When it makes sense to leave Tiendanube
Tiendanube handles the basics well: catalog, local payments and shipping, and a store that is quick to set up. The reasons to switch are usually different: selling in Spain or Europe with local gateways, carriers and taxes, running several markets with their own language and currency, connecting an ERP or external logistics, unifying physical and online retail, or needing a broader ecosystem of apps and integrations.
Shopify covers those cases natively with Markets, Shopify POS, Shopify Flow, the Admin API and, when volume justifies it, Shopify Plus. Before deciding, list what you are missing today and check that the new platform solves it: it is the best filter to avoid migrating for the sake of it.
What you can export from Tiendanube
Tiendanube lets you export three lists as CSV from its admin. Products, from Products, Product list, Import and export; according to its official help center, this feature is not available on the free Inicial plan, so you may need to upgrade during the migration. Customers, from Customers, Customer list, Export list, always as the full database. And orders, from Sales, Sales list, with product, payment and shipping details.
The product CSV does not include images. This is the step that takes the most work: images have to be recovered from the store itself or through the Tiendanube API, matched to each product and variant, and uploaded to Shopify in the right order. Do it while the old store is still live.
None of those files has the format Shopify expects. The columns have to be transformed into Shopify product and customer CSVs, or mapped with an import app. With a small catalog it can be done by hand; with hundreds of SKUs a repeatable script is the better option until the result is clean.
- Products with variants, prices, SKUs, stock and weights
- Images for each product and variant, outside the CSV
- Customers with their marketing consent
- Order history, to import or keep as an archive
- Content pages, legal texts and blog posts
- List of URLs with traffic from Search Console
Products, variants and categories
Tiendanube variants, such as size or color, become Shopify options, and each combination a variant with its own SKU, price, stock and weight. Check that each variant keeps its image and that out-of-stock products behave the way you want: hidden, visible without purchase, or available to order.
Categories and subcategories become collections, and the hierarchy is rebuilt in the navigation menu. It is a good moment to use automated collections by tag, type or metafield, and to move technical information that lived inside the description, such as materials or dimensions, into metafields so you can display it clearly and filter by it with Search & Discovery.
Customers and orders
Customers are imported with their name, email, phone, addresses and marketing consent. Passwords cannot be migrated, but with Shopify’s current customer accounts customers sign in with their email and a one-time code, without a password. It is worth emailing them before and after the switch.
Order history cannot be imported with Shopify’s basic tools. If each customer needs to see past purchases in their account, it is done with an import app such as Matrixify; if you only need it for accounting or customer service, keeping the exported sales CSV is enough.
The design is rebuilt in Shopify
Tiendanube themes cannot be moved to Shopify. The theme is built again, from a Theme Store theme or custom on Online Store 2.0, keeping the brand identity: logo, colors, typography and photography.
Use the opportunity to review the product page, navigation, search and cart with a sales mindset. A well-built theme with sections and blocks lets you edit the home page, landing pages and product pages from the Shopify editor without touching code.
Payments, shipping and taxes
Tiendanube payment gateways, shipping methods and tax rules do not carry over: they are configured again in Shopify. If you sell in Spain, enable Shopify Payments or your chosen gateway, add the payment methods customers expect here, set up shipping zones and rates with your carriers and review taxes with your advisor. If you sell in several countries, set up each market with Markets.
Before launch, place complete test orders with every payment method and shipping type, and review the emails customers receive, the legal texts and the returns policy.
Domain and DNS
If you keep the same domain, the switch happens at the end: once the Shopify store is finished and tested, the domain’s DNS records are pointed to Shopify. Until then the new store is built on its .myshopify.com domain behind a password, while Tiendanube keeps selling.
If you change domains, note that, according to Tiendanube’s help center, its DNS service cannot redirect one domain to another. The old domain’s redirect has to be handled at the registrar or another DNS provider. Check the email tied to the domain before touching any record.
URLs and 301 redirects
Tiendanube uses its own paths; for example, categories usually sit at the root of the domain. In Shopify everything moves to /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/. Pull the list of URLs with traffic from Search Console, complete it by crawling the current store and assign each one its new address.
301 redirects are created in Shopify from the URL redirects section or by importing a CSV with all of them at once. Carry over SEO titles and meta descriptions too, and submit the new sitemap to Search Console after launch. At Weblineo we prepare the URL map and redirects as part of the migration service.
Frequently asked questions
Can I export Tiendanube products with their images?
The Tiendanube product CSV does not include images. They have to be recovered from the store or through its API and uploaded to Shopify linked to each product and variant, while the old store is still live.
Will my customers have to sign up again?
Customer data is imported, but passwords are not. With Shopify’s current customer accounts customers sign in with their email and a one-time code, so they do not need a password.
Will I lose rankings moving from Tiendanube to Shopify?
If you 301-redirect every URL with traffic and keep your texts and metadata, the risk drops considerably. Some movement in the first weeks is normal while Google processes the change.
Does the store stop selling during the migration?
No. The Shopify store is prepared in parallel on its temporary domain and Tiendanube keeps selling until the day the domain switches. On that day, do a final export of customers and orders so nothing from the last few days is lost.