A structured, seven-phase migration from WooCommerce to Shopify, designed to move your 2,500-product catalogue to a faster, more scalable platform without losing a single customer record, a single URL, or a single position in search. The result is a store built for the next decade of growth.
CAB Foods has grown into one of South Africa's most comprehensive online baking and catering supply stores. With approximately 2,500 active products across 38 categories — including Groceries, Packaging, Cake Decorations, Equipment, and a full seasonal calendar — you are operating at a scale that demands infrastructure to match.
The current WooCommerce setup, hosted on Xneelo shared infrastructure, was the right starting point. It has served you well. But shared hosting has a performance ceiling, and a 2,500-product catalogue will consistently push against it. The load times your customers experience today are not a configuration problem. They are a structural constraint of the platform.
This migration is not about fixing what is broken. It is about building the infrastructure that matches the ambition of what you have already built, and giving your team the tools to manage it without friction.
Every integration in your brief has a clear path to implementation on Shopify. Below is the confirmed integration stack and the method for each.
South Africa's leading payment gateway. Direct Shopify integration with full support for credit/debit cards, EFT, and SnapScan. No transaction fees when using PayFast on Shopify Advanced or above.
South Africa's leading courier aggregator. Bob Go connects Shopify to The Courier Guy, Aramex, DPD Laser, and others. Live rates at checkout, automated waybill generation, and tracking updates.
Direct sync of customer data, purchase history, and segments. Enables automated abandoned cart emails, post-purchase flows, and campaign segmentation based on buying behaviour.
If your current CRM platform is Omnisend, this is a one-click Shopify integration. Email, SMS, and push notification automation with full ecommerce event tracking built in.
If your WhatsApp CRM is OmniEngage or a similar platform, integration requires a custom API connection to sync Shopify order events and customer data. Scoped within the project and confirmed during Discovery.
WhatsApp order notifications, abandoned cart recovery, and customer support chat can be implemented via Shopify-native WhatsApp apps depending on your existing setup.
The timeline is structured to run design and data migration in parallel where possible, reducing total project duration without compromising quality. Each phase has defined deliverables and a client sign-off gate before the next phase begins.
A full audit of your existing WooCommerce installation: product data structure, URL inventory, customer records, order history, integration dependencies, and SEO baseline. This phase produces the Migration Specification Document that governs every subsequent phase. No build begins without it.
Shopify theme selection, UX wireframing, and full custom design implementation. The design is built mobile-first, informed by your reference sites, and reviewed in two rounds before development is finalised. Your brand identity, product photography approach, and navigation structure are all defined in this phase.
Full migration of all 2,500 products, customer records, order history, and content pages. Images are optimised during migration. Product collections, metafields, and seasonal category structures are rebuilt in Shopify's taxonomy. This phase runs in parallel with design development to compress the overall timeline.
Configuration of all payment gateways, shipping rules, and CRM integrations. PayFast and Bob Go are set up and tested first as they are critical path items. Mailchimp, WhatsApp, and Omnisend/OmniEngage are configured and tested in sequence. All integrations are validated with live test transactions before QA begins.
This is the highest-risk phase of any migration and is treated with the rigour it deserves. Every existing URL is mapped to its new Shopify equivalent. 301 redirects are implemented and tested. Structured data, canonical tags, and XML sitemaps are configured. Google Search Console is updated. A pre-launch SEO audit confirms no organic equity has been lost before go-live.
Full quality assurance testing across all major devices and browsers. Checkout flow testing across all payment methods. Mobile responsiveness validation. Performance benchmarking against Core Web Vitals targets. A dedicated UAT period gives your team time to review the store before launch.
DNS cutover is executed with a zero-downtime strategy. The old WooCommerce site remains accessible during the cutover window as a fallback. Post-launch, we monitor Core Web Vitals, search ranking positions, conversion rates, and integration health for 30 days. Training and handover documentation are delivered in this phase.
The investment above covers DigitlSky's professional services. It does not include your ongoing Shopify platform subscription, which is a direct cost between you and Shopify. For a store of your scale, with third-party payment gateways such as PayFast, we recommend the Shopify Advanced plan at approximately R5,500 to R7,300 per month (billed annually).
Shopify charges an additional transaction fee (0.5% to 2%) on every order processed through a third-party gateway on lower-tier plans. At your order volume, this fee on the Basic or standard Shopify plan will exceed the cost difference of upgrading to Advanced within months. The Advanced plan eliminates the third-party transaction fee entirely, making it the commercially correct choice for your business.
Third-party app costs (Bob Go, loyalty programmes, review apps, etc.) are also separate and typically range from R500 to R2,500 per month depending on the apps selected. We will provide a full recommended app stack with cost estimates during the Discovery phase.
Every migration of this scale carries risks. We have identified the four most significant ones for your specific project and the mitigation strategy for each.
The following items are outside the scope of this proposal. They can be scoped and quoted separately if required.
Monthly Shopify plan fees are a direct cost between CAB Foods and Shopify. See the Commercial Advisory in the Investment section for plan recommendations.
Ongoing costs for Bob Go, review apps, loyalty programmes, and other Shopify apps are separate from this project fee. A recommended app stack with costs will be provided during Discovery.
Existing product images are migrated and optimised. New photography or image creation is not included. If a photography brief is required, this can be scoped separately.
Post-launch development, feature additions, and ongoing maintenance beyond the 30-day monitoring window are not included. A retainer arrangement can be discussed separately.
Domain registration and any DNS management fees are outside this scope. Shopify hosts the store natively; no separate hosting is required after migration.
If any functionality requires a fully custom Shopify app (beyond standard API integrations), this would be scoped and quoted separately after the Discovery phase confirms requirements.
To deliver this project on time and without surprises, we need the following from your side at the start of the project.
Full admin access to your WooCommerce installation for the data audit and migration. Read-only access is sufficient for the audit phase.
API keys or admin access for Mailchimp, your WhatsApp/Omni platform, and any other active integrations. These are needed to configure and test the connections.
Logo files (SVG or high-resolution PNG), brand colour codes, font files if custom, and any existing brand guidelines. These inform the design phase from day one.
A single decision-maker on your side who can review designs, approve sign-off gates, and respond to queries within 48 hours. This is the single biggest factor in keeping the project on schedule.
An active PayFast merchant account is required for payment gateway configuration. If you do not have one, we can guide you through the setup process as part of the Discovery phase.
A Shopify account on the Advanced plan (or higher) should be created before the project begins. We will assist with the initial setup and configuration as part of the Discovery phase.