In this guide, we'll cover connecting your Stripe account to Shopify to migrate your existing customer payment methods so they can be used with Shopify's new subscription tools.
Requirements to migrate customer payment methods subscriptions
Your existing customer payment methods need to be stored in a Stripe account.
You'll need an export of your customer data from Stripe.
You'll need an export of your subscription data from your previous platform.
Shopify Payments needs to be connected as your main gateway in Shopify.
Card Tokens need to be saved using Stripe's Payment Intents API or Charges API
Import customer data into Shopify (names, email, addresses)
First, import all your customers using Shopify's native import tool located on the customer's page in your Shopify account. In this step, you'll use the .csv import tool in Shopify to migrate basic data from your subscription customers to Shopify. This should include their names, email addresses, shipping addresses, etc. Alternatively, Shopify makes a store importer app that can assist with importing customer information.
Detailed instructions for this step can be found at the following link: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/customers/import-export-customers
***Connect Stripe to your Shopify account****
Next, you'll need to ensure that Shopify Payments is configured and connect your Stripe account to Shopify using the following link.
- Stripe is no longer an option as a stand-alone gateway in Shopify. Only this link will connect Shopify to Stripe for import
If your Shopify domain were my-coffee-co.myshopify.com, you would change the link like this:
https://my-coffee-co.myshopify.com/admin/payments/legacy_subscription
Note: Payment methods imported to Shopify will continue processing through Stripe. The secondary gateway must remain connected to Shopify and remain in working order after the migration.
Any customers who update their payment information in Shopify after the migration will have their payment methods saved in Shopify Payments.
Detailed instructions for connecting Stripe you Shopify can be found here:
Export your customer data from Stripe
Once you have imported your customer data and connected your Stripe account to Shopify, you'll need to export your customer data from Stripe and send it to a PayWhirl team member to process the import file. We need a .csv export from Stripe, or another system, that contains your customers' Stripe IDs, Card IDs, and Email addresses.
You will need to update the column headers in the spreadsheet you send to our team to the following values: email, stripe_customer_id, and stripe_payment_method_id before sending it to our team.
Troubleshooting Tips and Recommendations
Note: If the Card ID values in your Stripe export are blank, this is most likely because the payment methods have not been "Set as default" in Stripe. You can fix this by using the UI in Stripe to set the payment methods to be the default before exporting or by exporting from another system that may have the default card ID saved.
Please only include the active payment methods tied to a subscription. Including extra payment methods can complicate the process and lead to slowdowns during the migration. Extra payment tokens can be imported after the subscriptions are in the system and working.
Shopify validates customer payment tokens, and they must include a billing zip code. Tokens without this validation won't import. Please edit the payment methods in stripe to include this detail
The Shopify import process is only certified to work with credit cards and may not import other payment types. Stripe can store many types of payment methods, such as Bank Accounts, in addition to credit card details. Typically only tokens that look like pm_xxx123 or card_xx123 will work.
Contact our team to process the import file
The last step is to connect with a PayWhirl team member through live chat or email team@paywhirl.com, so we can process your import. Our system will import and match the customers from Stripe with your existing customers using their email addresses (imported in the first step).
**Verifying the import worked**
During the import to Shopify, we do not have access to your stripe or payment data directly. We can only confirm that Shopify has received the payment information you gave us. There can be circumstances where Shopify vaults the card, but there are issues trying to charge the cards down the road. We highly recommend making a few live charges to reduce the chance of issues.
Migrating Subscriptions
Once the import is complete, you'll be able to re-create subscriptions for your customers (or create new subscriptions) using their existing payment methods from Stripe. You can use the create subscription tool in the PayWhirl app to ensure customers bill on the same schedule and with the same products or services they were subscribed to previously.
Detailed instructions for creating subscriptions can be found at the link below:
If you have more than 50 active subscriptions to create, we can also assist by importing your legacy subscriptions. This process is in BETA. To learn more, please see the following link. https://docs.paywhirl.com/en/articles/5497441-how-to-migrate-active-subscriptions-to-shopify-in-bulk-with-paywhirl-2020-version
Related Articles:
If you have any questions, please reach out to our support team. We're happy to help.
Sincerely,
Team PayWhirl