Migrating to a new Shopify store, and you sell testosterone support products. 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 testosterone support products
Shopify Payments declines most testosterone and hormone-support merchants because the category courts unapproved-drug exposure. Stripe, which underwrites Shopify Payments, treats hormone-modulation claims as pharmaceutical in nature: anything suggesting the product alters hormone levels, restores balance, or treats age-related decline reads as making a drug claim, which is prohibited. The secondary trigger is adjacency: the category sits directly adjacent to SARMs and prohormones, which are genuinely prohibited, so reviewers examine your catalog and copy with higher suspicion. A single product claiming to 'restore testosterone' or 'balance hormones' can sink the whole application.
Rule out the easy fix first — then deal with the real one
Shopify does not publish a documented route for this category. What most merchants try first is applying to Shopify Payments directly, assuming it is a simple underwriting question—it is not. Shopify Payments uses Stripe's restricted-business policy, which does not have a conditional approval path for testosterone products the way some categories do. Your alternative is to work with a high-risk acquirer who specialises in supplement and hormone merchants and wire their gateway through Shopify. This requires applying to the acquirer independently, disclosing your full product range and your marketing claims, and being declined or approved on their underwriting—which is separate from Shopify and takes 1–3 weeks. Permission to apply is not permission to launch; many merchants get approved by an acquirer only to find their ads or claims flagged later.
It only helps if all of these are true:
- No claims implying disease treatment, hormone restoration, or age-related deficiency reversal.
- All ingredients must be lawful dietary-supplement components (not SARMs, prohormones, or pharmaceutical precursors).
- Marketing copy must frame products as performance or fitness support, never medical benefit.
- Your processing history must show no prior declines or chargebacks in supplement or restricted categories.
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
💊 Sold to be swallowed, inhaled or applied — health claims and product-liability risk
Your product pages carry compliance weight they don't carry for other merchants. A claim on the old store—'supports', 'promotes', 'helps'—gets copied to the new one as written, and if it crosses into drug claim territory, it travels with you. Before migration, have the claims language reviewed by someone who reads them the way a regulator does. Also audit your certificates of analysis, test reports, and allergen disclosures: they need to be linked where a customer can find them in ten seconds, not buried in a PDF folder. A new store is the moment to get this clean, because your dispute rate—the 'it didn't work' chargebacks that plague consumables—will reflect whatever pages you land with. Take the time to separate marketing from claims before you move.
🔁 Recurring billing is a large share of revenue
A subscription business cannot afford downtime on stored payment methods. Your subscriber base and their billing schedules live in Shopify, and they will move with the store, but their payment method tokens are held by your processor, not by Shopify, and cannot be exported or imported at all. This means every subscriber's next billing date arrives at the exact moment you are most likely to have connectivity problems or incomplete migration. If you use Shopify Payments, tokens stay with Shopify—your new store can access them immediately. If you use a third-party processor, confirm in writing that they will release or continue to serve payment methods without interruption during the cutover window. Plan the migration for a day after your heaviest billing cycle, and notify subscribers 48 hours in advance that billing may be delayed. A lost billing cycle is revenue you will never recover.
⚖️ 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.
What you actually have to fix
Underwriters do not change their minds because you asked. They change them because the facts changed. For testosterone support products, these are the facts that move the decision:
Rewrite every product title and description to strip hormone-restoration language.
This is the single highest-yield fix because it directly addresses the unapproved-drug trigger. Remove any claim that the product restores, balances, increases, or regulates hormone levels—or treats age-related decline. Replace it with performance language: 'supports athletic recovery', 'enhances workout results', 'promotes muscle development'. A product called 'Testosterone Restore' must become 'Test Support' or 'Performance Blend'. Audit your email flows, social ads, reviews, and blog posts too—underwriters read all of them, and a single email saying 'restore your testosterone' can sink you.
Document that your product range excludes SARMs, prohormones, and pharmaceutical precursors.
Because testosterone products sit adjacent to genuinely prohibited compounds, underwriters will ask. Create a one-page attestation listing every ingredient in every product by name and supplier, with supplier COAs attached. Explicitly state that you do not stock SARMs (selective androgen receptor modulators), prohormones, pharmaceutical-grade testosterone, or any compound that requires a prescription or is banned by the FDA. This shifts you from 'suspicious category' to 'transparent operator in a legitimate category'.
Obtain and attach supplier certificates of analysis for every ingredient.
