Salla to Shopify Migration Service for Saudi Stores

Your Salla store got you this far. Now you want more: the UAE, Kuwait, Europe, a bigger app store, or full control over your theme.

Shopify can take you there. Moving is the part that worries most owners.

What if the Arabic URLs break? What if mada stops working on launch day? What about ZATCA?

That's the job we take off your plate. We move your Salla store to Shopify, rebuild the Saudi essentials and protect your Google rankings. Salla keeps selling until the new store is ready.

Who is this service for?

It's for Saudi and Gulf brands that started on Salla and are ready for Shopify. You keep your products, customers and rankings. We change the engine underneath.

We typically help:

• Brands expanding beyond Saudi Arabia. You want separate prices, currencies and languages for the UAE, Kuwait or overseas, all from one store.
• Growing stores that hit Salla's limits. You want deeper theme control, more apps or integrations with an ERP or warehouse.
• Group brands standardising on Shopify. A parent company already runs Shopify and wants every store on one platform.
• Owners who tried a DIY move and stalled. The export is done, but the import, redirects or payments aren't.

The outcome is a bilingual Shopify store that takes Saudi payments, issues ZATCA invoices and keeps your Google traffic.

Not sure Shopify is the right next step? Start with our Salla platform review and the Shopify guides for GCC sellers.

What's included in the migration?

Every project covers seven areas. We size each one to your store, so a 200-product perfume shop and a 5,000-SKU fashion brand get very different plans.

1. Data export from Salla

Salla's exports work well for products and customers. Orders are where they get thinner, so we build Salla's export templates to pull every field we can.

We export:

• Products with Arabic and English titles, descriptions, prices, SKUs, barcodes and stock.
• Variants such as size, colour and volume, with each option kept on the right product.
• Images in their original order, so the hero shot stays first.
• Customers with names, emails, phones and saved addresses.
• Orders with line items, totals, dates and statuses.

2. Clean, transform and import

Salla's columns don't match Shopify's. We reshape them into a migration template, usually Matrixify, and fix what breaks on the way: missing variant images, duplicate SKUs and Arabic text with stray formatting.

Then we import in a set order: products, customers, then orders. Before the full run, a test batch of about 20 products gets checked on a phone in both languages.

Order notification emails stay off during the order import. Past customers won't get surprise emails about orders from years ago.

3. Redirects and Arabic SEO

This is the part that protects your Google traffic. Shopify forces fixed URL prefixes like /products/ and /collections/, so almost every Salla URL changes.

We:

• Crawl your live Salla store and pull every indexed URL from Google Search Console.
• Match each old URL to its new page, one to one, never to the homepage.
• Handle Arabic slugs exactly. A Salla link like عطر-عود is indexed as a long percent-encoded string, and the redirect must match it character for character.
• Redirect Arabic to Arabic and English to English, so a shopper who searched in Arabic lands on the Arabic page.
• Carry over meta titles, descriptions and alt text in both languages, plus hreflang tags.

Prefer to do it yourself? Our step-by-step Salla to Shopify migration guide walks through the redirect method, and the Shopify Arabic SEO guide covers bilingual SEO after launch.

4. Payments: mada, Apple Pay, Tabby, Tamara and COD

On Salla, payments came built in. On Shopify, each one is connected separately.

Shopify Payments isn't available in Saudi Arabia, so we connect a local gateway for mada and cards. We help you apply for Tabby and Tamara merchant accounts, install their apps and add their instalment widgets. Cash on delivery is set up as a manual payment method.

Gateway approval sits with the provider, so we start those applications as soon as you approve the plan. Compare your options in our guide to Shopify payment gateways in Saudi Arabia.

5. Shipping, couriers and the National Address

We create shipping zones for Saudi Arabia and any GCC country you serve. Then we connect your couriers, such as Aramex, SMSA or your 3PL, through their Shopify apps.

Since 1 January 2026, Saudi couriers can refuse parcels without a valid National Address. Salla has a built-in Short Address field. Shopify doesn't, so we relabel a spare address line in Arabic and make it required.

The rule and the format are explained in our Saudi National Address guide.

6. ZATCA e-invoicing on Shopify

Salla issues ZATCA-compliant invoices natively. Shopify needs an e-invoicing app or an ERP connector to do the same.

