly extension fee to a monthly plan.

Frequently asked questions about Shopify Sidekick

Is Shopify Sidekick free?

There is no separate fee. Shopify’s Sidekick page says “Sidekick is included with your Shopify plan” and that “features and usage limits vary by plan.” Generating admin apps with Sidekick works only on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, from a desktop browser, with hourly and weekly limits.

Why don’t I have access to Sidekick in Shopify?

Access usually depends on your staff role, your plan or your device. Every staff member can use Sidekick based on their admin permissions, so a limited role sees less. App generation needs the Basic plan or higher and a desktop browser, and newer features such as Canvas are in early access.

Is Shopify Sidekick an AI agent?

Shopify calls Sidekick an AI-powered commerce assistant, but it acts like an agent for many admin jobs: it takes action in your admin, writes and runs code and drafts store changes for your approval. The Fall ’26 Edition also lets merchants connect Shopify to the AI agents they already use, a second meaning of “Shopify AI agent.”

What is the difference between Shopify Sidekick and Shopify Magic?

Shopify introduced Sidekick on July 26, 2023, as “the centerpiece of Shopify Magic,” its set of AI features across the platform. Shopify’s current pages no longer use the Magic name: shopify.com/magic shows the Sidekick page, and the Help Center lists the same features as AI-powered tools, with Sidekick as the assistant in the admin.

Can I use Shopify Sidekick on a Magento store?

No. Sidekick runs inside the Shopify admin and works with your Shopify data, so it needs a Shopify store. A Magento (Adobe Commerce) store can get similar help from admin chat extensions and MCP connectors, which update store data, or from an AI agent for Magento, which changes code. Moving to Shopify only for Sidekick means a full re-platforming project.

Can Shopify Sidekick change my live store without asking?

No. Shopify’s Help Center says “Sidekick can’t change your live store without your approval.” Sidekick drafts the changes, and you open the Store changes card and click Start review to check and publish them. For storefront ideas, it can stage changes in a draft and test them with AI-simulated shoppers before it shows you the recommendation.

Does Magento have built-in AI like Shopify Sidekick?

Not as an admin assistant. Neither Magento Open Source nor Adobe Commerce includes an assistant you open in the admin and ask for store changes, and we found no Adobe announcement of one with a release date (checked November 2, 2026). Adobe’s published AI work for Commerce helps shoppers find products and helps teams write content and code.

What Shopify Sidekick means for Magento stores

Shopify Sidekick puts one pattern into every Shopify admin: you ask in plain language, the assistant drafts the change and a person approves it. Magento has no built-in equivalent today, but a Magento store can get the same pattern from an admin chat extension or an AI agent like Ari, without changing platforms.

The question your colleague forwarded has a plain answer. Shopify stores got a rebuilt assistant on October 28, 2026. On Magento you choose one, based on whether the work waiting in your queue is admin data or code.

Start with the list of small changes that wait on a developer today, sort it into admin edits and code changes, and match each group to the right tool. For the work that still needs people, such as a new integration or a re-platforming decision, our Magento development team can help.

If you want a second opinion on which tool fits your queue, send us the list and we will go through it with you.

The post Shopify Sidekick: What It Does and What Magento Stores Can Use Instead appeared first on scandiweb.

On October 6, we introduced Expedio and showed Magento running 2x faster on a real merchant’s store. We’re happy to announce Expedio is now open-source. The core is now free for any Magento 2 store, and you can install it today. To see where it fits next to other modules, read our comparison of Magento speed optimization extensions.

This article covers what Expedio does, what we measured, what you get for free, and the ways to get it on your store, including letting scandiweb’s Ari, the first Agent for Magento, set it up for you.

Why speed is a reason merchants leave Magento

Shopify has made speed a central part of its pitch to Magento merchants. For an established store, leaving is a big project, given that integrations with warehouses, payment providers, customer accounts, and everything else has to be rebuilt, and features developed over years may need to be built again.

We created Expedio to give those merchants another option – keep the store you have and make it faster.

What Expedio does

Every Magento page is built on the server before a shopper sees anything. Modern themes such as Hyvä have made the browser side fast. The server side is where Magento still loses time, and it gets worse on busy days, when more shoppers mean more pages to build at once.

Expedio works on that server side, underneath your theme. It changes how Magento builds each page, using Liquid, the open-source template language Shopify’s themes are built on. Templates keep the same markup, so your design, admin, catalog and data stay as they are.

You don’t have to switch everything at once. You move your store onto Expedio one page type at a time, and every page you haven’t moved yet keeps running on Magento as before.

Expedio supports Magento Open Source, Adobe Commerce, and Adobe Commerce Cloud, and works with any Magento hosting. It doesn’t support Magento 1.

What’s in the free release

Expedio Open Source is free for anyone running Magento 2. You register, download it, and set it up on your own store. It includes

• The Expedio core
• Documentation and step-by-step setup guides
• Migration skills for moving your pages over

Your team handles the install, adapts your theme, tests on staging, and launches. The free release comes without committed support. If you want version updates, compatibility fixes, and product support, choose the Expedio Supported package. Get the free core here.

The easiest way to set it up? Ask Ari

Ari, the first agent for Magento, can now install Expedio for you. You don’t need a developer to start, and nothing changes on your live store until your team approves it. Connect your store to Ari and ask it to set up Expedio through chat. See how Ari installs Expedio.

Get Expedio for your store

Ready to make your Magento store at least twice as fast? Get Expedio for your store! The core is free for any Magento merchant – install it yourself, let Ari set it up, or have scandiweb implement it across your whole store.

The post Expedio Is Now Open-Source: Make Your Magento Store 2x Faster appeared first on scandiweb.

Update, October 12, 2026: Expedio is now open source, and the core is free for any Magento 2 store. Read the announcement →

We made Magento 2x faster. Here’s how we measured it, and what we found.

How we tested

We took one real merchant’s Magento store on Hyvä, with around 1,000 categories and 20,000 products, and ran two copies of it side by side on one server: one as it runs today, one on Expedio. Same data, same hardware, and no full-page cache on either, so every request had to be built by Magento itself.

We tested eight page types, from the home page to add to cart, at normal traffic and at the point where stock Magento began to struggle. In total: 162 runs and 487,115 requests, on 28 and 29 September 2026.

Our rule while building the comparison was that if an optimization would help both stores equally, we didn’t make it. The gap had to come from Expedio. To run the same kind of comparison on your own store, follow our guide to Magento load testing.

Note! The server ran on ReadyMage, scandiweb’s Magento hosting, where stock Magento already answers in 70 to 472 ms without a page cache. That’s faster than most Magento stores, so every result below comes on top of that. Our guide explains why most Magento stores are slower.

Highlights

• 2x+ faster response time on every page type at peak traffic, from 2.0x on add to cart to 25.9x on the homepage
• 6.4x faster median response time across the eight page types, at peak traffic
• 3x more traffic on the same server
• 655 → 30 database queries on a full category page.

Faster at normal traffic, and even faster at peak

At a normal level of traffic, every page type answered faster on Expedio, from 1.8x on add to cart to 23.7x on the homepage.

Push the traffic up, and the gap widens. Stock Magento’s category page climbed to 400 ms at 20 requests per second, the point where it began to struggle. Expedio held the same page under 30 ms at four times that traffic.

On stock Magento, starting up takes only 15 to 20 ms per page. Most of the time goes into building the page itself, and much of that is spent fetching data piece by piece. On the homepage, stock Magento made 604 database queries per request. Expedio made 11.

The difference holds with every cache emptied too. Across 100 category pages, each opened once from cold, stock Magento took a median of 181 ms of server time, and Expedio took 57 ms, 3.2x faster.

What this benchmark doesn’t show

• These are server response times, measured as time to first byte, not full page load in a browser.
• One real merchant’s store was tested, with its own extensions and customizations. Results from more stores are coming.
• Cart and checkout aren’t part of this comparison.
• Results on shared or slower hosting weren’t measured.

Get the full report

Download the complete benchmark and learn about the technology behind Expedio, including:

• Results for every page type at normal and peak traffic
• Traffic capacity per page type
• How server time splits between start-up and building the page
• Database queries and cache round trips per page
• Build time by page section
• A sneak peek at the technology behind Expedio.

See the difference for yourself in the live demo at expedio-demo.scandiweb.com.

The Expedio core is free and open source for any Magento 2 store. Install it yourself, let Ari set it up, or have scandiweb implement it across your whole store with 2x speed guaranteed by contract. Learn what it takes to get Expedio!

The post Expedio Benchmark: How Much Faster Magento Gets appeared first on scandiweb.

We have loudly claimed that Magento is no longer slow. scandiweb made Magento 2x+ faster. Today, October 6, we’re introducing the solution to back it up: Expedio.

Update, October 12, 2026: Expedio is now open-source. The core is free for any Magento 2 store, and Ari, the first agent for Magento, can install it for you. Read the announcement →.

We decided to fix the part everyone else had given up on.

Antons Sapriko, Executive Chairman of scandiweb

Where Magento is slow

A page reaches a shopper in two steps. First, the server builds the page and starts sending it: that wait is the time to first byte. Our guide to reducing server response time explains what TTFB measures and how to bring it down. Then the shopper’s browser turns it into something they can see and use.

Modern Magento themes such as Hyvä have largely solved the second step. The first step is where Magento is still slow, and that’s the step Expedio takes on.

What Expedio does

Expedio speeds up Magento’s backend, the part that builds each page before a shopper sees it. It replaces the way the server builds the pages it serves, while the store, its design, and its data stay exactly as they are.

Hyvä pushed Magento’s frontend to the max, and Expedio is doing the same for its backend. A store can run both, and together they make the fastest Magento setup available today.

Expedio works with Magento 2, including Magento Open Source, Adobe Commerce, and Adobe Commerce Cloud, on Hyvä, Luma, and custom themes. It’s rolled out page type by page type, and checkout keeps running exactly as it does today, so payment and shipping integrations stay untouched.

What changes for your store

For your team, nothing changes. The admin, catalog, prices, checkout, orders, and storefront design all stay as they are. The store simply is 2x+ faster.

We measure your store’s key pages before we start, adapt Expedio to your store, and test it on a staging copy, so your live store stays as it is until you approve the switch.

Magento should be fast on its own, not because a cache happened to hold the page. Every page in milliseconds, for every visitor, every time.

Aleksandrs Mokans, Solutions Architect at scandiweb and the engineer behind Expedio

Results

We tested Expedio on one real merchant’s Magento store, with around 1,000 categories and 20,000 products. Two copies of the same store ran side by side on one server: one as it runs today, one on Expedio, with no full-page cache on either.

