---
title: "From Building-Supply Counter to Online Store: Replatforming to Shopify"
url: https://www.uncap.com/post/building-supply-counter-to-online-replatforming
author: "Denis Dyli"
published: 2026-08-13
updated: 2026-08-13
---

# From Building-Supply Counter to Online Store: Replatforming to Shopify

> The supply-house migration playbook: what stays in the ERP, what gets rebuilt, capturing counter knowledge, and cutting over by account cohort.

## Frequently asked questions

### What actually migrates when a building supply house moves to Shopify?

Web-side data, if a legacy store exists: customer logins, order history, content, and redirect-worthy URLs. The ERP's data, AR, credit, contract pricing, the item master, never moves; the new storefront reads it through a rebuilt sync. The catalog's storefront representation and the integration itself are rebuilt rather than ported.

### Can a supply house with no real web store still "migrate" to Shopify?

Yes, and it is common. The migration runs from the ERP and from staff knowledge rather than a database export: item master modeling, pricing and account architecture, and capturing the counter's product knowledge as data. The project is greenfield on the storefront side and very much a migration on the data side.

### Why cut over by account cohort instead of all at once?

Because the counter keeps working, so nothing forces a cliff. Waves of accounts, by branch, trade, or rep, let pricing, units, and terms logic prove out on friendly volume before the whole book depends on it, and the counter absorbs anything the portal is not ready for.

### Should pricing from the old web store be migrated?

No. Web-store pricing was always a copy of the ERP's truth, usually a stale one. The new storefront mirrors pricing from the ERP through the sync, and the migration is the right moment to retire the copy rather than preserve it.