We help you pick a ZATCA-integrated invoicing app, connect it to your Fatoora account and test it on real orders before launch. That way your first Shopify invoice is compliant.

Not sure which ZATCA wave you're in? Our ZATCA e-invoicing guide explains the phases and deadlines.

7. Theme, apps and launch

We set up an RTL-ready theme in Arabic and English and rebuild your key pages. Then we replace each Salla app with a Shopify equivalent, from reviews to WhatsApp messages and COD verification.

How does the migration work?

Five stages, from first call to a store that's settled in. Duration depends on catalogue size, order history and how fast gateway approvals come through.

1

Discovery

A call about your store, your markets and why you're moving. We look at your Salla setup, your top pages in Search Console and the apps you rely on.

2

Plan

A written scope: what transfers, what gets rebuilt, your redirect approach, payments, couriers and ZATCA. You get a quote by deliverable, and nothing starts until you approve it.

3

Build

We export, transform and import your data, set up the theme, connect payments, couriers and invoicing, and build the redirect map.

4

Launch

Test orders on every payment method, including refunds and failures. Then we switch the domain with you, import redirects and submit the sitemap.

5

Support

We watch 404s and Search Console after launch, fix any missing redirects and help you send customer account invites.

What you get at handover

When the new store goes live, you'll have:

• A live Shopify store in Arabic and English, tested with orders on every payment method you offer.
• The redirect map as a spreadsheet, with every old Salla URL and the page it now points to.
• A migration log listing what was imported, what was rebuilt and anything left for later.
• Your Salla archive: product, customer, order and invoice exports, stored where you can find them.
• An app list showing which Shopify app replaced each Salla feature, and who to contact for each.
• A short how-to guide for adding products, redirects and discount codes in Shopify yourself.

Why does a Saudi migration need extra care?

A generic Shopify migration moves the data and stops there. A Salla store needs more, because Salla handled much of the Saudi setup for you.

• Arabic search is your edge. Arabic titles and slugs reach shoppers that English-first competitors miss. Our Arabic keyword research guide shows how much demand sits in those terms.
• Checkout habits are local. Saudi shoppers expect mada, Apple Pay and an instalment option, and many still choose cash on delivery. Our Tabby vs Tamara comparison helps you pick which BNPL to offer first.
• ZATCA's Wave 25 widens the net. It covers Saudi businesses with VAT-subject revenue above SAR 187,500 in any year since 2022. For most VAT-registered stores, that means invoicing must work from the first Shopify order.

The upside is real. Once these are set, you have a store that can sell across the Gulf and beyond, with the customers and rankings you built on Salla.

What will you need to provide?

We do the migration. A few things only you can give us:

• Salla admin access, or an exported set of product, customer and order files.
• Collaborator access to Shopify, or we create the store with you in your company's name.
• Google Search Console access, so we can see every indexed URL.
• Domain and DNS access, for the launch-day switch.
• Your company documents for gateway, Tabby and Tamara applications: CR, VAT certificate and bank details.
• Your ZATCA Fatoora login, so the invoicing app can be onboarded.
• A list of the Salla apps you use and what each one does for you.
• One decision-maker who can approve the plan and sign off test orders.

Is this service right for you?

Tick what fits. If most of these describe you, a done-for-you migration is likely a good match.

Notes for brands selling across the GCC

Many Salla merchants move because they want the UAE or Kuwait next. If that's you, the migration is a good moment to set up those markets too.

• One store, several markets. Shopify Markets gives each country its own currency, prices and subfolders such as /ar-ae/, with hreflang added for you. See our Shopify Markets guide.
• UAE companies can use Shopify Payments. It's the only GCC country where it works, so the extra transaction fee disappears for a UAE entity.
• Separate entities per country? Shopify Plus allows expansion stores, so a Saudi store and a UAE store can each run their own gateway and invoicing.
• Plan redirects with new markets in mind. It's simpler to choose your URL structure once than to redirect a second time later.

Moving from Zid instead?

The process is similar, but Zid's exports, URL patterns and built-in features differ from Salla's. See our Zid to Shopify migration service for the Zid-specific plan.

Want a fuller Arabic checkout or new GCC markets after the move? Add our Shopify localization service to the same project.

Start your Salla to Shopify migration

Tell us about your Salla store, your catalogue size and where you want to sell next. We'll get back to you to set up a short discovery call.