Migrating to a new Shopify store, and you sell cannabis seeds. Migrate everything to a new Shopify store.
You are moving to a new Shopify account — whether because a payment processor cut you off, you are restructuring your business, or you simply need a fresh start. The email to yourself feels straightforward: export the old store, import into the new one, done. Here is what actually happens. Shopify's own CSV export cannot carry metafields, metaobjects, orders, gift card codes, videos, themes, menus, discounts or redirects. Those things exist in your store right now. They will not come with you on their own. Even when data does move, reference-type metafields copied naively will still point at objects in the old store, so pages render with sections silently empty — your customer sees a broken layout and you do not know why. This is not a failure of process. It is the real shape of the problem. The only way through is to move deliberately, then run the whole migration a second time and compare counts — products, orders, customers, redirects, all of it — so you know what is actually missing before you flip the switch.
Move all of it into a new store, from $247
One-time packages, no per-record metering, no quotes. The order form unlocks the moment you pay, counts are matched against your old store, and the entire migration then runs a second time — the second pass has to create nothing.
What you are looking at
- CSV export sits in your email, but it contains only SKUs, prices, handles and text fields — no images, no metafields, no order history, no discounts
- The new store builds, products look half-finished, and redirects are gone so search traffic drops immediately
- Gift card codes you issued do not appear anywhere, and no one can tell you how to get them back
- Reference metafields that pointed to collections or pages now point at nothing, leaving theme sections blank
- Custom menus you spent hours building are not there, so navigation is broken
The real urgency is data loss, not speed. A reference-type metafield pointing at the old store will stay broken once you flip traffic to the new one, and by then fixing it means downtime. The genuine deadline is the period before you go live — you must validate everything works while you still have both stores running and can check the old one. After cutover, the old store is usually deleted and there is no way back.
Why it happened — specifically for cannabis seeds
Stripe, which underwrites Shopify Payments, lists cannabis and its derivatives as prohibited. Cannabis seeds fall into that category by association: even though seeds themselves contain no active cannabinoids, they are inherently intended for cultivation into a controlled substance. The secondary trigger is your jurisdiction. Some US states allow seed sales as collectibles or agricultural stock; others ban them outright. A processor reviewing your store sees the category risk first and your local legality second—or doesn't look at it at all.
Rule out the easy fix first — then deal with the real one
There is no documented Shopify route for cannabis seeds. What merchants typically try first is either hiding the category under 'botanical supplies' or applying to Shopify Payments and hoping the reviewer misses what you sell. Both fail. The honest path is that you need an acquirer who has explicitly chosen to underwrite seed banks—and that means going outside the Shopify Payments rails entirely to a third-party high-risk provider who can front you through Shopify using a standalone gateway integration. Those providers exist, but they are not hidden in a settings menu; you will need to contact them directly with your store details and jurisdiction, and they will run their own underwriting.
It only helps if all of these are true:
- You must operate in a jurisdiction where seed sales are explicitly legal or tolerated
- Your store must not imply or state that seeds are for human consumption
- You must be able to document the legality of your specific business in your specific location
- You cannot use Shopify Payments—you must connect a third-party high-risk gateway
- You must accept a substantially higher rate and a rolling reserve of 10–25% held 180+ days
If any one of them does not hold, you are where everyone else on this page is: you need a store built around a gateway that will actually accept you — and everything you have built has to move into it without losing the catalog, the customers, the order history or the rankings.
What this means for a business like yours
⚖️ Legal status is genuinely contested or actively changing
Your product eligibility is contestable by the acquirer, not just by law, which means the processor who accepts you on the old store may not accept you on the new one, or may accept you with higher reserve requirements. Do not assume continuity. Before you migrate, confirm in writing that your new processor will honor the same product scope and MCC classification as your current one. Also confirm whether your new account will have different reserve requirements, chargeback thresholds, or dispute-handling terms than your old one. If your legality is changing—state-level or federal—the processor's appetite for you may shift mid-migration, and you will not know until your first settlement cycle. Have that confirmation in writing before you flip traffic. A legal-volatile business that migrates without processor confirmation often discovers the new account was always temporary.
