More and more retailers and brands are replatforming from Magento / Adobe Commerce to Shopify (and Shopify Plus). The trend isn’t just noise — it’s driven by clear commercial gains: lower ongoing costs, faster launches, less technical overhead, and a platform that lets non-technical teams move faster. Below I’ll explain the main reasons businesses are switching, back each point with industry reporting, and finish with practical considerations (and how Orafox helps if you want to make the move).

1. Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and predictable pricing

Magento can be powerful — but it’s not “all-in.” Hosting, security, patching, performance tuning, and upgrades are typically the merchant’s responsibility, and customization often requires ongoing developer time. Shopify’s hosted model packages hosting, security, PCI compliance, and routine platform upgrades into one subscription — which makes budgeting easier and frequently reduces long-term maintenance spend. Multiple industry comparisons and migration analyses show brands often reduce TCO and operational overhead after moving to Shopify. (gomage.com)

2. Much less engineering overhead = faster time to market

Magento requires significant developer resources for customization, routine upgrades, and performance tuning. Shopify’s managed platform and extensive app ecosystem let product, marketing, and operations teams build and iterate with fewer engineering cycles — speeding launches and campaign-driven changes. Shopify itself and vendor analyses highlight that stores can launch new storefronts and features faster on Shopify than on Adobe Commerce. (Shopify)

3. Predictable scalability and reliability (especially for growing brands)

With Shopify Plus (and Shopify’s enterprise offerings), merchants get a platform engineered to scale (traffic spikes, campaigns, checkout throughput) without the same operational work required for a self-hosted Magento stack. That reliability reduces downtime risk during peak sales events — an important business advantage that many migrating brands cite. (Shopify)

4. Rich app ecosystem & built-in commerce services (less custom dev)

Shopify’s App Store and native features (payments, POS, internationalization, headless options, and increasingly AI automation) let businesses adopt capabilities quickly without bespoke builds. That means many capabilities that would have required custom Magento development can be achieved with existing apps, reducing build time and cost. Recent reporting also calls out Shopify’s investment in AI tools for merchants as another attraction for those wanting automation without heavy engineering. (Reuters)

5. Easier merchant UX and day-to-day operations

Shopify’s admin and workflows are designed around merchant speed and clarity (message from product teams and third-party reviews). For operations teams, tasks like product imports, discounting, promotions, and channel expansion (selling on marketplaces, social, or POS) are typically faster and less error-prone than comparable workflows on Magento. This matters because the fewer manual processes your staff must run, the fewer mistakes, and the lower the operating cost. (Website Builder Expert)

6. Better access to talent & partner ecosystem

Because Shopify is widely adopted and the Shopify developer/partner market has grown quickly, it’s often easier (and faster) to hire or contract teams that can implement, iterate, and support the store. For companies that struggled to find specialized Magento engineers, Shopify’s broader pool is a pragmatic advantage for scaling.

Real business impacts reported by brands

• Lower ongoing maintenance spend (hosting/security/updates bundled vs. self-managed).
• Faster launches and UX improvements, often resulting in higher conversion rates after migration.
• Operational simplicity (less engineering bandwidth diverted to platform ops), enabling teams to focus on growth initiatives. (Shopify)

When Magento Still Makes Sense

Magento remains the right choice when a business needs extreme customization, very specific B2B workflows, or owns complex multi-store architectures that rely on deeply custom integrations. The decision should factor in: feature requirements, internal engineering capacity, long-term roadmap, and true TCO (not just license fees). Several migration guides stress evaluating these tradeoffs carefully. (Amasty)

Migration considerations (what businesses should evaluate)

1. Feature parity & gaps — list the Magento features you rely on and confirm Shopify equivalents or app solutions.
2. Data & integrations — export/import of products, customers, historical orders, and any ERP/OMS integrations must be planned.
3. SEO & URL strategy — preserve search rankings by mapping URLs, redirects, and metadata.
4. Costs & timing — migrations vary in cost and duration depending on complexity; budget for design, development, QA, and post-launch tuning.
5. Testing & rollback plans — QA for checkout, taxes, shipping, and integrations is critical before go-live.

Vendor analyses and migration playbooks provide templates and timelines for these phases and are good reference points when planning. (plumrocket.com)

How Orafox helps merchants replatform (practical next steps)

If your team is evaluating a move from Magento to Shopify, Orafox’s approach focuses on minimizing business disruption and maximizing the upside:

• Discovery & gap analysis — map current Magento features, customizations, and integrations, and define Shopify equivalents.
• TCO modeling — provide a real comparison of expected costs (hosting, maintenance, engineering, app fees) vs. projected savings.
• Phased migration roadmap — prioritize critical paths (checkout, products, orders) and stage secondary features to reduce risk.
• SEO & data-preservation strategy — ensure redirects, canonical tags, and analytics stay intact.
• Post-launch optimization — conversion rate tuning, performance, and automation using Shopify’s apps and AI toolsets.

If you’d like, we can produce a tailored migration brief for your store (features, estimated timeline, and a conservative TCO comparison) to help decide if a move to Shopify makes sense for your business.

Set up a call with our experts at Orafox!

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