• 2x+ faster response time on every page type at peak traffic, up to 25.9x on the home page
• 6.4x faster median response time across the eight page types tested
• 3x more traffic on the same server
• 3.2x faster with all caches empty
• 655 → 30 database queries on a full category page.

One thing worth noting: the test ran on ReadyMage, scandiweb’s Magento hosting, where stock Magento already answers in 70 to 472 ms without a page cache. That’s faster than most Magento stores, so every improvement above comes on top of a strong baseline. How stock Magento compares with other platforms on server response is in our fastest eCommerce platform research.

See it for yourself

Our live demo runs the same store twice, on the same data and hardware. Click anything on one side and the other follows, with the timings measured live – try the live demo!

Learn what it takes to get Expedio for your store! Expedio is available to all Magento merchants, and it works with any Magento hosting. The core is free and open-source. Get Expedio for your store today.

The post Meet Expedio: How We Made Magento 2x Faster appeared first on scandiweb.

“How do I get my order data out of Magento?” is one of the most common questions a store admin types the moment finance asks for a sales report or invoice from last quarter, or the warehouse needs something. The good news is that Magento (Adobe Commerce) gives you several ways to do it. The trick is knowing which method fits the job, because the fastest one is also the most limited.

In this guide, we’ll walk through every practical route to export orders in Magento 2, from the two-click admin grid export to scheduled, automated feeds and a developer-level programmatic approach. You will also see exactly where native export is no longer sufficient so you do not discover a missing column after the report has already been sent.

What does exporting orders in Magento 2 mean?

Exporting orders means pulling order records out of your store database into a portable file, usually CSV or XML, so the data can be read, analyzed, or loaded into another system. It is the bridge between Magento and the tools that run the rest of your business.

In practice, merchants export orders for a handful of recurring reasons: feeding accounting and ERP systems, sending fulfillment data to a warehouse or third-party logistics partner, building sales reports, reconciling payments, or migrating to a new setup. Each use case has a different bar for completeness, which is why one export method rarely covers everything.

Why getting order export right matters to the business

Magento and Adobe Commerce still power roughly 8% of the global eCommerce platform market and serve close to 20% of the top 1,000 US retailers, according to 2026 market data compiled by MGT-Commerce. The brands running on it tend to be mid-market and enterprise, where a single botched export can stall fulfillment or throw off a financial close.

The stakes are higher in B2B. Industry data reported across 2026 shows B2B stores on Magento carry an average order value around 2.5 times that of B2C, so each order record often represents thousands of dollars and a complex set of line items, tax rules, and account terms.

Clean, reliable exports protect:

• Accuracy of your reporting
• Speed of your fulfillment
• Trust other teams place in the data.

How do I export orders from the Magento 2 admin?

The fastest way to export orders is the native admin grid: go to Sales > Orders, select the orders you want, choose CSV or XML from the Export dropdown, and download; no extension required.

Here is the full sequence:

Prerequisites

• Admin access with permission to view the Sales > Orders grid.
• A spreadsheet tool (Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers) or the target system that will read the file.
• A clear idea of the date range, status, or store view you need, so you do not export the entire order history by accident.

Step 1: Open the Orders grid

From the admin sidebar, go to Sales > Orders. This grid lists every order across your store views, with columns for ID, purchase date, status, customer, grand total, and more.

Step 2: Filter and choose your columns

Use the Filters button to narrow by date range, order status, store view, or customer group. Then open the Columns control to add or hide fields. This matters: the export captures only the columns currently visible in the grid, so add anything you need (billing name, payment method, shipping method) before you export.

Step 3: Select the orders

Tick the checkboxes for the orders you want, or use Select All to grab every order that matches your current filter. The grid is paginated, so confirm you are selecting across all pages rather than just the page on screen.

Step 4: Export to CSV or XML

Open the Export dropdown at the top right of the grid, choose CSV or XML (Excel), and click Export. Magento generates the file and downloads it to your browser. CSV is the right default for spreadsheets and most accounting imports. XML suits structured, hierarchical data and some integration tools.

Step 5: Verify the file

Open the file and confirm the row count matches your filter, and the columns you expected are present. If the download does not appear, clear the cache under System > Cache Management and try again.

What are the limits of the native Magento order export?

The native export only includes the order grid columns. It does not include line item details, full shipping and billing addresses, or payment method specifics, so it is best for quick lists.

A few specifics worth knowing before you rely on it:

• No line items – you get the order total, not the individual products, SKUs, or quantities inside each order. Warehouses and ERPs usually need the line detail
• Flattened data only – one row per order. Anything that is a one-to-many relationship (products, status history, multiple addresses) does not fit cleanly
• Manual and on-demand – every export is a person clicking a button. There is no built-in schedule, no automatic delivery to an SFTP server or your finance system
• Performance on large grids – exporting tens of thousands of orders at once can time out on stores that have not been tuned for it.

If your export needs stop at “give me a list of recent orders and totals,” the native tool is perfect. The moment you need product-level data, automation, or delivery somewhere other than your own download folder, move up to one of the methods below.

How do I export orders automatically on a schedule?

To export orders automatically, install an order export extension that supports scheduled exports via Magento cron, then configure an export profile that runs on a recurring interval and delivers the file by SFTP, FTP, email, or API.

Extensions such as Amasty Export Orders, XTENTO Order Export, Mageworx, and Firebear run alongside Magento and add three things the native export lacks: full field mapping (including line items and third-party fields), filtering rules, and automated delivery on a schedule.

The typical setup with an export extension

1. Install the extension via Composer and run the standard upgrade and compile commands, or have your developer or support partner handle it
2. Create an export profile, name it, choose the entity (orders), and pick the output format (CSV, XML, or a custom template)
3. Map your fields by selecting exactly which order, customer, line item, and address fields go into the file, and renaming headers to match the target system
4. Set filters – limit by order status, store view, date range, or customer group so each run exports only the relevant orders
5. Schedule and deliver. Set the cron interval (hourly, daily, on order placement) and the destination: SFTP, FTP, email, or a REST endpoint on the receiving system
6. Test once manually, confirm the file lands correctly, then let cron take over.

Done well, this turns order export from a daily chore into a feed your finance, fulfillment, and analytics teams can rely on without touching the admin. For stores that connect Magento to an ERP, OMS, or marketplace, this overlaps heavily with broader data integration work, where the export is one half of a two-way sync that keeps Magento inventory management aligned with each order that ships.

Magento order export methods compared

How do developers export Magento orders programmatically?

Developers export orders programmatically by querying order data through Magento’s repositories or the REST API (for example, the GET /rest/V1/orders endpoint) and writing it to a file or pushing it to another system in code.

This is the most flexible route and the one to reach for when no extension fits the exact shape of data a partner system demands. Common patterns include:

• REST API pulls. The orders endpoint with search criteria filters returns full order objects, including items and addresses, as JSON for a downstream service to consume in near real time.
• A custom CLI command or cron job. A small module uses OrderRepositoryInterface and a search criteria builder to fetch orders, then writes a CSV or XML file to a defined directory or SFTP target.
• Event observers. An observer on an order event (for example, when an order is placed or invoiced) appends that order to an export queue, so the feed stays current without a full re-export.

The same techniques extend beyond orders. Teams that ask how to export products programmatically in Magento 2 use the equivalent product repositories and the catalog import/export framework, often to keep a PIM or marketplace listing in sync. The principle is identical: query the right entity, shape the output, and deliver it on a trigger.

Programmatic export gives you total control, but it is also code your team has to maintain through every Magento upgrade. If you do not have in-house Magento engineers, a managed eCommerce support partner can build and own the export job so it does not break the next time you patch.

How to choose the right export method

Pick the method by matching how often you need to export and how complete the data has to be. A short decision guide:

• One-off list or simple report? Use the native admin export to CSV; it costs nothing and takes two clicks
• Recurring feed to an ERP, 3PL, or finance tool, with line items? Use an export extension with a scheduled profile and SFTP or email delivery
• Real-time sync or a data shape no extension supports? Build a programmatic export through the REST API or a custom module
• Migrating platforms or building a long-term integration? Treat export as part of a wider architecture decision.

Start with the native export to confirm the fields you need, then graduate to automation only when manual exports become a recurring tax on someone’s week.

Frequently asked questions

How do I export all orders from Magento 2?

Go to Sales > Orders, clear any filters so the grid shows the full order history, use Select All across all pages, then choose CSV or XML from the Export dropdown and click Export. For very large stores, an extension or programmatic export handles the volume more reliably.

How do I export Magento 2 orders to CSV?

In the Sales > Orders grid, select the orders, open the Export dropdown, choose CSV, and click Export. Magento generates a comma-separated file with one row per order containing the columns currently shown in the grid.

Why are line items and product details missing from my export?

The native admin export only includes order grid columns, so it omits individual line items, full addresses, and payment specifics. To capture that detail, use an order export extension or a programmatic export through the REST API or a custom module.

Can I export Magento orders automatically on a schedule?

Not with the native tool. To schedule exports you install an export extension that runs on Magento cron, or build a custom cron job, then configure a profile to deliver the file by SFTP, FTP, email, or API on a set interval.

Where do exported order files go?

Native admin exports download straight to your browser’s default download folder. Scheduled and programmatic exports write to wherever you configure them, typically an SFTP or FTP server, an email recipient, or a directory inside your Magento install.

Can I export products programmatically in Magento 2 too?

Yes. Developers use the product repositories and the catalog import/export framework, or the REST catalog endpoints, to export product data on a trigger or schedule. It mirrors the order export approach and is often used to keep a PIM or marketplace feed in sync.

What is the best way to export orders for an ERP integration?

For an ERP, use a scheduled export with full field mapping (orders, line items, addresses, payment, and tax) delivered to an SFTP location or API the ERP can consume. An export extension covers most cases, and a programmatic export handles bespoke or real-time requirements.

Want your order data, on your terms, flowing into the systems that run your business? Our team can automate your exports and keep them reliable through every Magento upgrade.

The post How to Export Orders in Magento 2: CSV, XML, and Automation appeared first on scandiweb.

Across 30 million Shopify sessions, Deloitte and Google found that a 0.1-second speed gain lifts sales by 8.4%. If your Shopify store loads in 4 seconds on mobile, that is the gap between the revenue you have and the revenue the same traffic could earn at 2 seconds.

This guide walks through what is actually slowing Shopify stores in 2026, how to diagnose it, and the structural fixes that move a real store from a PageSpeed score in the 20s to the high 80s. Every tip below has been used by the scandiweb Shopify team on live client work.

Overview

• The single biggest cause of slow Shopify stores in 2026 is third-party app sprawl, not the platform itself. In Chrome’s real-user data, most Shopify stores already have a good server response time, as our fastest eCommerce platform research shows.
• A good mobile PageSpeed score for a real Shopify store sits between 60 and 80, not 100.
• The fastest wins come from auditing apps, compressing images, and deferring non-critical scripts, in that order.