📦 Thousands of SKUs, deep variant matrices, distributor feeds
Your metafields and metaobjects do not travel in Shopify's CSV export, which means any custom data—size matrices, distributor stock levels, compliance tags, pricing rules—either gets rebuilt by hand or gets lost. For a catalog of thousands of SKUs, hand-rebuild is impossible. You need a migration tool or script that can read your metafield schema from the old store and write it to the new one, field by field. Also watch for reference-type metafields that point to other products or collections: if they are copied naively, they still point at objects in the old store, so pages render with sections silently empty. Your distributor feeds—if they push data to product fields—will also break during migration because the feed is configured against the old store's API endpoints. Before you migrate, audit which custom fields are reference-type and which are populated by external feeds, then arrange for those to be re-pointed or rebuilt on day one. A catalog-heavy store that loses reference resolution looks live but serves broken pages.
What you actually have to fix
Underwriters do not change their minds because you asked. They change them because the facts changed. For cannabis seeds, these are the facts that move the decision:
Rewrite every product description to remove cultivation language and intent signals
This is the single highest-yield fix. Any text that frames seeds as inputs for growing cannabis—'ready to cultivate', 'yields', 'ideal for outdoor growing', 'high THC genetics'—signals to an underwriter that you are knowingly facilitating drug production. Reframe as collectibles, souvenirs, or breeding stock. Audit product names, variant labels, descriptions, blog posts, email templates and any customer-facing graphics. A reviewer will read everything.
Obtain written legal confirmation that your jurisdiction permits seed sales in your category
Most acquirers will not touch you without this. You need either state or local legislation that explicitly permits seed sales, a regulatory ruling from your state's agriculture or cannabis board, or a written opinion from a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction confirming that your specific business model is legal. This is not optional—it is the document that separates a merchant with a legal business from one that is guessing. Email a copy to the acquirer before they even request it.
Verify your business is registered correctly and matches all legal paperwork
Use your legal name consistently across your business registration, tax ID, bank account, domain registrant information and store admin account. Mismatches flag you as a shell entity or a deliberate obfuscation, which kills underwriting. Check that your stated location matches where you are actually operating and selling. If you have moved or rebranded recently, document the chain of continuity so you are not mistaken for a fresh entity trying to evade history.
Document your customer verification and prevent high-risk patterns
Do not sell to addresses in states or countries where cannabis cultivation is prohibited. Implement age verification if your jurisdiction requires it. Monitor for bulk orders, reseller patterns or shipments to states with stricter laws—these trigger compliance reviews mid-relationship. Keep records of customer communications so you can show you made a good-faith effort to prevent misuse. An acquirer reviewing you six months in will look at your transaction patterns as proof that you are managing the category responsibly.
What underwriting will ask you for
- Articles of incorporation or business registration showing your legal entity name and formation date
- Proof of your jurisdiction's legality for seed sales—legislation, regulatory guidance, or attorney opinion letter specific to your state or country
- Your store's product descriptions and any marketing materials that detail how you describe the intended use of seeds
- Bank statements from the past 6 months showing transaction history and average monthly volume
- Copies of your terms of service and any customer agreements that disclaim responsibility for end-use
- Your processing history with any previous acquirer, including the reason for any termination
- Identity documents for all beneficial owners and signatories
Getting underwritten for cannabis seeds
High-risk acquiring is an entire industry that exists for businesses Stripe declines, and several of them publicly underwrite cannabis seeds. What none of them will tell you up front is the number that actually matters: what your business gets offered, once they have seen your volume, your claims and your history. Rate, reserve and settlement terms vary enormously between applicants in the same category.
Get real quotes from high-risk processors that accept cannabis seeds
Six taps and three details. We put it in front of the high-risk acquirers that actually underwrite your category and come back with what they will offer you — rate, reserve and settlement terms — so you are comparing real numbers instead of cold-emailing brokers for a fortnight.
The recovery playbook
- Audit what your store actually containsList everything that matters: products, orders, customers, discounts, redirects, gift cards, navigation menus, theme choice, metafields and metaobjects. Do not assume you know. Log into your current store and count. Orders and gift card codes will not export through CSV — you will need those lists for manual verification later. Make a spreadsheet with baseline numbers for every category. This is the document you will compare against in step 5.
