Moving Your Shopify Store to a POS System: How the Catalog, Customer, and Order Migration Works

Moving from Shopify to a POS system means getting your product catalog, your customer list, and your order history off Shopify and onto a system built to run a physical counter, not just a checkout page. With Retailer OS, that move is not a do-it-yourself CSV export and re-upload: the store connects its Shopify account, and the Retailer OS team moves the catalog, customers, and orders onto the same system that will then run point of sale, inventory, and, if the store keeps selling online, the online store add-on on that same catalog.

What Actually Happens When You Move From Shopify to a POS System?

A Shopify-to-POS migration is the process of moving a store's product catalog, customer records, and order history out of Shopify and into a point-of-sale system that will run both the counter and, if the store keeps it, the online store going forward. For Retailer OS, that process starts with connecting the Shopify account, not with exporting spreadsheets yourself. The Retailer OS team pulls the catalog, customers, and orders across, so a store does not have to choose between keeping its sales history and switching systems.

This matters because most stores researching a move away from Shopify are not worried about learning a new screen. They are worried about losing years of order history, breaking customer loyalty balances, or ending up with two disconnected systems: one for the register, one for the website. The honest answer is that a managed migration avoids that, because the catalog and inventory that the POS runs on is the same catalog and inventory the online store add-on sells from — there is no second product list to keep in sync.

What Data Actually Moves From Shopify?

When the Retailer OS team migrates a Shopify account, three categories of data move across:

• Catalog: products, variants (size, color, and other options), SKUs, barcodes, and pricing, landing in the same inventory system the register sells from.
• Customers: customer records and purchase history, so loyalty, repeat-purchase reporting, and account history do not start from zero.
• Orders: historical order data, so past sales are not lost just because the selling system changed.

A few things are worth planning for separately, because they are not part of a standard Shopify data export:

• Vendor and supplier records. Shopify is not built around purchase orders the way a retail inventory system is, so vendor lists and cost data often need a separate CSV import once the catalog is in place.
• App-specific data from third-party Shopify apps. Loyalty points, reviews, or subscription data living inside a separate app is not part of the core Shopify catalog or order data and should be checked app by app before the cutover.
• Multi-location stock splits, if the Shopify store already tracked inventory across more than one location — confirm with the migration team how each location's on-hand count will map onto Retailer OS multi-location locations.

Why Isn't This a Self-Serve CSV Import?

Retailer OS does support self-serve CSV import for items, customers, and vendors, and an AI-assisted import for other file types — that is the right path for a store moving off a spreadsheet or a different system entirely. Shopify is handled differently: the store connects its Shopify account, and the Retailer OS team moves the catalog, customers, and orders. It is a guided migration, not a self-serve import, because Shopify catalogs carry structure — variants, option sets, order history tied to customer accounts — that is easy to flatten incorrectly in a manual spreadsheet export. Having the migration team do the mapping reduces the chance of duplicate SKUs, mismatched variants, or orphaned customer records showing up at the register on day one.

What Should You Do Before the Migration Starts?

A clean migration starts with a clean source. Before connecting the Shopify account, it is worth working through this list:

• Archive or merge duplicate products in Shopify so you are not migrating the same SKU twice under different handles.
• Decide which locations map to which Retailer OS stores if you sell from more than one physical location or warehouse today.
• Confirm your payments setup. Retailer OS card payments run on the merchant's own Stripe account, so have your Stripe account ready, or plan to connect one, ahead of go-live.
• List any Shopify apps carrying data you need — loyalty, reviews, subscriptions — and check with the migration team how each one is handled.
• Note your vendor list and current costs, since vendor and purchase-order data is imported separately from the catalog migration.

What Happens to My Online Store and Product Feeds During the Switch?

If a store wants to keep selling online after the move, the online store is a paid add-on at $99.99/month, billed once per account rather than per location. It runs on the same catalog and inventory the register uses, so a sale at the counter and a sale online both draw from one stock count — there is no second inventory file to reconcile. The online store can also publish a Google Shopping product feed to Google Merchant Center and a Meta catalog feed for Facebook and Instagram; these are product feeds, not separate sales channels, and they come with the online store add-on rather than as something extra to buy. A store that also wants to list on marketplaces can add Amazon and eBay, the only two marketplace channels Retailer OS sells, each a separate $99.99/month add-on, selling from that same shared inventory so stock never double-counts between the register, the website, and a marketplace listing.

Step by Step: How the Shopify Migration Actually Works

• 1. Connect your Shopify account. This gives the Retailer OS team access to pull the catalog, customers, and order history — no manual export required.
• 2. The team maps your catalog. Products, variants, SKUs, barcodes, and pricing are moved into the Retailer OS catalog that both the POS and (if added) the online store will run on.
• 3. Customers and order history move across. Customer records and past orders are migrated so purchase history and loyalty context are not lost at cutover.
• 4. Vendors and costs are imported separately, typically by CSV, since this data does not live inside a standard Shopify export.
• 5. Locations and stock are assigned. Each physical store, warehouse, or stockroom becomes its own Retailer OS store, each carrying its own live stock ledger.
• 6. Staff, roles, and hardware are set up. User seats are added, roles are assigned, and POS hardware — barcode scanners, receipt printers, Stripe Terminal card readers — is connected ahead of go-live.
• 7. You go live on the counter, with the online store (if added) continuing to sell from the same catalog and stock count rather than a separate, disconnected product list.

How Long Does It Take, and Will My Store Go Offline?

Migration timing depends on catalog size and how much needs manual review — a few hundred simple SKUs moves faster than a catalog with deep variant structures and years of order history. Day-to-day, the counter does not have to stop selling while the migration happens in the background; the cutover is planned around a point where the catalog and customer data are verified and ready. Once live, the desktop POS app includes offline mode, so a dropped internet connection does not stop sales at the register — it keeps ringing and syncs when the connection returns. That offline mode is specific to the desktop app; the iOS app does not include an offline mode, which is worth knowing if a counter runs primarily on an iPad or iPhone.

What Do You Actually Pay For After the Move?

Retailer OS is priced per store and per user seat, not as a flat platform fee, so the bill scales with how many locations and staff you actually run. Each physical location — a store, warehouse, van, or pop-up — is $99.99/month and includes point of sale and inventory. Each user is a $9.99/month seat, including the owner, so the smallest possible bill is $109.98/month for one store and one user. Beyond that, the online store ($99.99/month, once per account), Amazon and eBay (each $99.99/month), the website builder ($19.99/month), and a Messaging & AI plan for texting, email campaigns, and AI features (Starter at $39.99/month, Growth at $69.99/month, or Pro at $99.99/month) are each separate, optional add-ons — none of them bundled into the store price. On the accounting side, Retailer OS does not keep a general ledger; it posts a daily sales journal per channel, and received purchase orders as bills, to QuickBooks Online, so vendor bills and customer receivables tracked in Retailer OS still line up with the books your accountant uses. For a full breakdown of how the pieces add up, see pricing and the platform overview.

Is This the Same as Other Migrations?

No — a Shopify migration is handled differently from migrating off a spreadsheet or another POS system, which typically uses self-serve CSV import. If you are weighing the decision to leave Shopify altogether rather than the mechanics of the move, this comparison covers what a brick-and-mortar-first system adds that a storefront-first one does not. If your current system is a different POS rather than Shopify, the general switching guide and the Excel migration checklist cover those specific paths. And once your catalog is live on Retailer OS, adding the online store to an existing shop walks through turning on ecommerce on top of the same inventory.

For the bigger picture, see what a retail POS system should do.