Case Study: Magento 1 to Shopify Migration for a Luxury Jewelry Brand

Many long-standing retailers have built their online success on Magento 1. However, as the platform aged, maintaining performance and introducing new functionality has become increasingly difficult. 

That’s why Shopify has become a popular choice for many brands today, even those managing complex catalogs and detailed customer journeys. It offers a faster launch cycle, built-in security and hosting, and easier management without heavy technical maintenance.

When it was time to modernize its digital store, J.R. Dunn, a leading U.S. luxury jeweler, chose Shopify for its flexibility, speed, and simplicity. Here’s how the new Shopify platform helped the brand reach new milestones without compromising its luxury identity.

About

Founded in 1969 in Florida, J.R. Dunn is a family-owned luxury jeweler and an authorized Rolex retailer, serving customers across the U.S. for more than five decades. Known for its exceptional craftsmanship and service, the company manages over 3,000 monthly orders during peak seasons and operates one of the most comprehensive online collections of certified diamonds, engagement rings, and timepieces.

Partnering with scandiweb allowed the brand to update its digital experience while maintaining the same standard of elegance and reliability its customers expect.

Project goals

J.R. Dunn wanted to:

• Migrate from Magento 1 to Shopify without data loss or downtime
• Preserve data integrity across 130,000+ diamond SKUs
• Build custom shopping flows for diamonds and rings, allowing customers to browse, configure, and reserve jewelry with ease
• Ensure scalability for large catalog management with vendor integrations and real-time syncing
• Prepare for future ERP and automation integrations
• Create a stable, easy-to-use, modern platform that supports continuous growth.

Challenges

At the start, the project team compared Magento 2 and Shopify to determine which would better meet the business’s needs. Magento 2 offered greater customization but at higher cost and complexity. Shopify provided faster implementation, simpler management, and built-in stability. Therefore, the final choice favored Shopify’s operational agility and cost predictability.

Read more:
Magento Open Source vs Shopify: Which eCommerce Platform is Right for Your Business?

Migrating from Magento 1 to Shopify

The migration was technically complex due to inconsistent data and legacy customizations accumulated over years on Magento 1. Scandiweb built custom migration scripts and cleanup workflows to transfer every diamond, ring, and setting accurately while redesigning the storefront to restore a consistent luxury look.

Over time, the legacy Magento 1 site had been modified in many small, unplanned ways, making it harder to maintain and visually inconsistent. The new Shopify build needed a cleaner, more organized design that looked polished and was easier to manage long term.

Migrating from Magento 1 to Shopify

The migration was technically complex due to inconsistent data and legacy customizations accumulated over years on Magento 1. Scandiweb built custom migration scripts and cleanup workflows to transfer every diamond, ring, and setting accurately while redesigning the storefront to restore a consistent luxury look.

Over time, the legacy Magento 1 site had been modified in many small, unplanned ways, making it harder to maintain and visually inconsistent. The new Shopify build needed a cleaner, more organized design that looked polished and was easier to manage long term.

Managing 130,000+ diamonds

A critical challenge was managing a massive, multi-vendor diamond catalog efficiently within Shopify’s limits. Off-the-shelf apps were evaluated but lacked flexibility, control, and scalability.

Scandiweb proposed building a custom diamond management app that automatically synced product data from five suppliers, managed live inventory and pricing, and unified vendor information into a single, standardized structure.

Handling Shopify’s product filtering limitations

Shopify’s native filtering caps functionality at roughly 5,000 products per collection, which was a major limitation for J.R. Dunn’s catalog of over 130,000 diamonds. Without an alternative solution, customers wouldn’t have been able to efficiently browse or filter by key attributes like cut, clarity, or carat.

As a solution, scandiweb integrated the Fast Simon SDK to unlock advanced search, smart faceted filtering, and instant product recommendations, ensuring smooth navigation at scale.

ERP integration delays

The project’s initial plan relied on a new ERP serving as the single source of truth for product data. However, when the ERP migration was delayed, scandiweb adjusted by performing a full product import and sync based on SKUs, keeping the setup ready for a future ERP connection.

Approach

Foundation and UX alignment

Before development began, scandiweb worked closely with J.R. Dunn to plan how the new Shopify store would look and perform. The goal was to combine a smooth shopping experience with a structure that could handle a large catalog, multiple vendors, and SEO needs from the start.

A focused UX review shaped the theme selection, design direction, and performance goals. The store was built on a customized version of scandiweb’s Satoshi theme, chosen for its ability to deliver a luxury look while staying fast and scalable. In parallel, the team designed a diamond management strategy to unify vendor data and keep the brand experience consistent across every product touchpoint.

SEO migration

Scandiweb treated SEO as part of the build, not an afterthought. A “5 + 1 step” migration plan included technical setup, redirect mapping, metadata migration, QA, and post-launch monitoring. A three-phase audit (before, during, and after launch) helped preserve traffic and rankings.

Interestingly, Shopify’s fixed URL structure, often seen as a limitation, actually worked to J.R. Dunn’s advantage by standardizing the site’s architecture and reducing metadata inconsistencies. All product and collection URLs now follow the same clean, predictable format, making it easier for search engines to crawl and for customers to navigate.

After launch, the SEO team monitored site performance for several weeks, checking redirects, sitemaps, and keyword rankings to make sure search visibility and traffic remained stable during the transition.

Read more:
Shopify SEO Case Study: URL Restructure Leads to +150% in Conversion Rate

Core features and functionality

To recreate and enhance J.R. Dunn’s Magento experience on Shopify, scandiweb built a platform that balanced performance, scalability, and luxury presentation.

• Custom Shopify app imports and syncs data from five vendors, managing over 130,000 diamond listings.
• Diamond reservation system allows customers to view, request, and reserve stones directly through Shopify Admin.
• Ring Builder tool lets customers pair diamonds with settings, built natively without third-party apps.
• Fast Simon SDK integration enables advanced search, filtering, and personalized recommendations.
• Unified design system applies across the homepage, PLPs, PDPs, cart, and key content pages for a consistent, high-end look.

The custom diamond app became the main data hub for the store. It brings together vendor feeds, updates pricing and availability automatically, and connects related tasks like reservations and reporting. This means that J.R. Dunn can now cut down on manual work and continue to grow without major changes to the system.

Infrastructure and scalability

Since J.R. Dunn handles high traffic and large order volumes during peak seasons, the store needed a stable setup that could scale easily. Scandiweb used ReadyMage as part of the build and post-launch environment strategy. This setup allows the store to run smoothly, connect with new systems like the ERP when ready, and keep improving as the business grows.

With minimal hosting costs for the custom diamond app and no third-party licenses, ongoing maintenance remained predictable and low.

Results

The Shopify migration was completed in 6.5 months, covering all critical data and design requirements:

• Migrated 10 CMS pages
• Migrated 1,000+ categories, 25,000+ simple products, 68,000+ customers, and 72,000+ historical orders
• Built a custom diamond app importing over 150,000 diamonds from five vendors
• Achieved a perfect SEO score of 100 at launch
• Delivered a stable, high-performance store ready for future ERP integration.

The work continues with planned design updates, faster page loading, and a gradual move to ERP-managed product data, supported by ongoing help from scandiweb.

Looking to migrate from Magento 1 to Shopify? Scandiweb helps established retailers move to modern, flexible platforms while preserving data integrity and performance. Get in touch with our team to discuss the right migration path for your business.

Share on: