How to Migrate from Salla to Shopify (Without Losing SEO)

Salla is a great place to start a Saudi store. Lots of brands launch there, grow fast, and then want more: other GCC markets, Europe or the US, deeper customisation, a bigger app store.

That's when Shopify comes in, and moving is very doable.

It's also getting easier for Arabic stores. Since October 2026, Shopify's checkout and customer accounts display right-to-left.

Products, customers and orders transfer with files or a migration tool. Your theme, apps, payments and shipping get rebuilt. With a solid redirect plan, your Google rankings come with you.

You'll see when the move makes sense, what transfers, each step in order, how to handle Arabic URLs, and what it costs. There's a checklist at the end. It's part of our Shopify guides for GCC sellers.

When does moving from Salla to Shopify make sense?

Move when your plans have grown beyond what Salla was built for. Salla is Arabic-first and Saudi-first, with local payments, carriers and ZATCA e-invoicing built in. Shopify is built for selling across many countries from one store.

Here are the common triggers:

• Expanding beyond Saudi Arabia. You want the UAE, Kuwait, Europe or the US, with separate currencies, languages and prices per market.
• You need Shopify Markets. It runs subfolders like /ar-sa and /en-ae, adds hreflang tags automatically, and sets prices per country.
• A bigger ecosystem. Shopify's app store, themes and partner agencies are far larger, and its export tools are more flexible if you ever move again.
• Advanced builds. Headless storefronts, custom checkout, B2B catalogues or ERP integrations.
• A parent brand on Shopify. Group brands often standardise on one platform.

There's a flip side. Shopify Payments isn't available in Saudi Arabia, so Shopify adds a transaction fee on orders paid through local gateways. You'll also pay for a ZATCA invoicing app and set up Arabic RTL yourself.

	Stay on Salla	Move to Shopify
Selling mainly inside Saudi Arabia	Great fit	Works, costs a bit more
Selling across the GCC and beyond	Limited multi-market tools	Shopify Markets: currencies, languages, domains
Arabic and RTL	Native everywhere	RTL theme + checkout translation needed
ZATCA e-invoicing	Built in	Third-party app (~SAR 100–300/mo)
Fee on card orders (KSA)	Gateway fee only	Gateway fee + 2% Basic / 1% Grow / 0.6% Advanced
Apps and themes	Largest local ecosystem	Largest global ecosystem
Customisation	CSS/JS on Pro and above	Full theme code, APIs, headless

Still weighing it up? Our full Shopify vs Salla comparison goes through fees and features side by side.

What moves to Shopify, and what do you rebuild?

Your data moves. Your setup doesn't.

Think of it like moving house: the furniture comes with you, but you reconnect the electricity, water and internet at the new place.

Item	Transfers?	How it works on Shopify
Products, variants, images, prices, SKUs, stock		Salla export → Matrixify template or a migration tool
Categories		Become Shopify collections
Customers (name, email, phone, addresses)		Import after products; keep +966 phone format
Order history		Imported last, as archived history
Reviews	Usually	Import into a review app such as Judge.me or Loox
Blog posts and pages		Matrixify sheets, or copy and paste
Discount codes, gift cards	Partly	Recreate the rules; some can be imported
Customer passwords		Send account invites after launch
Theme and RTL design		Rebuild on an RTL-ready Shopify theme
Apps (loyalty, WhatsApp, COD)		Find Shopify equivalents
Payments, shipping, ZATCA		Set up local gateway, carrier apps and an invoicing app

Two things surprise most merchants.

First, customer passwords usually don't transfer, because they're stored encrypted. Plan to invite customers to activate their new accounts. A short Arabic and English email with a small welcome-back discount brings most of them back.

Second, URLs change. Shopify forces fixed prefixes like /products/ and /collections/, so nearly every Salla URL gets a new address. A redirect map fixes that, and it's the step that protects your Google traffic.

Which migration tool should you use?

There's no official one-click connector between Salla and Shopify, so you choose between files, an automated tool and a partner.