- Get a verified copy of your store out while you still have access — todayBefore you create the new account, request a full backup from Shopify support in case something goes wrong. This is the step people skip, and it is the only one with a deadline you do not control. A migration is not an instant thing — it can take days or weeks, and you will still have the old store running. But the moment you delete it, a full backup becomes impossible. If a metafield is misconfigured in the new store, or a theme does not carry over, or reference data points nowhere, you may need to look at the old store to understand why. Once it is gone, that information is gone. Backups are the only insurance you have.
- Export and move what CSV can carry, manually handle what it cannotRun Shopify's CSV export. It will contain products, variants, prices, handles and text fields. It will not contain metafields, metaobjects, orders, gift card codes, videos, themes, navigation menus, discounts or redirects. Move the CSV into the new store. Then handle the missing categories one by one: metafields must be recreated (some third-party apps can help, but none are universal); orders must be exported from reports as a separate archive; gift card codes cannot be read through any Shopify API and must be re-issued; videos and media must be re-uploaded; themes must be selected and configured again; navigation menus must be rebuilt; discounts must be recreated; redirects must be re-entered or exported from a third-party SEO app if you used one.
- Check reference metafields point to the new store, not the old oneIf you use reference-type metafields — fields that link to collections, pages, products or other objects — those references will still point at the old store after migration. Pages will render with sections blank or broken. You must systematically update each reference to point at the equivalent object in the new store. If a metafield references a collection called 'Summer Dresses', find that collection in the new store and re-link it. This is tedious. There is no way around it. Skipping it is why new stores launch with invisible sections.
- Run the migration again, count everything, and compareBefore you go live, treat this as a full second migration. Export the old store's data again. Import it into the new store again, overwriting what is there, so you capture any changes made in the old store since you started. Then count: products in old store versus new store, orders in old store versus new store, customers, redirects, discounts, everything. If all counts match, you have moved what can be moved and you know what is missing. If a count does not match, find out why before you switch traffic over. Once the old store is deleted, you cannot go back. This step is what separates a successful move from a move that looks successful until customers and search engines find the broken pieces.
And then there is the part that actually loses businesses
If you do need a new store, the payments problem turns out to be the easy half. This is what is sitting in your current store right now, and what happens to each piece when someone tries to move it by hand:
Why this category in particular
A seed bank's data breaks in a very specific way during a manual migration: the genetics matrix. Cannabis seeds are sold in deep variant structures—dozens of strains crossed with auto-flower vs. photoperiod timing, male vs. female, seed count per pack—and these relationships live in metafields, not in standard Shopify variant naming. When you move by hand or via CSV, metafield connections snap silently. A customer looking for 'feminized auto-flower Northern Lights' sees the products exist but the filtering logic is broken. On a catalog-heavy site this creates cascading returns and support work. Automated migration re-links them correctly.
| What you own | How much of it | What breaks doing it by hand | What we do instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product images | 5,200images≈ 22 hrsbulk re-upload, ~15 sec each | By handthe CSV carries image URLs and alt text, but they point at your OLD store's CDN — so the moment the old store goes, every image 404s. Re-upload and Shopify appends a dedupe suffix to the filename, which breaks every theme section and product description that referenced the original URL | Automatedevery file re-uploaded through the API with its alt text and variant attachment intact, its content type preserved so image-restricted fields still accept it, and every reference to the old URL rewritten |
| Product descriptions | 650descriptions≈ 2 hrsone pass to repair inline image links — the CSV carries the text | By handdescriptions are full of inline images and links pointing at the old store's CDN. Paste them into the new store and the text survives perfectly while every embedded image quietly dies — which you usually discover from a customer, not from a report | Automatedbodies copied verbatim, then a second pass rewrites every source-CDN URL inside them to the re-uploaded file on the new store |
| Product attributes & variants | 11,700variants≈ 45 minthe CSV carries these; the time is verifying option order | By handoption ORDER is part of the product's identity. Rebuild "Size, Colour" as "Colour, Size" and every theme swatch, saved customer URL and app that keys on variant position breaks — silently, because the product page still renders | Automatedvariants upserted by SKU with option names and order preserved, so swatches, deep links and app data keep working |