What slows Shopify stores in 2026

The average Shopify store now installs 15 to 20 apps, and each one can add between 100 and 500 milliseconds of JavaScript to every page load (Easy Apps eCom, 2026). The result is predictable: a default Shopify theme without customisation often scores around 70 on mobile, while the same store with a typical app stack drops into the 20s.

The four root causes the scandiweb Shopify team sees most often:

• Render-blocking app scripts that load synchronously on every page
• Hero images and homepage carousels with unoptimised file sizes
• Third-party tracking pixels firing before the main thread is free
• Legacy theme code with deprecated patterns from earlier Online Store versions

None of these are platform limitations. They are configuration problems with concrete fixes.

How do I check my Shopify store speed?

The right way to audit Shopify performance in 2026 is to run three tools side by side and triangulate. No single tool gives the full picture. For the server side, our guide covers how to measure and improve server response time (TTFB).

• Google PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) and mobile/desktop scores
• Shopify’s own performance dashboard in the admin for the store-wide trend
• Google Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools for the detailed render trace and the unused-JavaScript report

Mobile results will always look worse than desktop. That is normal. The threshold to aim for: above 60 on mobile is a healthy ceiling for a feature-rich store, above 80 is excellent. Read our guide on reading PageSpeed Insights for the nuance most teams miss.

9 ways to speed up your Shopify store

These nine fixes are ordered by impact. Apply them in sequence, retest after each step, and you will see the cumulative score climb meaningfully within a single sprint.

1. Audit and remove unused apps

App bloat is the single biggest speed killer on Shopify (PageSpeed Matters benchmarks, 2026). Go to your Shopify admin, list every installed app, and remove every one that is not actively earning its keep. Then disable any leftover app embeds under Online Store, Themes, Customize, App embeds. Stopping the script from loading is faster than optimising it.

2. Compress images

Hero images and product photography in PNG or non-optimised JPEG are a common cause of long LCP times. Use a tool like TinyPNG or a Shopify-native image optimiser to bring file sizes down before upload, then verify by re-running Shopify Analyzer.

3. Implement lazy loading

Make sure the hero image above the fold loads eagerly, and every image below the fold uses loading="lazy". Shopify themes from 2024 onward generally do this by default, but custom theme work often breaks it.

4. Minify JavaScript and CSS

Use a tool like JavaScript and CSS Minifier to remove whitespace, comments, and dead code from theme files. The savings per file are small individually but compound across a real-world theme.

5. Reduce HTTP requests

Each request is a round-trip your browser pays for. Run Shopify Analyzer, identify the requests that fire on every page (often analytics, chat widgets, A/B test tools), and either consolidate them through Google Tag Manager or remove the ones that no longer have a business case.

6. Defer or remove third-party scripts

Tracking pixels for Meta, TikTok, Klaviyo, and similar services should not block the initial render. Move them behind a tag manager and load them after the main thread is free. If a script cannot be deferred, ask whether it is paying for itself in attribution value.

7. Optimize theme code

Reduce HTML parent elements where possible. Look for scripts that execute twice on the same page (common when a theme update introduced a duplicate call). Tighten the CSS structure. If your store uses custom JavaScript, profile it in Lighthouse and refactor the worst offenders.

8. Use a lightweight theme

Themes built on Shopify Online Store 2.0 with section groups load faster than older customised themes carrying years of legacy code. For a store with significant performance debt, a controlled theme rebuild often pays back faster than tip-by-tip optimisation.

9. Monitor with Web Vitals

Speed is not a one-time fix. Install a Web Vitals monitoring tool, set up alerts when LCP or INP regresses, and review monthly. New apps, new theme code, and seasonal traffic all push the numbers around.

scandiweb case study: From PageSpeed 20 to 89

The scandiweb Shopify team recently launched a store on Online Store 2.0 for a client who arrived with a mobile PageSpeed score of 20. Within one optimisation sprint, the score climbed to 59. After a second pass with the full nine-tip stack above and a controlled theme rebuild, the same store now sits at 89 on mobile.

The order of operations that produced the 20-to-89 climb:

• App audit and removal first, dropping nine non-essential apps. Mobile score climbed from 20 to 38.
• Image compression and lazy-loading pass next. Score moved from 38 to 51.
• Third-party tracking script consolidation under Google Tag Manager. Score climbed to 59.
• Theme refactor and unused-CSS removal. Final score of 89 on mobile, 96 on desktop.

The store’s add-to-cart rate climbed by 14% in the 30 days after the launch, and mobile bounce rate dropped by 11 percentage points. The 0.1-second-equals-8.4% Deloitte benchmark held up almost perfectly in practice.

How fast should a Shopify store load in 2026?

The honest answer in 2026 is that Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on mobile is the target. Most Shopify stores sit between 3.2 and 5.1 seconds, which is above the Core Web Vitals threshold. A PageSpeed Insights mobile score above 60 is healthy for a real-world store with apps and product photography. Above 80 is excellent.

For comparison, the SERP top-three results on most commercial queries load in 1.8 to 2.4 seconds and score above 75 on mobile. That is the bar your store needs to clear to compete for the same traffic.

When should you hire a Shopify performance specialist?

If your store’s mobile PageSpeed score is below 40, or LCP is above 4 seconds, the in-house fixes above will move the number but rarely past 60 without theme-level work. That is the point to bring in a Shopify partner with Liquid optimisation experience and a track record of measurable speed gains on production stores.

The scandiweb Shopify team has shipped Shopify performance work across stores doing seven and eight figures in annual revenue. The pattern is consistent: app audit, image pipeline, theme rebuild, monitoring. The order matters more than the tactics.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my Shopify store so slow?

The most common cause is third-party app sprawl. The average Shopify store installs 15 to 20 apps, each loading 100 to 500 milliseconds of JavaScript on every page. Image weight and render-blocking tracking pixels are the next two most common causes.

What is a good PageSpeed score for Shopify?

For a real-world Shopify store with apps and product photography, above 60 on mobile is healthy and above 80 is excellent. Chasing 100 is rarely a good use of engineering time once you are past 80.

Does Shopify performance affect SEO?

Yes. Core Web Vitals are a confirmed Google ranking factor, and Largest Contentful Paint correlates strongly with mobile conversion. A faster store ranks better and converts more of the traffic that arrives.

How long does Shopify speed optimization take?

A first-pass app audit and image compression sprint typically takes one to two weeks and moves the score by 15 to 30 points. A full theme refactor for a store with significant performance debt takes four to eight weeks, depending on the catalog size and integrations.

Can I optimize Shopify performance without a developer?

Partly. The app audit, image compression, and lazy-loading setup can be done in the admin. Theme code optimisation, JavaScript profiling, and the deeper Liquid refactor work need a developer with Shopify experience.

Does Shopify Plus load faster than the standard plan?

Not directly. Shopify Plus and the standard plan run on the same infrastructure. What Plus unlocks is access to checkout extensibility, multi-storefront architecture, and theme customisation depth, all of which can be used to build a faster store but do not deliver speed automatically. See our Shopify vs Shopify Plus comparison for the full breakdown.

About this guide

Maintained by the scandiweb Shopify team. Reviewed by Rolands Popovs, COO. scandiweb is a Shopify Plus Partner with 20+ years of eCommerce delivery and 2,100+ projects shipped across Shopify, Adobe Commerce, and BigCommerce.

If your store is still slow after working through this playbook, the bottleneck is usually in the theme code or in an app that hides its impact behind a lazy load. Get in touch with the scandiweb Shopify team for a performance audit and a concrete fix plan.

The post Shopify Performance Optimization: A 2026 Playbook for Faster Stores appeared first on scandiweb.

If you’re weighing Shopify against Shopify Plus, you’re probably in one of three rooms: a Basic or Advanced store outgrowing rate limits, B2B requests, or expansion-store sprawl; a finance review where third-party gateway fees suddenly dwarf the subscription; or a planning meeting where someone said “headless” and the dev team quoted Plus.

All three end on the same spreadsheet, with the same question: when does the upgrade actually pay back?

Short answer — Plus pays back the day your third-party gateway fees plus your subscription cross roughly $2,300 a month, which usually happens between $500K and $700K monthly revenue, well before the often-quoted $1M GMV threshold.

The rest of this guide covers the features, pricing, and migration realities that shift that number for B2B, multi-region, and headless builds — drawn from 20+ Shopify migrations scandiweb has shipped since 2014 (The New York Times, Durex, Hope-sthlm, Kouboo, and Edasi).

Why trust this guide

• Shopify Plus Partner since 2014; Adobe Commerce Gold and Hyvä Platinum Partner
• 2,100+ eCommerce projects, $4B+ in annual client GMV, 700+ brands across 40+ industries
• ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, and PCI DSS certified
• Shopify clients include The New York Times, Durex, Hope-sthlm, Kouboo, and Edasi

What is Shopify Plus, and how is it different from standard Shopify?

Shopify Plus is the enterprise tier of Shopify. It runs on the same platform as Basic, Shopify, and Advanced – but removes the limits and adds an enterprise support and B2B layer. The standard plans fit stores up to roughly $1M–$2M annual revenue; Plus is designed for everything above that, plus any store that needs customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-region operations, a customized checkout, or a headless storefront.

Standard plan pricing: Basic $39/mo, Shopify $105/mo, Advanced $399/mo. Plus is $2,300/mo or 0.4% of monthly revenue (whichever is higher), capped around $40,000/mo at very high volume.

The full-feature delta is in the table below; the key one is that Plus removes Shopify’s 0.5% transaction fee on third-party payment gateways – the line that drives most of the upgrade math (see Shopify’s published rate limits for the API ceiling).

Shopify vs. Shopify Plus: side-by-side comparison

Pricing reflects Shopify’s published rates as of May 2026; verify against shopify.com before signing.

Where the gap actually matters: a deeper look at Shopify Plus features

Checkout and Checkout Extensibility

The largest functional gap between Shopify and Shopify Plus is checkout. Standard plans get Checkout Extensibility with restrictions on extension count, custom JS, and branding. Plus opens the full surface: apps and UI extensions on every checkout step, Shopify Functions for custom discount and shipping logic, and a Branding API for pixel-level visual control.

For high-AOV brands, checkout A/B testers, and B2B sellers with negotiated pricing, this single capability often justifies the upgrade. (Note: Shopify’s older Scripts layer is deprecated in favor of Functions, so any Scripts-dependent merchant should plan a Functions migration alongside the Plus move.)

