If you are trying to work out how to export products from Salesforce to Shopify, you are dealing with a different kind of move from a small WooCommerce migration. Salesforce Commerce Cloud, the system formerly known as Demandware, powers large brand stores with big catalogues, category pages, pagination and rich product pages. The products are there, and they are usually well structured, but Salesforce does not hand you a Shopify-ready file. You have to get the data out, reshape it into Shopify's import format, and check it carefully before anything goes live.
This guide explains that job in order. It covers what transfers cleanly, what needs cleanup, and how to test the import so a large catalogue does not arrive in Shopify as a tangle of split variants, missing photographs and wrong sale prices.
What Salesforce Commerce Cloud actually gives you
A Salesforce storefront shows its products in a very regular way. Category pages list product tiles, usually with a photograph, a title and a price. Each tile links to a product page with sizes, photographs and a full description. That regularity is good news: a tool that reads the storefront can follow the category pages, open each product page, and collect the details that matter.
WeCalculator's Shopify Product Extractor is built for this pattern. It reads the product tiles, follows their pagination, then opens each product page for sizes, photos and the full description. It does not guess from the address of a page. It reads the data the store itself publishes, and where a store hides a price behind a login or blocks automated access, it reports that product as failed rather than inventing a price or title.
That distinction matters for a Salesforce catalogue, because the catalogue is often the most valuable thing a brand owns after its name. An export that invents data is worse than an export that admits a gap.
Before you export: plan the catalogue, not just the file
Start by deciding the scope. Are you moving the whole store, one category, or a single range? The extractor can take a whole store homepage, a category page, or individual product links, up to 100 products per collection or store run. For a large Salesforce catalogue, that limit shapes the plan: work category by category, and keep a simple list of which categories have been exported, reviewed and imported, so nothing is missed or imported twice.
Next, look at variants. A Salesforce product with four sizes and three colours is one product with twelve variants, not twelve products. Shopify groups variants under a single handle, so the export must keep those twelve rows together under one handle, with one row per variant. If variants are split into separate products, your Shopify shop will show twelve near-identical listings, and customers will struggle to find the size they want.
Finally, decide on prices and status before you export. Note which products are on sale, because Shopify needs both the selling price and the compare-at price to display a discount. Decide which products should arrive as drafts, so you can review a large import in bulk before publishing it. A large import published in one rush is very hard to tidy afterwards.
Only move products you own or have the right to sell and describe. Product titles, descriptions and photographs belong to their source stores. If you are migrating your own brand store, that is straightforward. If a supplier has authorised you to list their products, respect that permission, and write your own descriptions where the original copy is protected.
Step 1: Export category by category
Paste a category page address into the extractor, with the collection option ticked, and let it follow the pagination. Salesforce category pages are paginated, so the tool must walk through every page of a category, not just the first screen of products. Review the results table as it fills: each product should appear with its photograph, price, variants and image count.
If you are moving a whole store, repeat this category by category rather than trying to force everything through one run. A category of 60 products, exported and checked on its own, is far easier to trust than a single file of several hundred products where one error hides among the rest.
For a simple worked example, take a category with 50 products. Exporting it in one run gives you 50 products to review. Testing 2 of them first, as described below, leaves 48 still to import, but any correction you make on the test products applies to the whole category. That is the point of working in batches: a fix made early protects every product that follows.
Step 2: Reshape the data into Shopify's format
Shopify's import format has 96 columns, in a fixed order. You do not need to fill every column, but the important ones must be right. Title, handle, vendor, product type and tags describe the product. Variant SKU, variant price, compare-at price, inventory quantity and variant weight describe each sellable version. Image addresses, in order, attach the photographs.
The extractor produces this format directly, so you do not need to map columns by hand. Still, review the file the way a customer would see it. Check that variant rows share a handle, that sale products carry a compare-at price, and that image rows are in the order you want them displayed. The first image becomes the main photograph in Shopify, so a category image or a detail shot in first place will misrepresent the product.
Prices are copied in the source store's currency, and the tool does not convert currencies. If your Salesforce store prices in one currency and your Shopify store sells in another, adjust the prices before you download, or edit them in Shopify afterwards. Do not assume a currency conversion has happened, because it has not.
Step 3: Test with two products, then import in stages
Never import a whole category on the first attempt. Choose two products that cover your range: one simple product with no variants, and one variable product with sizes or colours. Import just those two at Shopify Admin, then Products, then Import. Open them in Shopify and check the title, description, price and compare-at price, photographs in order, variants, SKUs and stock quantity.
If the test products look right, import the full category file, read Shopify's preview of the first products, and check the import summary when it finishes. Open a sample of products across the category, not just the first few, and publish in bulk only when you are happy. Setting Status to draft in the tool for a large first import keeps everything private until that review is done.
Keep the Salesforce storefront running while you check the new shop. Old links, search results and bookmarks may still send visitors to the old addresses, and planning redirects is a separate job from the product export. It is worth planning before the old store is closed, not after.
Common Salesforce export problems
Missing variants usually mean the product page did not expose every size or colour in its published data, or a size was out of stock and hidden from the listing. Check the product page itself: if a size is not shown there, it cannot be exported from there, and you will need to add it manually in Shopify.
Missing photographs usually mean an image address was wrong, or a photograph was loaded in a way the export could not read. Re-check the product page, and re-export that product, rather than uploading photographs one by one for a whole category.
Duplicate products usually mean duplicate handles. Shopify treats a row with an existing handle as an update to that product, not a new product, so a handle clash can overwrite a product you meant to keep separate. Give each product a distinct handle, and let the tool deduplicate handles where titles repeat.
A product that fails outright, with a clear message, is not a failed migration. It is a product the tool could not read, for a stated reason such as a block, a rate limit, or a login requirement. Type that product in manually, and keep going with the rest of the batch.
Frequently asked questions
Does Salesforce have a built-in export to Shopify?
No. Salesforce Commerce Cloud does not produce a Shopify import file. You export by reading the published storefront data, either through a tool like the extractor or through a custom export, and then reshaping it into Shopify's 96-column format.
Will customer accounts and orders move with the products?
No. A product export moves products, not customers, orders or account history. Those are separate migrations, with their own tools and their own privacy considerations. Do not promise customers that their old accounts will carry over unless you have a separate plan for them.
How large a Salesforce catalogue can I move at once?
Work category by category, up to 100 products per collection or store run in the extractor. For a very large catalogue, that batching is a strength, not a weakness: each category can be reviewed, tested and published on its own, without one error affecting the whole store.
Try the export with the free Shopify Product Extractor, starting with one category and two test products, and only then import the full range.