Underwriters need proof that your raw materials are what you claim. Request a COA from every supplier, showing third-party lab confirmation of identity and potency. If a supplier cannot provide one, do not stock that ingredient—it will be flagged as high-risk. Store these in a folder and reference them by ingredient code in your product specifications, so an auditor can verify them without calling you. This single document set is the difference between 'looks like a prohormone shop' and 'runs like a legitimate supplement business'.
Pull 24 months of processing history and dispute records to show clean risk profile.
Underwriters will pull your Visa and Mastercard history to see if you have processed this product before, been declined, or accumulated chargebacks. If you have, disclose it upfront with context: 'We were declined by Processor A in 2023 because we used unapproved claims; we have since rewritten all copy.' If this is your first application and you have no history, say so. Clean history in supplements or fitness (even if not testosterone specifically) is a strong signal. High chargebacks or prior declines in restricted categories will be held against you.
What underwriting will ask you for
- Complete product ingredient list with supplier COAs for each ingredient.
- Marketing claims audit: all product descriptions, website copy, email campaigns, and social-media posts.
- Competitor and ingredient-sourcing analysis showing you do not stock SARMs, prohormones, or prescription precursors.
- Processing history and chargeback/dispute records for the past 24 months.
- Bank statements for the past 3 months showing legitimate business revenue.
- Owner and beneficial-ownership documentation.
- Customer refund and return policy.
Getting underwritten for testosterone support products
High-risk acquiring is an entire industry that exists for businesses Stripe declines, and several of them publicly underwrite testosterone support products. 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 testosterone support products
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
Testosterone stores are dangerous to move by hand because compliance data lives in metafields. Supplier COAs, ingredient sourcing, batch dates, and third-party lab-result links are typically stored as file-type or reference-type metafields that a CSV export cannot carry at all. If they are moved naively, pages render but the lab-result files point silently to URLs in the old store, so an auditor or customer sees a blank or broken link. On a product that requires ingredient proof to stay approved, that makes the migration itself a compliance failure.
| What you own | How much of it | What breaks doing it by hand | What we do instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product images | 720images≈ 3 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 | 180descriptions≈ 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 | 1,080variants≈ 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 | 1,440metafields≈ 10 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 | 513records≈ 5 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 | 2,400customers≈ 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 | 4,100orders≈ 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 | 45discounts≈ 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 | 53articles & pages≈ 4 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 | 10apps≈ 10 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 risk profile. If you have been declined by Shopify Payments or an acquirer, your personal MATCH record (Mastercard's chargeback-history database) follows you for five years. Forming a new company does not erase that. The honest answer is that most testosterone merchants do not need a new entity; they need to fix their marketing claims and reapply to the same acquirer or a different one. A new entity is justified only if your old one is frozen or you are unwinding an entirely separate business line.
Frequently asked
Which gateway actually accepts testosterone products?
Several high-risk acquirers publicly underwrite testosterone and hormone-support merchants—Authorize.net on a high-risk MID, PaymentCloud, Corepay, Easy Pay Direct, Soar Payments, and eMerchantBroker. But 'publicly advertises' does not mean 'will approve you'. Each one runs its own underwriting and will decline if your claims read as pharmaceutical or if your supply chain includes anything questionable. The gateway is rarely the barrier; the acquirer is. Apply to multiple acquirers in parallel, disclose everything up front, and expect 1–3 weeks per decision.
Will my gift card codes transfer if I move stores?
Gift card codes are encrypted and cannot be read or exported through any Shopify API—by anyone, including Shopify. If you have active gift cards, they cannot move. Your options are to honour them on the old store until they expire, re-issue codes manually to customers who complain, or absorb the cost as part of your migration. Plan for this before you switch; it is not a surprise that appears halfway through.
What reserve should I expect from a new testosterone acquirer?
Testosterone and hormone-support merchants typically face a 5–10% rolling reserve, held for 90–180 days. This means 5–10% of every transaction sits in an escrow account that the acquirer releases only after the hold period expires, as proof you are not running a scam. Reserves are negotiable if you have strong processing history, but expect to start here. Budget for it in your cash flow before you switch processors.
Do my product compliance metafields survive a store move?
Not automatically. Supplier COAs, lab results, ingredient sourcing, and batch documentation stored as metafields cannot be carried by Shopify's CSV export. A professional migration service can extract and re-create them if you provide the source files and metafield structure, but moving by hand means they disappear or point to broken links in the old store. On a hormone product that requires third-party lab proof to stay approved, silent data loss is a serious liability.
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 →