B2B on Shopify and Shopify Plus

Since 2 April 2026, Shopify B2B is native on Basic, Grow, and Advanced: company accounts, up to three catalogs, quantity rules, volume pricing, net payment terms, and draft orders. Plus ships the full stack: unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned directly to a company location for customer-specific pricing, deposits, and partial payments. The separate Wholesale channel closed on 30 April 2024, and B2B now runs inside the Shopify admin.

For merchants moving off Magento B2B, BigCommerce B2B Edition, or legacy ERPs, this is the feature that forces the decision. If B2B is more than 10–15% of revenue and your buyers have their own negotiated prices, you’ll need Plus. We cover the broader picture in our B2B eCommerce overview.

Shopify Functions, Flow, and the Scripts replacement

Shopify Functions (server-side WebAssembly modules for discounts, shipping, payments, and cart validation) are on every plan, but Plus gets higher execution limits and priority handling. Shopify Flow, the no-code automation engine, is also on every plan; Plus adds advanced templates and unlimited workflow runs that matter at scale – fraud auto-cancellation, B2B approval routing, post-purchase tagging for retention.

Multi-store and Organization Admin

If you sell into multiple regions or run multiple brands, the Organization Admin is the biggest operational reason to upgrade. From one dashboard you manage up to nine expansion stores plus dev stores, with unified permissions and consolidated analytics. Standard Shopify gives you exactly one store per plan. A typical international DTC config looks like five stores under one contract: US, EU, UK, APAC, plus a B2B Wholesale store.

APIs, rate limits, and headless commerce

The API ceiling is where standard Shopify breaks for technical teams. Plus has roughly 20× the call rate on REST and GraphQL, which is what makes a serious build on Hydrogen, React, or Next.js viable. If your roadmap includes a PWA, a native mobile app pulling live catalog data, or any real-time personalization layer, you’ll hit the standard rate limits within weeks of go-live. It is the single constraint we run into first on non-Plus stores; we cover it in our headless commerce practice.

POS Pro, staff accounts, and permissions

Plus includes Shopify POS Pro at up to 200 locations – the right answer for retail chains, pop-up networks, and omnichannel brands. Standard plans charge POS Pro per location as an add-on. Staff accounts go from 15 on Advanced to unlimited on Plus, with granular role-based permissions. See our omnichannel retail case studies for the patterns that work.

Apps, themes, and customization limits

The App Store and Theme Store are the same across all plans, but Plus merchants get earlier feature access, fewer Liquid restrictions, and higher limits on custom apps and metafields. See our best Shopify integrations and Shopify themes guide for the picks we install most.

Security, compliance, and uptime SLA

Plus is the only Shopify tier with a published 99.99% uptime SLA, and the only tier suitable for enterprise compliance reviews. PCI DSS Level 1 is baked into Shopify itself, but if procurement wants SOC 2 reports, ISO 27001 attestation chains, or audit logs, Plus is the practical floor.

How much is Shopify Plus in 2026?

Shopify Plus costs $2,300/mo or 0.4% of monthly revenue (whichever is higher), capped around $40,000/mo at very high volume. The variable component kicks in past ~$800K monthly revenue. In practice, almost every Plus merchant signs a one- or three-year contract and negotiates discounts at higher GMV commitments.

For comparison, standard Shopify plan pricing:

“Shopify enterprise pricing” is the same thing as Shopify Plus pricing – Plus is the enterprise tier. There is no separate enterprise SKU above Plus.

Hidden costs of Shopify Plus

The sticker price is only part of TCO. A realistic Plus budget includes:

• Apps and subscriptions: $500–$5,000+/mo (subs, reviews, search, loyalty, ERP connectors)
• Shopify Payments: 2.4–2.9% + 30¢/txn – Plus removes the 0.5% third-party gateway cut but processing fees still apply
• Theme dev or headless build: one-time $30K–$200K+
• Migration from Magento, BigCommerce, or legacy: $40K–$250K+ depending on data volume, integrations, and B2B complexity
• Ongoing dev and maintenance: 0.5–2 FTEs internal, or a Plus Partner retainer

For a breakdown against your stack, talk to scandiweb.

Shopify Plus vs. Shopify Advanced: when does the math flip?

The fastest payback test is transaction fees alone. On Advanced you pay $399/mo plus 0.5% on third-party gateway transactions; process $500K/mo through a third-party gateway and you’re at ~$2,900 all in. On Plus the 0.5% disappears – Plus is $2,300/mo flat at that volume. In practice the flip happens earlier because Plus also reduces some app costs and cuts operational workarounds.

When to upgrade from Shopify to Shopify Plus

Upgrade when the math pays back, or when a feature you need is only available on Plus.

Revenue thresholds

The industry rule of thumb is to consider Plus past $1M annual GMV and commit by $2M – which holds for single-region DTC on Shopify Payments. The threshold moves earlier for B2B-heavy merchants and multi-region rollouts (Plus removes third-party gateway fees and adds Plus-only B2B features and Organization Admin at the same time) and later for single-region Shopify Payments merchants, who often don’t hit payback until $3M–$5M annual GMV. Revenue is a lagging signal: if a B2B, headless, or multi-region launch is six months out, upgrade now – migration sits on its critical path.

Operational signals that override the revenue threshold

Upgrade when any of these are true, regardless of revenue:

• You need B2B with customer-specific price lists, more than three catalogs, deposits, or partial payments
• You’re launching in a second country and need a separate store with its own currency, language, and tax setup
• You need to customize checkout beyond what apps allow
• You’re going headless on Hydrogen or a custom front-end and need API headroom
• You operate more than 10 retail locations and need POS Pro at scale
• Procurement, legal, or compliance demands a published uptime SLA and enterprise contracts
• You’re hitting API rate limits or staff seat caps weekly

If two or more apply, it’s no longer whether to upgrade – only when.

How to upgrade to Shopify Plus, step by step

1. Contact Shopify or a Shopify Plus Partner. Sales conversation, needs assessment, contract negotiation – allow two to four weeks. A Plus Partner can usually shorten the cycle and negotiate better terms.
2. Plan the technical move. Existing Shopify stores upgrade in-place. From Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or custom: data migration, theme rebuild, and integrations are the real project – allow one to four months.
3. Configure Plus capabilities. Expansion stores, Organization Admin permissions, Flow workflows, custom checkout extensions, B2B catalogs. Get Organization Admin right the first time – it’s hard to refactor later.

Pair the move with a Shopify SEO checklist review and a performance optimization pass; those two account for most avoidable revenue loss during platform changes.

Is Shopify Plus worth it?

Below $1M GMV, single market, no customer-specific B2B pricing, no headless plans: not yet – standard Shopify gets you 90% of the way for a tenth of the cost. Above $1M GMV, or any merchant who needs customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-store, headless, or customized checkout: yes, and the payback usually lands inside 6–12 months. The case studies below show what the lift looks like in practice; see also our conversion rate optimization practice for the architecture work that compounds the Plus upgrade.

Shopify Plus case studies from our portfolio

A few of the migrations behind the numbers in this article.

The New York Times Store – Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus in 60 days

A 170-year-old brand with 50,000+ catalog items replatformed off Adobe Commerce onto Shopify Plus in 60 days, ahead of Black Friday. Outcomes: ~20% YOY revenue lift, 40% organic traffic growth, and Black Friday peaks 10–15× baseline absorbed without incident. See our interview with Robyn Metzger at The New York Times.

J.R. Dunn Jewelers – Magento 1 to Shopify with 150,000+ diamond SKUs

A family-owned luxury jeweler moved off Magento 1 onto Shopify in 6.5 months, with a perfect 100 SEO score at launch and a structure ready for the planned ERP integration. Build scope: 150K+ diamond SKUs, 72K+ historical orders, bespoke multi-vendor catalog logic. Full write-up: Magento 1 to Shopify migration for a luxury jewelry brand.

Kouboo – SEO-led Magento 2 to Shopify migration, +107% organic revenue

A rattan furniture brand replatformed from Magento 2 onto Shopify with SEO continuity mapped before cutover, then continued on a multi-year on-page content program. Outcomes: +72% organic traffic, +107% organic revenue, +138% top-3 keywords, +100% visibility, +32% clicks. Read the Kouboo SEO and migration case study.

Mrs Wordsmith – multi-region Shopify, URL restructure, +150% conversion rate

An education brand running Shopify across US, UK, and AU was splitting authority across three duplicate-content subdomains. We consolidated to one global domain on subfolders, fixed hreflang, restructured URLs, and added structured data. Outcomes: +150% conversion rate, +200% organic revenue, +65% organic traffic, +100% visibility, +80% top-3 keywords, +45% clicks. Full write-up: SEO case study: URL restructure leads to +150% in conversion rate.

Shopify Plus vs. alternatives

If you’re shopping enterprise platforms, Plus is one of several serious contenders. The short verdict on each:

• Adobe Commerce (Magento). Plus has lower TCO and faster time-to-launch. Magento still wins for ERP-driven catalogs and deep B2B.
• BigCommerce Enterprise. Closer comparison on price predictability. Plus wins on app ecosystem, checkout, and POS.
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Plus wins on speed and cost. SFCC is the right call only if Salesforce already owns the rest of the stack.
• commercetools and composable. Plus wins on time-to-value. Composable wins for very large enterprises that have the dev team to support it. We compared both in our commercetools vs. Shopify breakdown.
• WooCommerce. Different category, but a frequent upgrade path. See our Shopify vs. WooCommerce comparison.

For more side-by-sides, our platform comparisons library covers most enterprise stacks.

Planning a Shopify Plus migration

Most Plus migrations we run land in one of three shapes:

• Fast-track, 2–4 weeks. Single store, clean data, no B2B or custom checkout, off a similar-shape platform.
• Standard build, 1–2 months. New theme, ERP/WMS/PIM integrations, data layer + analytics, SEO redirect map, launch QA.
• Complex migration, 3–6 months. Magento or commercetools origin, B2B + DTC side by side, multi-region, headless, multiple ERP/PIM/OMS integrations.

The biggest predictor of post-launch performance is whether SEO and data-layer continuity are planned before cutover, not patched after. We build both into every migration through our SEO services team, and increasingly through Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for clients who want to show up in AI-generated answers, not just blue links.

FAQ

How much is Shopify Plus? $2,300/mo or 0.4% of monthly revenue (whichever is higher), capped around $40,000/mo at very high volume.

What is the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus? Same platform; Plus removes the limits. Full checkout customization, unlimited B2B catalogs, up to nine expansion stores, ~20× API rate limits, 200 POS Pro locations, 99.99% uptime SLA, and a dedicated Merchant Success Manager. Complete list in the table above.