| Metafields & metaobjects | 9,100metafields≈ 61 hrsonly the reference, JSON and metaobject fields, ~1 min each | By handthe product CSV carries simple text and number metafields — but not metaobjects, and not reference or JSON types, which is exactly where app data and theme content live. Reference fields are the real trap: copy the value and it still points at objects in the OLD store, so the page renders and the custom block is silently empty | Automatedwritten in dependency order after their targets exist, with embedded references re-pointed at the new store's objects — and any value whose reference cannot be resolved is dropped rather than written broken |
| SEO data & redirects | 1,072records≈ 7 hrsredirects one at a time, plus a handle audit | By handany handle that changes becomes a dead URL with no redirect, and existing 301s are not in the product CSV at all. Years of accumulated ranking and backlinks end up pointing at pages that no longer resolve — the most expensive thing on this page to get wrong, and the slowest to notice | AutomatedSEO titles, meta descriptions and handles carried across, and every existing 301 recreated, so nothing that used to rank starts 404ing |
| Your custom theme | 1theme≈ 6 hrs2–10 hrs depending on how customised it is | By handa theme is not just its files. The settings, section content and block ordering are stored against the store, so a file copy gives you the layout and none of the content. Hardcoded asset URLs and tracking snippets also still point at the old store | Automatedyour live theme pulled and pushed as-is, then scanned for tracking snippets and hardcoded URLs that need re-pointing |
| Product videos | 12videos≈ 48 minre-upload and re-attach, ~4 min each | By handthe product CSV does not carry video or 3D media, so every one is a manual re-upload. They also cannot be pulled straight from a remote URL — the bytes have to be downloaded and staged first, and a wrong content type lands the file as a generic attachment that media-restricted fields then reject | Automatedvideo bytes downloaded, staged through a proper upload target, re-attached to the right product, and verified as processed rather than silently failed |
| Customers | 8,400customers≈ 2 hrsCSV import, then cleaning up the rows that fail | By handthe importer works, but marketing consent is the exposure: the CSV carries the current opt-in state and NOT the timestamp or source behind it. Re-opting someone in is a compliance breach, dropping them burns list revenue you paid for, and you cannot prove which happened afterwards. Default-address designation is also lost | Automatedcustomers upserted by email with every address, the default-address designation, and email and SMS consent states and timestamps preserved exactly as they were |
| Order history | 19,200orders≈ 8 hrsa paid third-party importer, plus a day of mapping and reconciliation | By handShopify's own CSV importer cannot create orders at all, so the hours here assume you buy a third-party importer — key them in by hand instead and 9,400 orders is closer to 390 hours, which is why nobody does that and why order history is simply abandoned in most DIY moves. Then support cannot answer a warranty claim, repeat-purchase segments are empty, and every returning-customer flow starts from zero. Getting the mapping wrong duplicates orders or re-dates them to today, and both are worse than not importing at all | Automatedfull order history recreated through the API with line items, properties, customers re-associated, original dates and tracking numbers intact |
| Navigation menus | 3menus≈ 1 hrsabout an hour to rebuild and relink them all by hand | By handmenu items store resource IDs, not paths, so nothing about them is portable — every link has to be re-pointed at the equivalent collection, page or product on the new store | Automatedmenus rebuilt with their nesting, and every item re-pointed at the equivalent object on the new store |
| Discount codes | 52discounts≈ 1 hrsabout 1 hr via the discount CSV, or ~3 hrs rebuilt by hand | By handthe discount CSV covers basic codes, but automatic discounts, quantity breaks and combination rules are not in it and have to be reconstructed by hand. A subtly wrong rule is worse than a missing one, because nobody notices until it has been over-discounting for a fortnight | Automateddiscounts recreated through the API with their rules, usage limits and dates intact, including automatic and free-shipping types |
| Blogs & pages | 42articles & pages≈ 3 hrsrecreated one at a time, ~4 min each | By handno CSV route for either. Articles also have no SEO fields of their own — their title and description tags live in metafields — so a hand-rebuilt blog loses its SEO even when every word of the text is right | Automatedarticles and pages recreated with authors, tags and publish dates, their SEO written to the metafields Shopify actually stores it in, and inline image URLs rewritten |
| Apps & app data | 12apps≈ 12 hrsabout 1 hr per app to reinstall, reconfigure and re-test | By handmost app data lives in metafields on your products and customers, so reinstalling the app gets you an empty app: reviews gone, subscription plans gone, loyalty balances gone, bundles gone. Flows and automations have to be rebuilt by hand and re-tested, and anything with its own billing has to be re-subscribed | Automatedthe metafield data your apps rely on migrates with the products and customers it hangs off, so a reinstalled app finds its data waiting instead of an empty store |
See these numbers for YOUR store, free
The figures above are a typical store in your category. The demo scan connects read-only to yours and counts the real thing — every product, variant, image, customer, order and metafield — then tells you exactly what a migration would carry across. No card, and it never writes to your store.