Your options:

• Shopify CSV import (free). Fine for a small store with simple products. It handles products and customers, but not order history.
• Matrixify (from USD 20/month). The most control. You export from Salla, reshape the data into Matrixify's Excel template, then import products, customers, orders, pages, blogs and redirects. Its Basic plan handles 5,000 products per import. Always run a Dry Run first.
• LitExtension or Cart2Cart. Automated migration services with free demos. LitExtension prices by the number of records and sells 301 redirects and password migration as extras. Run the free demo first to confirm it reads your Salla data, passwords included.
• A Shopify partner agency. Best for big catalogues, bilingual stores, B2B or custom integrations.

Prefer to hand it over? Our Salla to Shopify migration service handles the data, redirects, payments and launch for you.

How to migrate from Salla to Shopify, step by step

The order matters more than the speed. Here's the sequence that keeps sales running and rankings safe.

1

Audit and benchmark your Salla store

Crawl the store with Screaming Frog or a similar tool. Export every indexed URL and your top landing pages from Google Search Console. Note your rankings, traffic and best backlinks so you can compare after launch.

2

Export your data from Salla

Download products, customers and orders as Excel or CSV files. Check the order export templates, because Salla's order exports are more limited than its product exports.

3

Set up Shopify

Register under your company's country, since pricing differs. Set SAR as the store currency for a Saudi store. Add Arabic and English, choose an RTL-ready theme and create your markets.

4

Transform and import

Map Salla's columns into the Matrixify template, or run your migration tool's demo. Import products first, then customers, then orders. Turn off order notification emails before importing orders.

5

Rebuild your commerce stack

Connect a local gateway for mada and Apple Pay, add Tabby and Tamara, and enable cash on delivery. Connect carriers, a ZATCA invoicing app, WhatsApp and review apps.

6

Build and import the redirect map

Match every old Salla URL to its new Shopify URL: products, categories, pages and blog posts. Import the list through Shopify's redirect CSV or Matrixify's Redirects sheet.

7

Carry over your SEO details

Move meta titles, meta descriptions and image alt text in both languages. Check canonicals, hreflang for Arabic and English, and product structured data.

8

Test everything

Place test orders that succeed, fail, refund and cancel. Try every gateway and BNPL option. Check the Arabic store on a phone and click through your top redirects.

9

Go live

Point your domain's DNS to Shopify, remove the store password and submit your sitemap in Search Console. Keep Salla open for about 48 hours to reconcile late orders.

10

Monitor for 90 days

Watch the 404 report, Search Console coverage and weekly rankings. Fix missing redirects fast. Send customers their account invites and loyalty updates.

How do you keep your Google rankings?

You keep them with one-to-one 301 redirects. A 301 tells Google a page has moved permanently, and permanent redirects don't lose PageRank. Expect some ups and downs at first, then a recovery within a few weeks to three months.

How Salla and Shopify URLs differ

Salla product URLs usually end in a numeric product ID. Shopify uses fixed prefixes with a handle (a short, readable name), so every product and category page gets a new address.

Patterns vary between stores, so crawl your live Salla site and use the real URLs it finds.

Your finished map is a simple two-column file. Here's what a few rows look like in Shopify's redirect CSV:

The second row is an Arabic Salla URL for the same perfume, "عطر-عود". It points to the Arabic version of the new page.

Arabic URLs need extra care

Many Salla stores use Arabic slugs. In links, those appear percent-encoded, like %D8%B9%D8%B7%D8%B1 for عطر.

Your redirect map has to match the exact encoded version Google indexed. Copy URLs straight from your crawl and Search Console, never by retyping them.

Then decide how your new Shopify handles will look:

• Arabic handles. Shopify supports translated handles, but the /products/ and /collections/ parts stay in English.
• English or transliterated handles. These share more cleanly on WhatsApp and social media.

Both are fine for Google, so pick one and stick with it.

On a bilingual store, redirect the Arabic and English versions of each page separately, as in the map above. Never send an old Arabic page to the English one.