Is Shopify Plus worth it? Yes above $1M GMV or for any merchant needing customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-store, headless, or customized checkout. No below $1M with a single market and a standard checkout – Advanced is enough.

When should I upgrade to Shopify Plus? When two or more apply: above $1M GMV, launching B2B with customer-specific pricing, expanding to a new region, going headless, customizing checkout beyond apps, or scaling past 10 retail locations.

What is the Shopify Plus minimum revenue requirement? None published. The math typically works above $1M annual GMV for single-region DTC, and earlier for B2B-heavy or multi-region merchants.

Shopify Plus vs. Shopify Advanced: which should I pick? Advanced for a single-store, single-market DTC brand under $1M GMV. Plus if you need customer-specific B2B pricing, multi-store, headless, custom checkout, or you’re paying more in third-party gateway fees than the subscription delta.

Does Shopify Plus include B2B? Yes – native B2B with company accounts, unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned to individual company locations, payment terms, draft orders, deposits, and partial payments. Since 2 April 2026, Basic, Grow, and Advanced also include B2B with up to three catalogs.

Can I run multiple stores on Shopify Plus? Yes – up to nine expansion stores plus dev stores, all managed from one Organization Admin.

How long does a Shopify Plus migration take? Two weeks for a fast-track move off a similar platform; three to six months for a complex enterprise migration with B2B, headless, and multiple integrations. Typical full build is one to two months.

Further reading on Shopify and Shopify Plus

• How to Migrate to Shopify: a Step-by-Step Guide for eCommerce Brands – the operational checklist behind every migration we run
• 8 Best Shopify Alternatives for Complex Commerce in 2026 – the four platforms that genuinely replace Plus when it is not the right answer
• Shopify Redesign and Growth Foundation for Salt Life – DTC fashion redesign and growth foundation on Shopify
• Mil-Coffee – new website design and build on Shopify – DTC subscription build on Shopify, focused on coffee, delivery, and accessories
• Conversational commerce brings back 31% of churned customers – Shopify plus an AI sales agent on WhatsApp at Zorro
• Building a €150K/month lifecycle revenue engine in 5 markets – Felco’s centralized email + SMS program live in 30 days across 5 markets and 3 languages
• Best Shopify Agencies in the US & EU: 2026 Picks – for buyers evaluating partner agencies
• scandiweb portfolio – complete portfolio across Shopify and enterprise eCommerce

If you’re weighing the Shopify Plus upgrade and want a model built against your actual numbers, current GMV, gateway fees, app stack, B2B and multi-region roadmap, talk to scandiweb. We’ll model the payback, scope the migration, and tell you when Plus actually starts working for your business.

The post Shopify vs. Shopify Plus: Features, Pricing & When to Upgrade appeared first on scandiweb.

Hyvä is a modern frontend framework for Magento 2 that replaces the default Luma theme. Instead of the RequireJS, KnockoutJS, jQuery, and LESS stack that Luma carries, Hyvä builds the storefront on Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS, which cuts the frontend down to a handful of files and produces page speed scores Luma cannot reach. This guide explains what Hyvä is, why merchants move to it, and exactly how to install it on Magento 2.

Overview

• Hyvä is a Magento 2 frontend framework that replaces the Luma theme and removes RequireJS, KnockoutJS, jQuery, and LESS in favor of Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS.
• As of November 10, 2025, the core Hyvä Theme is free and open source under the OSL3 and AFL3 licenses, the same licenses as Magento Open Source.
• Installation is a Composer require, three Magento CLI commands, and theme activation under Content > Design > Configuration, on Magento 2.4.4+ with PHP 8.1+ and Node.js.

What is Hyvä for Magento 2?

Hyvä is a frontend framework for Magento 2 that fully replaces the default Luma theme and offers a lighter alternative to a full PWA build. It strips out RequireJS, KnockoutJS, jQuery, and LESS, then rebuilds the storefront on Alpine.js for interactivity and Tailwind CSS for styling. Per Mageplaza’s Hyvä Theme guide, that change takes a standard Luma frontend of 230+ files down to roughly 5 and slashes page weight enough to reach near-perfect PageSpeed scores.

Hyvä was created by Willem Wigman and first launched in 2021. It lands between two extremes most Magento merchants already know. Luma is reliable but slow and dependency-heavy, while a headless or PWA storefront is fast but expensive to build and maintain. Hyvä keeps the storefront server-rendered and tied to native Magento, so most extensions and admin workflows behave the way your team expects, while delivering the speed that usually requires a much larger frontend project. For a side-by-side look at how Hyvä ranks against other Magento themes, see our top 10 list.

Why merchants choose Hyvä

The short answer is speed, a simpler stack, and, since late 2025, a far lower cost of entry. Hyvä removes the JavaScript bundling and dependency tangle that made Luma slow, so Core Web Vitals improve without the constant tuning a Luma store demands. A store can still be slow after the move when the cause is on the server, as our guide on why a Magento site gets slow explains. scandiweb client Byggmax reached a 99 PageSpeed score on Hyvä, the kind of result that moves both rankings and conversion.

On Luma, getting close to that often meant heavy JavaScript bundling work and ongoing frontend firefighting. Hyvä changes the baseline: a smaller asset footprint means there is simply less to optimize. For teams that still need deeper tuning across the full stack, scandiweb’s Magento performance optimization work pairs naturally with a Hyvä frontend. On the server side, Expedio makes the work of building each page at least 2x faster, under Hyvä or Luma. The gain matters most on pages the Magento full page cache misses, such as filtered category pages and search results.

There is also a platform-context reason. Merchants weighing Magento vs Shopify often cite frontend speed and modern tooling as Shopify advantages. Hyvä closes much of that gap on the Magento side: a modern Alpine.js and Tailwind frontend, fast pages out of the box, and the control of self-hosted Magento.

The cost picture changed in late 2025. Per Hyvä’s official announcement, the Hyvä Theme became free and open source on November 10, 2025, relicensed under OSL3 and AFL3, the same licenses as Magento Open Source, with supporting modules relicensed alongside it. Checkout, Enterprise, and Commerce remain proprietary, but the core theme that most stores start from no longer carries a license fee. Adoption reflects the momentum: per a 2026 Hyvä theme guide from Qarbi, over 4,900 live stores ran Hyvä in production by early 2026, up from roughly 2,000 at the time of the open-source announcement.

How to install Hyvä themes in Magento 2

Installing Hyvä on Magento 2 takes one Composer command, three CLI commands, and a theme switch in the admin. Per Mageplaza and Webkul install guides, the prerequisites are Magento 2.4.4 or newer, PHP 8.1 or newer, and Node.js for the Tailwind build. scandiweb’s Hyvä Themes implementation team runs this same flow on production stores.

The standard sequence is:

1. Require the theme with Composer: composer require hyva-themes/magento2-default-theme (with valid Hyvä Composer credentials).
2. Apply the database changes: bin/magento setup:upgrade.
3. Compile dependency injection: bin/magento setup:di:compile.
4. Deploy static content: bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy.
5. Activate Hyvä in the admin under Content > Design > Configuration, set it for the relevant store view, and save.

For anything beyond a default install, create a child theme that extends the Hyvä default rather than editing the base theme directly. The child theme is where your Tailwind configuration, custom templates, and brand styling live, so core updates stay clean. Run the Tailwind build inside that child theme’s web/tailwind directory whenever you change styles.

How to set up the Luma theme fallback in Hyvä

Hyvä includes a Luma fallback so pages or modules that do not yet have a Hyvä frontend can still render on the original Luma templates. This matters during a phased rollout: you switch the storefront to Hyvä, but a few extension-driven pages keep falling back to Luma until they are ported. You control this from the Magento admin under Stores > Configuration in the Hyvä Themes section, where you enable the compatibility module and set which areas fall back.

Treat the fallback as a migration aid, not a permanent state. Every page that stays on Luma reloads the heavier Luma assets, which dilutes the speed gain that motivated the move. The practical approach is to enable the fallback at launch, track which pages still use it, and port them to Hyvä until the fallback is no longer needed.

How do you structure Tailwind CSS files in a Hyvä theme?

In a Hyvä theme, Tailwind CSS lives inside the theme’s web/tailwind directory, with the tailwind.config.js file, the source styles, and the compiled output kept together so the build stays self-contained. Component-level styles belong in Tailwind utility classes inside the templates, and shared or custom CSS goes into the source stylesheet that Tailwind processes, so the final build stays small and predictable.

The recommendation is to keep the Tailwind setup inside your child theme rather than the base theme, so brand styling and configuration survive Hyvä updates. Keeping the structure consistent across projects also makes the build step easy to automate in your deploy pipeline.

How to deploy a Hyvä theme to Adobe Commerce Cloud

Deploying Hyvä to Adobe Commerce Cloud follows the standard Cloud build and deploy flow, with one extra step: the Tailwind build has to run during the build phase. You add a build hook that installs Node dependencies and compiles Tailwind, and you set the Hyvä Composer auth keys at the project level so the build can pull the theme.

Pin a current Node.js LTS release through nvm in your build hook so the Tailwind compile matches what your team runs locally, then confirm the build logs show Tailwind producing the compiled CSS before static content deploys. Once the auth keys are set at the project level and the build hook is in place, the deploy is repeatable, and each new environment picks up the same Hyvä build automatically.

Developer notes for advanced customization

Most merchant projects never touch the edges below, but development teams porting custom modules to Hyvä will hit a few recurring tasks. Keeping them in one place keeps the customization predictable.

• XML layout: Hyvä uses native Magento layout XML, so you reference Hyvä block templates and view models through the same layout handles you already know, just pointed at the Hyvä theme’s templates.
• View models: prefer Hyvä view models over blocks for passing data to templates. They keep template logic thin and align with how the default theme is built.
• Template overrides: override a default Hyvä template by copying it into the matching path inside your child theme, then editing the copy, never the base file.
• Localization: standard Magento translation files and i18n flow apply unchanged, so your existing locale CSV files keep working.
• Icons: Hyvä ships a set of predefined SVG icons through a view model, and custom icons are added by extending that icon set in your child theme.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hyvä Magento?

Hyvä is a frontend framework for Magento 2 that replaces the default Luma theme. It removes RequireJS, KnockoutJS, jQuery, and LESS, then rebuilds the storefront on Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS. The result is a much smaller, faster frontend that still runs on native, server-rendered Magento.

Is Hyvä free?

Yes, the core Hyvä Theme has been free and open source since November 10, 2025, relicensed under OSL3 and AFL3, the same licenses as Magento Open Source. Supporting modules were relicensed alongside it. Hyvä Checkout, Enterprise, and Commerce products remain proprietary and paid.

What does Hyvä do for performance?