▶ Run the free demo scanDoes this need a new company?
A new legal entity does not reset your underwriting history. If your seed business has previously been declined or terminated by a processor, the beneficial owners behind it will be flagged under MATCH for five years, regardless of whether you incorporate under a new name. Underwriters will find the connection. Your best move is not a new company—it is finding an acquirer who accepts seed merchants and being transparent about your history from the start.
Frequently asked
Can I use Shopify Payments for a seed bank?
No. Stripe, which powers Shopify Payments, prohibits cannabis and cannabis-related products, and seeds fall under that category. You must use a third-party gateway provider who specializes in high-risk businesses and explicitly accepts seed merchants. This requires a separate merchant account with that acquirer and integration into Shopify via a standalone gateway, not Shopify Payments. The setup is straightforward but it is not a checkbox—you have to apply and be approved.
Which gateway should I connect?
Multiple acquirers publicly advertise cannabis seed merchants, including Bankful, DigiPay, PaymentCloud, Corepay, Easy Pay Direct and Durango, among others. Each has different underwriting, rates and reserve terms. Rather than cold-email a dozen providers, we maintain a live referral form on this page—fill it with your store details and jurisdiction, and qualified providers will contact you directly. This cuts months of back-and-forth rejection.
What happens to my existing orders and customer list during a migration?
Order history and customer data can be fully migrated to your new store. Your payment processing history does not move—your new acquirer will have no record of your old transactions. This is actually useful: you are starting your underwriting relationship with a processor who has chosen to accept seed merchants, rather than carrying a decline notice forward. Your customer list remains yours to use for reactivation email and retargeting.
Will my product variants and genetics data survive the move?
Standard product data—names, descriptions, prices, images—transfers cleanly. But if your strain genetics, cannabinoid profiles, growing characteristics or breeding notes live in metafields, a hand migration or CSV export loses them. Automated migration captures metafields correctly. That is why a seed bank catalog move is higher-risk than a standard ecommerce move: a broken genetics matrix means lost filtering, broken search and a degraded browsing experience for customers. We run the migration twice and compare counts to catch it.
Can I just export and import the CSV and call it done?
Not unless your store contains only text fields and product SKUs. Shopify's CSV export leaves behind metafields, metaobjects, orders, gift card codes, videos, themes, menus, discounts and redirects. The things most stores rely on. You can move the CSV, but then you have half a store. You need a plan for each missing category before you go live.
What happens to my customer data and order history?
Orders do not export through CSV. You must download them separately from your reports or ask Shopify support for an export. Customer email addresses and account records do not appear in CSV either — those must be exported separately as well. Customer data is critical, especially if you have consent timestamps for email marketing. Treat orders and customers as a separate export, verify the counts match the old store, and keep that list safe before you delete the old store.
Will my gift card codes transfer?
No. Gift card codes cannot be read through any Shopify API — no one can extract them, not even Shopify. That means they cannot be automatically moved. You must issue new gift cards in the new store. If you have outstanding balance on old codes that you want to honor, you will need to track and re-issue manually, or accept the loss. Check what gift cards you have issued before the move so you know what you are dealing with.
What about my theme and navigation menus?
Themes and menus do not export through CSV. You must select a theme in the new store and configure it from scratch, or pay a developer to replicate your current theme's customizations. Navigation menus must be rebuilt manually. If you used a third-party app to manage menus, check whether that app can export and re-import. The theme and navigation are visible to every customer, so do not skip them.
How do I know nothing was left behind?
Count everything. Before you go live, export the old store's data one more time. Import it into the new store again. Then compare: product count, order count, customer count, discount count, redirect count. If counts match, you have moved what can be moved. If a count is off, investigate why before you switch traffic. Do not assume the migration is complete until you have verified it. Once the old store is deleted, verification becomes impossible.
Move everything, verified twice, from $247
Pick a package and the migration order form unlocks immediately. Your existing store is only ever read from — we never write to it, so nothing you still have can be made worse. How the migration runs, step by step →