Shopify's redirect rules

A few rules decide whether your redirects work:

• Redirects only fire on dead URLs. If an old URL still loads a page on Shopify, the redirect is ignored.
• One-to-one, not to the homepage. Google treats mass homepage redirects as soft 404s.
• No chains. Point each old URL straight at its final page.
• Keep them at least a year. Google's own guidance.
• Same domain? Skip Change of Address. That Search Console tool is only for moving to a new domain.

Once redirects are in, finish the job with hreflang, Arabic meta titles and structured data from our Shopify Arabic SEO guide.

Setting up payments, shipping and ZATCA on Shopify

On Salla, payments, carriers and e-invoicing came built in. On Shopify, you connect each one. It's a few days of setup, and you can do it all while Salla is still live.

Payments: mada, Apple Pay, BNPL and COD

Without Shopify Payments, Saudi stores sign up with a local gateway such as Tap, HyperPay, Amazon Payment Services, Geidea or PayTabs. The gateway handles mada cards. Apple Pay support varies by gateway, so ask before you sign.

Then add the extras:

• Tabby. Get approved as a Tabby merchant, install the free Tabby Pay Later app, and add its instalment widgets to product and cart pages.
• Tamara. Open a Tamara merchant account first, then install the free Tamara Split Payments app.
• Cash on delivery. Add it as a manual payment method. Shopify charges no transaction fee on COD.

Start gateway onboarding early. Approval can take days to weeks, and launching without mada or Tabby costs you sales.

Compare fees and payout times in our guide to the best Shopify payment gateways in Saudi Arabia, then apply this week.

Shipping and carriers

Create shipping zones for Saudi Arabia and each GCC country you serve. Then connect your carriers through their apps, such as Aramex and SMSA, or through a 3PL.

Live carrier rates at checkout need Advanced or Plus, or Grow with an add-on, so on Basic, use flat or weight-based rates.

Make the phone number required at checkout. Gulf couriers rely on it, and Tabby needs it too.

ZATCA e-invoicing

Salla handles ZATCA Phase 2 natively. On Shopify, you add a compliant invoicing app such as Marmin or Sufio, or a Qoyod connector.

Install it before your first live order. Read more in our ZATCA e-invoicing guide.

How long does a Salla to Shopify migration take?

A standard store takes about two to four weeks, while big catalogues, B2B stores and custom integrations take six to twelve.

The fastest way to stay on schedule is to start gateway applications on day one. Everything else can run in parallel while you wait.

How much does it cost to move from Salla to Shopify?

It depends mostly on who does the work. Here's how the four routes compare.

On top of the migration itself, plan for a few one-off and running costs:

• Shopify plan. Saudi pricing on annual billing is USD 19/month for Basic and USD 54 for Grow.
• RTL theme. Paid right-to-left themes cost USD 150–420, once. Shopify says its free Horizon themes support RTL too, so preview one in Arabic first.
• ZATCA app. Usually SAR 100–300 a month.
• Transaction fee. Shopify's fee on orders paid through local gateways.

Worked example: which Shopify plan pays off?

Say your Salla store sells SAR 100,000 a month, all through a card gateway.

On Basic, Shopify's 2% fee costs about SAR 2,000 a month. On Grow, the fee drops to 1%, or about SAR 1,000. That saving easily covers Grow's higher subscription.

COD orders carry no Shopify fee at all. So if a third of your orders are cash on delivery, your real fee bill is a third lower. Model your own mix in our Shopify pricing guide for the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Your Salla to Shopify migration checklist

Tick these off as you go. Each one is a step merchants commonly skip.

Notes for UAE-based brands and bilingual stores

• UAE entities can use Shopify Payments. It's the only GCC country where it works, so the extra transaction fee disappears. Customers can also pay in their own currency through Markets.
• Selling to both countries? Use one store with Markets subfolders such as /ar-sa, /en-sa, /ar-ae and /en-ae. Our Shopify Markets guide shows the setup.
• Separate entities per country? Shopify Plus includes up to nine expansion stores, so a UAE store and a Saudi store can each run their own gateway and currency.
• Translate the checkout. Arabic isn't one of Shopify's pre-translated checkout languages. Translate the checkout strings and notification emails in Translate & Adapt.