Hyvä cuts a typical Luma frontend of 230+ files to roughly 5 and removes heavy JavaScript dependencies, which sharply reduces page weight and improves Core Web Vitals. scandiweb client Byggmax reached a 99 PageSpeed score on Hyvä, a level that is difficult to hit on a default Luma storefront.

Is Magento 2 still worth it?

For mid-market and enterprise merchants that need deep customization, B2B features, and full data ownership, Magento 2 remains a strong fit, and Hyvä answers the frontend speed concern that often drove teams elsewhere. For a fuller view, see scandiweb’s take on whether Magento is dying.

Do my Magento extensions work with Hyvä?

Many do, because Hyvä keeps native Magento on the backend, and a growing set of extensions ship Hyvä-compatible frontends. Extensions that injected their own Luma JavaScript or templates need a Hyvä frontend or a fallback. The Luma compatibility module bridges the gap during migration while those pages are ported.

How long does a Hyvä build take?

It depends on how much custom frontend the store has. A largely standard storefront can move to Hyvä in a few weeks, while a heavily customized store with many bespoke pages and extension frontends takes longer because each custom area is rebuilt in Alpine.js and Tailwind rather than ported as-is.

If you want a faster Magento frontend without rebuilding your whole stack, explore a Hyvä build with the scandiweb team and see what your store’s PageSpeed could look like.

The post How to Work With Hyvä: A Magento 2 Frontend Guide appeared first on scandiweb.

If you’re running on Shopify Plus and wondering whether to stay, or if you’re already evaluating alternatives but unsure whether any of them actually fits your business better, you’re asking the right question. Shopify alternatives split into four serious replacements at the upper-mid-market level: Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce Enterprise, commercetools, and OroCommerce. Four others fit different buyers. The right choice depends on operational depth, B2B requirements, and integration scope, not feature counts. Adobe Commerce wins for ERP-driven catalogs, BigCommerce for SaaS simplicity without transaction fees, commercetools for composable architecture, OroCommerce for B2B distributors with negotiated pricing.

The pressure that pushes most upper-mid-market merchants into this question is structural, not aesthetic. Shopify Plus charges 2 percent on every transaction processed outside Shopify Payments. At $50M annual revenue, with even half of payments running through third-party gateways, that is roughly half a million dollars a year flowing to the platform on top of the license fee, and the math scales with growth instead of decreasing.

This guide compares the eight strongest Shopify alternatives in 2026, each rated against the same six criteria, with a side-by-side table you can take into a stakeholder meeting and a decision framework that maps each platform to a specific business condition.

Why most “Shopify alternatives” lists miss the point

If you’ve already read two or three Shopify alternatives lists and walked away with a longer list of platforms but no clearer answer, that is by design. Most articles in this category compare platforms by feature counts, app-store size, or theme libraries. That serves a creator picking a first cart, not a $50M to $500M business deciding what carries the next ten years of growth. The real question is system fit: when a business outgrows Shopify Plus, the constraint is rarely the cart itself. It is multi-store sprawl, B2B account hierarchies, ERP-driven pricing logic, or composable architecture.

This article uses a different lens, the one scandiweb applies in real replatforming engagements: Control, Foundation, Growth. Control means the system has become risky or unreliable. Foundation means the system cannot scale without a rebuild. Growth means the system is stable but commercial performance is lagging. The right Shopify alternative depends on which of those conditions a business is in. scandiweb works with all four of the main alternatives covered here, so there is no commercial reason to favor one over another.

Signs you’ve outgrown Shopify Plus

Most replatforming projects do not start with a feature gap. They start with a structural one. Businesses outgrow Shopify Plus when multi-brand or multi-region operations strain the one-store-per-brand model, when B2B requires deep account hierarchies and ERP-driven pricing, when integrations carry the catalog instead of the storefront, or when 2 percent third-party gateway fees scale into six and seven figures annually.

Multi-brand or multi-region operations strain Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus uses one store per brand or region. Each store has its own admin and its own apps, which means updating the same product copy across four stores is four separate jobs. At ten or twenty storefronts it becomes a coordination tax. Adobe Commerce, by comparison, runs 70 store views across 20 languages on a single instance for clients like OM System, with one admin and one product catalog flowing into every storefront.

B2B with negotiated pricing and account hierarchies

Shopify Plus added B2B price lists and quote tools in 2024, and they work for straightforward wholesale. They do not yet handle deep account hierarchies, multi-step approval workflows, RFQ-driven sales, or pricing logic that lives in an ERP. For a distributor with tiered customers, contract pricing, and an ERP that owns the catalog, OroCommerce or Adobe Commerce B2B is closer to the data model the business already runs on. A specialist B2B eCommerce build is rarely a good fit on a B2C-first platform.

Heavy ERP, PIM, or OMS integration requirements

When the integrations are the real product, the platform’s API depth and data model matter more than the storefront. scandiweb has built systems with 81,000 structured product records flowing through unified data layers (Rocket Industrial), and 10,000 plus product catalogs feeding global B2B operations (Macron, +29.8 percent YoY revenue and +132.5 percent conversion uplift). Those volumes work on Adobe Commerce or commercetools. They do not fit cleanly into a Shopify Plus data model.

Transaction fees that scale with revenue

Shopify charges 0.5 to 2 percent on transactions when you use a payment processor other than Shopify Payments, depending on plan tier. At $5M revenue that is up to $100K a year. At $50M revenue it is up to $1M a year. BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, commercetools, and OroCommerce do not charge platform transaction fees. For high-volume operations, the math alone justifies a serious comparison.

How we evaluated these 8 Shopify alternatives

Every platform is rated against the same six criteria, so the comparison is apples-to-apples rather than vendor-to-vendor.

• Pricing tier: entry, mid-market, or enterprise
• Customization: low, medium, or high
• Best business size: SMB, mid-market, or enterprise
• Native B2B: full, limited, or none
• ERP integration depth: deep, moderate, or basic
• Implementation effort: low, moderate, or high

These are the dimensions that decide replatforming outcomes in actual scandiweb projects. App store size and theme count are not on the list because they almost never decide the outcome.

Shopify alternatives at a glance: comparison table

This table compares the eight Shopify alternatives across the six criteria that decide replatforming outcomes: pricing tier, customization, best business size, native B2B, ERP integration depth, and implementation effort. Only four of the eight are genuinely competitive replacements at the upper-mid-market level. The other four serve smaller businesses, EMEA mid-market, WordPress-native operations, or buyers who are not in this market at all.

1. Adobe Commerce: the deepest Shopify alternative for ERP-driven operations

Adobe Commerce, formerly Magento, is the strongest Shopify alternative when the catalog, the integrations, and the B2B workflows are where the real pressure sits. It supports multiple websites, stores, and store views under one admin. Native B2B includes price lists, account hierarchies, quotes, and RFQs. The trade-off is implementation effort: Adobe Commerce is a code-first platform that needs an experienced agency or in-house team and self-managed hosting.

For multi-brand or multi-region operations with deep system dependencies, Adobe Commerce is usually the first platform on the shortlist. It connects to ERP, PIM, OMS, and payment systems through mature integration patterns, and the customization ceiling is among the highest of any Shopify alternative.

Key strengths:

• Multi-store, multi-region, multi-brand under one admin
• Mature native B2B: price lists, hierarchies, quotes, approvals
• Deep ERP, PIM, and OMS integration patterns
• Highest customization ceiling among major platforms

Watch out for:

• High implementation effort and skilled engineering capacity required
• Hosting and infrastructure are your responsibility, not the vendor’s
• License pricing for Commerce Cloud edition starts in six figures annually

Best for: mid-market to enterprise operations with multi-store, B2B depth, or ERP-heavy catalogs. A structured discovery engagement is the right way to scope an Adobe Commerce build before signing a license.

Read more: Magento vs Shopify platform comparison

2. BigCommerce: a SaaS Shopify alternative without platform transaction fees

BigCommerce Enterprise is the closest SaaS-to-SaaS replacement for Shopify Plus. It keeps managed-platform simplicity, removes Shopify’s 2 percent third-party gateway fee, and brings stronger native B2B than Shopify Plus offered until late 2024. BigCommerce earned 24 of 24 medals in the 2025 Paradigm B2B Combines for the third year. Trade-offs are a smaller app ecosystem and revenue thresholds that push merchants up tiers automatically.

The architecture is more open than Shopify on payments and integrations. Headless storefronts are well supported, the API surface is broad, and there is no penalty for using your preferred payment processor.

Key strengths:

• Zero platform transaction fees, regardless of payment processor
• Strong native B2B: price lists, customer groups, quotes, bulk pricing
• Open headless and API-driven architecture
• Lower total cost of ownership than Shopify Plus at high volume

Watch out for:

• Smaller app ecosystem and theme library than Shopify
• Annual revenue thresholds can push merchants up tiers automatically
• Some advanced merchandising features still rely on apps

Best for: mid-market to enterprise SaaS-style operations that want managed-platform simplicity without Shopify Plus transaction-fee drag.

Read more: BigCommerce vs Shopify platform comparison

3. commercetools: composable commerce as a Shopify alternative

commercetools is built on MACH architecture: microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless. Where Shopify bundles storefront, checkout, and admin in one ecosystem, commercetools exposes them as composable services. It is the right Shopify alternative for enterprises that need full architectural control across multiple brands, regions, and channels. The trade-off is real: commercetools is not a lift-and-shift from Shopify and needs frontend, architecture, and integration teams from day one.

scandiweb’s commercetools vs Shopify comparison covers the architectural differences in depth, and the commercetools development team handles the build and the post-launch operation. commercetools is a Forrester Wave Leader in both B2C and B2B Digital Commerce.

Key strengths:

• True composable, headless, API-first architecture
• Designed for multi-brand, multi-region, multi-channel at enterprise scale
• Long-term flexibility: replace any service without replacing the platform
• Forrester Wave Leader for B2C and B2B Digital Commerce

Watch out for:

• Highest implementation effort and skill bar of any platform here
• No managed storefront, you build and host the frontend
• Enterprise-only pricing model

Best for: enterprise organizations pursuing composable commerce with the team and budget to operate it.

Read more: commercetools vs Adobe Commerce platform comparison

4. OroCommerce: the Shopify alternative built for B2B distributors

OroCommerce was built B2B-first from day one. The data model assumes multi-level account hierarchies, negotiated pricing, RFQ workflows, contract orders, and ERP-driven catalogs. Native CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing are bundled under one license. For a distributor, manufacturer, or B2B-heavy mid-market operation, the system fit is closer than any Shopify alternative built for B2C and retrofitted for B2B.

scandiweb has been an official OroCommerce partner for over seven years. Account-hierarchy depth is the most consistent reason buyers choose OroCommerce over Shopify Plus B2B or Adobe Commerce B2B.

Key strengths:

• B2B-first data model, not retrofitted from B2C
• Native CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing in one license
• Strong account hierarchy, RFQ, and approval workflows
• Built for ERP-driven catalogs and contract sales

Watch out for:

• Smaller agency partner network than Adobe Commerce or Shopify
• Pure B2C use cases are not the strongest fit
• Implementation effort is comparable to Adobe Commerce

Best for: mid-market and enterprise B2B distributors and manufacturers, particularly those with negotiated pricing.

5. Salesforce Commerce Cloud: the Shopify alternative for Salesforce-heavy stacks

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is the right Shopify alternative when an organization is already on Salesforce: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Data Cloud. The native data integration is the hardest thing to replicate elsewhere. Outside the Salesforce ecosystem, Commerce Cloud’s value over Adobe Commerce or commercetools narrows quickly. It is also the most expensive option in this list and carries the strongest vendor lock-in.

For an organization with Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud already in production, the operational gravity of staying inside the ecosystem usually outweighs the cost premium.

Key strengths:

• Native integration with the Salesforce ecosystem
• Mature B2B and B2C, multi-region, headless support
• Strong customer data and personalization capabilities
• Enterprise-grade reliability and support

Watch out for:

• Highest licensing cost in this list
• Strongest vendor lock-in: hard to leave once embedded
• Less compelling outside the Salesforce ecosystem

Best for: enterprises already running on Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud who want one connected stack.

6. Shopware: the mid-market Shopify alternative with strong native B2B

Shopware is a German-built platform with traction in European mid-market and B2B segments. It runs on a modern PHP stack, supports headless natively via its API, and ships with a credible B2B Suite covering price lists, customer-specific catalogs, and quote workflows. It sits between Shopify Plus and Adobe Commerce in cost and engineering effort. The main caveat outside Europe is a thinner partner network.

Key strengths:

• Strong native B2B Suite included in commercial editions
• Native headless and modern API architecture
• Mid-market pricing between Shopify Plus and Adobe Commerce
• Active development and roadmap

Watch out for:

• Smaller partner network outside of Europe
• Some enterprise-grade integrations less mature than Adobe Commerce
• English-language documentation and community thinner than Shopify or BigCommerce

Best for: mid-market operations, particularly in EMEA, with B2B requirements and a preference for European tooling.

7. WooCommerce: the open-source Shopify alternative for WordPress-native businesses

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that turns WordPress into an eCommerce platform. License cost is zero and the customization ceiling is high, riding on the largest plugin and theme ecosystem in web publishing. The hidden costs are infrastructure and engineering: WooCommerce is self-hosted, so hosting, scaling, security patching, and plugin maintenance are your responsibility.

For a content-heavy business or a brand whose marketing site already runs on WordPress, WooCommerce is an obvious option to evaluate. A serious WooCommerce build at mid-market scale often needs a dedicated web development team to keep performance and uptime in line with what a SaaS platform delivers by default. Open-source shoppers can also weigh Magento vs PrestaShop.

Key strengths:

• No license cost, fully open-source
• Native WordPress integration: best content-plus-commerce experience
• Largest plugin ecosystem of any open-source eCommerce platform
• Full code-level control

Watch out for:

• Self-hosted: hosting, scaling, security, and patching are on you
• B2B features are plugin-dependent and uneven
• Performance at high SKU and traffic volume needs serious tuning

Best for: content-led brands and SMB-to-mid-market operations that already run on WordPress and have engineering capacity.

8. Wix: the consumer-grade reference point

Wix is included for honesty, not because it is a serious replacement for Shopify Plus. For a creator, a small DTC brand under $1M revenue, or a service business adding light commerce, Wix is faster to launch and easier to maintain than any other platform in this list. For an enterprise B2B catalog, Wix is not the answer. AI tooling has improved meaningfully in 2024 to 2026, but the customization ceiling is still low.

Key strengths:

• Fastest time to launch in this list
• Strong design and AI tooling for non-technical users
• Lowest total cost for very small operations

Watch out for:

• B2B is not on the menu, neither is headless or any serious ERP integration
• The customization ceiling drops fast at mid-market scope
• Not a serious comparator for Shopify Plus replatforming

Best for: SMBs, creators, and service businesses adding light commerce.

How to choose between these 8 Shopify alternatives

The right Shopify alternative depends on the system condition the business is in, not on the longest feature list. If the system is unstable, stabilize before replatforming. If the system is stable but cannot scale, the question is architecture: Adobe Commerce wins for ERP-heavy operations, BigCommerce for SaaS simplicity without transaction fees, commercetools for composable architecture, OroCommerce for B2B-first data models. If the system is stable and the constraint is commercial performance, the platform may not be the problem at all.

Choose Adobe Commerce if:

• You run multi-brand or multi-region operations on a single product catalog
• You have heavy ERP, PIM, or OMS integration requirements
• You sell B2B with deep account hierarchies, RFQs, and contract pricing
• You have in-house engineering capacity or a long-term agency partner
• You need the highest customization ceiling without leaving SaaS-adjacent tooling

Choose BigCommerce Enterprise if:

• You want SaaS simplicity without Shopify Plus’s 2 percent third-party gateway fee
• You sell B2B but do not need Adobe Commerce’s full hierarchy depth
• You need open headless and API-driven architecture out of the box
• You operate at high volume where transaction fees compound into real money
• You want the closest behavioral match to Shopify Plus with stronger native features

Choose commercetools if:

• You need full architectural control across multiple brands, regions, or channels
• You are pursuing composable commerce and have the team to operate it
• Your customer journey is non-standard and cannot be served by a managed storefront
• You can budget for an enterprise-only license and a custom-built frontend
• You think in 5 to 10 year platform horizons, not 2 year ones

Choose OroCommerce if:

• You are a B2B distributor, manufacturer, or operation with negotiated pricing
• Your catalog is driven by your ERP, not your storefront
• You need multi-level account hierarchies, RFQ, and approval workflows from day one
• You want CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing under one license
• You prefer a B2B-first platform over a B2C platform retrofitted for B2B

Before signing a license on any of these, a structured discovery and planning engagement tells you which condition your business is actually in.

Read more: How to choose an enterprise eCommerce platform

Frequently asked questions about Shopify alternatives

What are the best alternatives to Shopify for enterprise eCommerce?

The best alternatives to Shopify for enterprise are Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce Enterprise, commercetools, and OroCommerce. Adobe Commerce wins for ERP-heavy operations and large catalogs, BigCommerce for SaaS teams that want lower transaction costs, commercetools for composable architecture, OroCommerce for B2B distributors with negotiated pricing. The right choice depends on system requirements and operational depth, not feature counts.

When should a business move from Shopify Plus to Adobe Commerce?

Move from Shopify Plus to Adobe Commerce when you have heavy ERP, PIM, or OMS integration requirements, large multi-brand catalogs, custom B2B workflows, or in-house development capability. Adobe Commerce supports bulk pricing rules, custom quoting, and real-time ERP syncs that Shopify Plus cannot match natively. Replatforming typically takes 4 to 9 months and requires structured discovery before commitment.

Is BigCommerce a better alternative to Shopify for B2B?

BigCommerce Enterprise is a better Shopify alternative when you want SaaS simplicity but need native B2B features and zero platform transaction fees. It includes B2B price lists, customer groups, quote management, and bulk order tools without paid apps. BigCommerce earned 24 of 24 medals in the 2025 Paradigm B2B Combines, making it competitive with Shopify Plus B2B for mid-market wholesalers.

What is the difference between Shopify and commercetools?

Shopify is a SaaS platform that bundles the storefront, checkout, and admin in one ecosystem. commercetools is an API-first, headless commerce platform built on MACH architecture: microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless. commercetools gives full control over front-end and integrations but requires composable architecture skill. Shopify is faster to launch, commercetools is built for organizations that need long-term architectural flexibility.

Why do brands switch from Shopify to Magento or Adobe Commerce?

Brands switch from Shopify to Magento or Adobe Commerce primarily for customization depth, large catalog support, and ERP and PIM integration capability. Shopify caps each product at 3 options and 100 variants, restricts checkout customization on lower plans, and charges 2 percent transaction fees on third-party gateways. Adobe Commerce removes those constraints in exchange for higher implementation effort.

Which Shopify alternative is best for multi-brand or multi-region stores?

For multi-brand or multi-region operations at scale, Adobe Commerce and commercetools are the strongest Shopify alternatives. Adobe Commerce supports multiple websites, stores, and store views under one admin: scandiweb has run 70 store views across 20 languages on a single Adobe Commerce instance. commercetools handles the same scope through composable architecture. Shopify Plus requires separate stores per market, increasing operational overhead.

How much does it cost to migrate from Shopify Plus to a different platform?

A Shopify Plus migration to Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce Enterprise, commercetools, or OroCommerce typically ranges from $80,000 to $500,000 plus, depending on catalog scope, ERP and PIM integrations, custom workflows, and front-end requirements. Implementation timelines are usually 4 to 9 months. The first commercial step should be a structured discovery to scope risk and dependencies before committing to a platform.

Is OroCommerce a real alternative to Shopify for B2B distributors?

Yes, OroCommerce is built specifically for B2B distributors, manufacturers, and organizations with negotiated pricing, multi-level account hierarchies, RFQ workflows, and deep ERP integration needs. It includes native CRM, CPQ, payments, and invoicing under one license. Shopify Plus B2B added similar features but does not match OroCommerce’s account hierarchy depth or B2B-first data model. scandiweb has been an official OroCommerce partner for over seven years.

What are the risks of replatforming from Shopify to another eCommerce platform?

The main replatforming risks are SEO loss from URL changes, integration breakage between ERP, PIM, and OMS systems, data migration errors, checkout regression, and extended go-live timelines. Mitigation requires structured discovery, phased data migration, redirect mapping, parallel-running environments, and integration testing before cutover. Skipping discovery to save time consistently produces the most expensive replatforming failures.

Which Shopify alternative has the lowest total cost of ownership?

Total cost of ownership depends on revenue scale and operational depth, not list price. BigCommerce Enterprise typically has the lowest 3-year TCO for SaaS-style mid-market operations because it eliminates Shopify’s 2 percent third-party gateway fee. Adobe Commerce and commercetools have higher implementation costs but lower per-order costs at high volume. WooCommerce and Magento Open Source are cheapest in license but require infrastructure and engineering investment.

Which Shopify alternative is best for photographers, artists, and designers selling their own work?

For creative professionals who sell their own work rather than run a catalog, none of the enterprise four is the right fit, and neither is Shopify Plus. A portfolio-first builder will be better suited to this use case. A good example is Pixpa, a solid website builder that combines a few options: you can create a portfolio website, use client galleries with proofing, and get ecommerce tools in one no-code platform. Such builders are set up more around selling creative work than managing B2B, headless, or ERP-heavy selling operations. They can also be easier on the budget for independent creators (Pixpa, for example, charges 0 percent platform commission, apart from standard payment processing fees).

Replatforming from Shopify is a system decision, not a platform comparison

The eight Shopify alternatives in this guide each fit a specific system condition. Adobe Commerce for ERP-driven operations. BigCommerce for SaaS simplicity without transaction fees. commercetools for composable architecture. OroCommerce for B2B-first operations. Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopware, WooCommerce, and Wix each fit narrower buyers.

The wrong question is “which Shopify alternative is best?” The right question is “which system condition is my business in, and which alternative fits it?” Answer that first and the platform shortlist usually reduces to two or three candidates.

If you are weighing alternatives to Shopify and want to pressure-test the system fit before you commit, get in touch with our eCommerce experts for a structured discovery call.

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Should you build your first online store on Shopify, and once you commit, what actually needs setting up before you can take your first order? This guide walks through setting up a Shopify store step by step, then answers the questions our Shopify team fields most often from merchants on pricing, payments, international selling, and performance. Shopify processed $378 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2025 and powers more than 2.4 million live stores across 175+ countries, so these are decisions a very large number of merchants make every year.

How to set up a Shopify store, step by step

Here is the full sequence from a blank account to a live store. None of it requires writing code.

Step 1: Plan your store before you sign up

Decide what you are selling, who you are selling to, and how you will source and ship it before you touch the platform. Settle on a business name and a short list of products, and sketch the pages you will need. Ten minutes of planning here saves hours of rework once the store is live.

Step 2: Create your account and choose a plan

Sign up at shopify.com with your email and store name, which starts a free trial. You do not need to lock in a paid plan immediately, but pick the tier that fits your stage early so checkout and reporting behave the way you expect. Plan guidance and current pricing are in the cost section below.

Step 3: Add your products

From the admin, go to Products and add each item with a clear title, a description written for shoppers rather than search engines, and high-quality images. Set prices, SKUs, and inventory, and add variants for size or color where they apply. Group related items into collections so customers can browse by category.

Step 4: Choose and customize your theme

Pick a theme from the Shopify Theme Store as your starting base, then customize it in the theme editor: add your logo, set brand fonts and colors, and build out the homepage, product pages, and navigation menu. Start from a solid base rather than the flashiest demo. More on choosing a theme is below.

Step 5: Set up payments

Activate Shopify Payments under Settings > Payments so you can accept cards without a third-party gateway, and enable wallets like Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay to reduce checkout friction. If you sell higher-ticket products, turn on Shop Pay Installments so customers can pay over time.

Step 6: Configure shipping

Under Settings > Shipping and delivery, set your shipping zones and rates. You can charge flat rates, free shipping above a threshold, or carrier-calculated rates, and you can use rate tables to match cost to weight, price, or destination. Set this before launch so customers see accurate totals at checkout.

Step 7: Connect a custom domain

Buy a domain through Shopify or connect one you already own under Settings > Domains. A branded domain (yourstore.com) builds trust and is better for SEO than the default myshopify.com URL. Set your primary domain so all traffic resolves to one address.

Step 8: Add essential pages and policies

Create the pages customers and Shopify both expect: About, Contact, and your store policies (refund, privacy, terms, and shipping). Shopify can generate policy templates you then tailor. These pages reduce support questions and are a trust signal at checkout.

Step 9: Test your store

Place a test order to confirm the full path works: add to cart, checkout, payment, order confirmation email, and the order appearing in your admin. Check the store on mobile, since most traffic will be there, and click through navigation and links to catch anything broken.

Step 10: Remove the password and launch

New stores sit behind a password page. Once testing passes, go to Online Store > Preferences and remove the password to make the store public. After launch, the work shifts to getting found and converting traffic, which is where the sections below come in.

How much does a Shopify store cost in 2026?

Shopify plan fees start at $39 per month on Basic and rise with the features and lower card rates you get at each tier. Annual billing brings the monthly cost down. Here is how the core plans compare in 2026.

Fees and rates are current Shopify pricing as published on shopify.com/pricing and can change. Shopify occasionally renames the mid-tier plan, so check the live page before you commit.

How do I know which Shopify plan is right for me?

Start with Basic if you are launching and want to test the market. The clearest reasons to move up a tier are lower card rates once your sales volume makes the difference material, the need for more staff accounts, and access to professional reports. Identify the two or three features you actually need, then pick the lowest plan that includes them rather than the highest plan you can afford.

How much do Shopify apps cost?

Many Shopify apps are free, and paid apps commonly run from a few dollars to around $50 per month each. A handful of specialized apps cost more. The practical risk is not any single price but stacking ten subscriptions that quietly add up, so review your app list every quarter and remove what you no longer use.

Payments and paying over time on Shopify

Shopify Payments is built into the platform, so most merchants can accept cards without a third-party gateway. Online card rates run from 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic down to 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced, with the most competitive rates on Plus.

Can customers pay in installments?

Yes. Shop Pay Installments, powered by Affirm, lets customers split a purchase into four interest-free payments or pay monthly over a longer term. You are paid in full upfront, usually within one to three business days, and Shopify handles the financing. It is a useful option for higher-ticket products where the price is the main hesitation at checkout.

Can I set different prices for the same product in different markets?

Yes. Shopify supports up to 50 markets with price differentiation per market, and several countries can be combined under a single market. For example, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and other euro countries can sit under one EU market, while a catch-all “Other countries” market in USD serves the rest. That lets you serve more than 50 countries despite the market ceiling.

Selling internationally with Shopify Markets

Shopify Markets manages international selling from a single admin, and Shopify Payments supports 130+ currencies natively. Two questions come up almost every time a merchant goes cross-border.

What is the SEO-friendly way to set up international domains?

If you are setting up Shopify Markets for the first time, subfolders are usually the best option. A subfolder is a path within your primary domain, for example johns-apparel.com/en-ca for Canada and johns-apparel.com/fr-fr for France. Subfolders require minimal setup, direct visitors to the right language and region, and inherit your primary domain’s existing search authority instead of starting from zero. If you want to pressure-test the rest of your setup for search, our Shopify SEO checklist walks through the on-page basics.

How do I handle VAT for different countries?

With Shopify Markets you can specify the VAT rate per country, and the correct rate is applied automatically at checkout. This keeps tax handling accurate as you sell across multiple European countries from one store.

Will my store’s load times vary by region?

No significant difference is expected between regions. Shopify serves stores through a global content delivery network backed by Cloudflare, with servers worldwide, so load times stay consistent regardless of where a customer is shopping from.

Performance, security, and technical questions

These are the questions developers and technically minded founders raise once the storefront basics are settled.

Does Shopify’s CDN cost extra, and can I use my own?

The CDN is included in every Shopify plan at no additional cost, and it is backed by Cloudflare. You can technically route through a different CDN, but it is not recommended, since the built-in network is already a first-rate solution and the added complexity rarely pays off. If you want to push speed further within Shopify’s setup, our guide to store performance covers what actually moves the needle.

Why doesn’t minification always work on Shopify?

Shopify automatically minifies CSS and JavaScript that use valid syntax up to ES5 when the storefront requests them, which shortens load times. It serves the original file instead in two cases: when minifying would produce a larger file because the file is already compressed more efficiently, and when the file already carries a .min.js or .min.css extension.

Do I need an EV SSL certificate to make my store secure?

No. Every Shopify plan includes a free SSL certificate that secures your store. An EV SSL certificate can add a layer of visible trust for some customers, but it is not required for a secure, functioning Shopify store. Treat it as optional.

Why don’t Shopify URLs end in .html, and is that bad for SEO?

It is not bad for SEO. Shopify uses a clean URL structure that keeps addresses short and readable. Including .html would only make URLs longer without any search benefit, so leaving it off helps both usability and SEO.

Do Shopify Plus users get more bandwidth?

Shopify Plus adds custom data transfer limits, a dedicated account manager, and advanced features that help optimize larger stores. That said, all Shopify plans come with unlimited bandwidth, and exceeding data transfer limits is not a common problem for most businesses. Weigh Plus against your actual scale and budget rather than bandwidth alone.

Themes, customization, and getting found

How do I find the right theme for my store?

The Shopify Theme Store now lists well over a thousand themes, all built on Online Store 2.0, alongside countless third-party options. The goal is to choose the best base to build on rather than the flashiest demo. Decide on the look you want and the functionality you need first, then shortlist themes that deliver both. Our roundup of the best Shopify themes is a useful starting shortlist.

Can I use tables to set shipping rates?

Yes. Shopify makes it straightforward to set shipping rates using rate tables, so you can match costs to weight, price, or destination without custom development.

What if I already have a store on another platform?

Then your setup starts with migration rather than a blank store. The priorities shift to moving products, customers, and order history cleanly, preserving your URLs and search rankings, and rebuilding integrations. Our step-by-step guide to migrating to Shopify covers the sequence and the common pitfalls.

Common mistakes to avoid when setting up a Shopify store

• Launching with thin product descriptions. Copy lifted from a supplier hurts both conversions and SEO. Write descriptions that answer real buyer questions.
• Skipping the test order. Many stores go live without confirming the full checkout path, then lose early orders to a broken payment or shipping rule.
• Ignoring mobile. Most traffic is mobile, so a layout that only looks right on desktop costs sales.
• Over-installing apps. Every app adds weight and cost. Add only what earns its place, and audit the list regularly.
• Leaving the default domain. Staying on myshopify.com weakens trust and SEO. Connect a branded domain before launch.
• Forgetting policy pages. Missing refund, privacy, and shipping policies create friction at checkout and can block payment provider approval.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to set up a Shopify store?

A basic store can be set up in a day or two once you have your products and images ready. A polished, fully customized store usually takes one to a few weeks depending on catalog size and design needs.

Do I need coding skills to set up a Shopify store?

No. The full setup, from account to launch, is done through Shopify’s admin without code. Coding only becomes relevant for advanced theme customization or custom app development.

How much does it cost to start a Shopify store?

Plans start at $39 per month on Basic ($29 on annual billing), plus card processing fees and any paid apps or themes. Budget for a domain (around $10 to $20 per year) and optional design or development help.

Can I set up a Shopify store for free?

You can build and explore a store during the free trial, but you need a paid plan to launch and accept orders. There is no permanently free Shopify plan.

Planning your Shopify build and want it done right the first time? scandiweb has launched and scaled Shopify and Shopify Plus stores for brands across more than 175 countries. Tell us where you are and our team will map the setup with you – talk to our Shopify development team.

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