Switching from LitCommerce to ShipWave: Complete Guide

Do this before anything else, because it is the most common reason this migration should not happen.

ShipWave Channels covers: Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, TikTok Shop, and six EU marketplaces — Allegro, Bol.com, Cdiscount, Otto, Kaufland, and Mirakl.

ShipWave does not cover: Temu, Faire, Reverb, Shopee, Google Shopping, Target Plus, or resale platforms. LitCommerce covers several of those, and that breadth is one of its genuine strengths.

Also confirm your source store. ShipWave requires Shopify as the source of truth. LitCommerce can run from WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or Wix. If your master catalog is not in Shopify, this migration is not available regardless of channel overlap.

If ShipWave covers only some of your channels, you have a legitimate hybrid option: keep LitCommerce for the channels we do not support and move the rest. That is safe as long as each channel is managed by exactly one app. It also means paying both, so weigh whether the shipping-side savings justify it.

Why merchants make the move anyway: ShipWave prices on channel count, not listing count. If you have a large catalog, LitCommerce's listing tiers may be your dominant cost, and $59/mo for all channels with no listing charge — plus a shipping core that is free — is a different economic shape entirely.

The good news and the bad news are the same fact: almost nothing transfers, because almost nothing needs to.

The work is configuration, not data. Before you touch anything, go into LitCommerce and capture every pricing rule, template, and category mapping you have built. Once the subscription lapses you lose the reference, and reconstructing a per-channel markup schedule from memory is exactly the kind of mistake that shows up as a month of underpriced sales.

Document first. For each channel in LitCommerce, capture:

• Pricing rules — percentage markups, fixed uplifts, rounding rules, and any per-channel overrides that exist to absorb marketplace commission.
• Listing templates — title formats, description templates, image ordering, and per-channel attribute mappings.
• Category mappings — which Shopify collections or product types map to which marketplace categories.
• Excluded or paused SKUs, and why. This list always contains at least one product excluded for a reason nobody wrote down.
• Handling time and shipping template settings pushed to each marketplace.

Then reconcile Shopify inventory. ShipWave reads quantities from Shopify, so Shopify has to be right before a channel goes live. Export on-hand from Shopify, compare against what each marketplace is currently displaying, and investigate meaningful gaps — they usually indicate a sync path that has been quietly failing.

If you run multiple locations, check per-location splits rather than just the total. Location errors net to zero at the aggregate level and still break fulfillment.

Create your ShipWave account and connect Shopify. Catalog, orders, and inventory arrive without a data import.

Configure the shipping side first, before any channel goes live. Marketplace orders will land here and you want the fulfillment path proven before volume arrives: add every warehouse with its exact ship-from address, review the available rates (ShipWave ships on its own pre-negotiated carrier accounts — USPS Commercial Plus, UPS, FedEx, DHL, plus OnTrac, LaserShip, Veho, LSO, Spee-Dee, and GLS), rebuild package presets, and confirm 4x6 thermal label output works.

This part is free and permanent — unlimited labels, no monthly fee — so there is no trial clock running while you set it up.

Then start the Channels trial. It runs 14 days, and your first channel is free permanently, so your lowest-volume marketplace can be migrated and evaluated at zero cost. Pick that first channel deliberately: use your smallest marketplace by order volume, usually Etsy or eBay. Amazon should always be last, because it punishes stockouts and cancellations hardest and you want the process rehearsed before it gets there.

On pricing: with the first channel free, per-channel billing costs $19 for each channel after the first, so the $59/mo all-channels rate becomes the cheaper option once you are running five or more channels.

The one rule that matters: never let two apps sync inventory to the same marketplace at the same time.

LitCommerce and ShipWave both writing quantity to the same Amazon or eBay account will produce conflicting updates. You will not see it as an error — you will see it as oversells, cancellations, and on Amazon, defect-rate damage. There is no safe overlap window, not even an hour.

Per channel, in this order:

• In LitCommerce, disconnect that channel or fully disable its inventory and price sync. Verify it is off rather than assuming.
• In ShipWave, connect the same channel and authorize it.
• Link existing listings to your Shopify SKUs. This is where mismatched or missing SKUs surface; fix them in Shopify, not by editing marketplace listings.
• Rebuild that channel's pricing rules from your documentation. Spot-check ten products against their current live marketplace price before enabling.
• Set the per-channel buffer and floor so you can reserve quantity per marketplace rather than exposing one pooled Shopify number.
• Enable sync. Watch for 24 hours and confirm quantity updates land after a sale.
• Only then move to the next channel.

Budget a full day per channel. Four channels is a week. That pace feels slow and is the entire reason the migration works.

The failure mode nobody anticipates is not a broken listing — it is a listing that works perfectly at the wrong price.

Because pricing rules do not transfer, a rebuilt rule missing a marketplace-commission markup will publish live prices below your intended margin and keep selling happily until someone notices at month end.

Verify explicitly, per channel, after each cutover:

• Pull the live marketplace price for your ten highest-volume SKUs and compare against what they were before the switch. They should match exactly unless you intended a change.
• Check your lowest-margin SKUs specifically. A markup rule 5% short is invisible on a high-margin product and fatal on a thin one.
• Confirm rounding behaviour matches — some tools round to .99, some do not, and the difference compounds.
• Verify handling time and shipping template settings pushed correctly; these affect placement on some channels.

Rebuild listing templates only after pricing is confirmed correct. Titles, descriptions, and images can be adjusted at leisure; a wrong price cannot. Set a reminder to re-audit prices seven days after each cutover, because rules that look right on ten samples sometimes behave differently on the long tail.

Once channels are stable, the reason many merchants make this move becomes available: the rest of the platform.

LitCommerce is a listing tool. It does not ship anything. If you were paying LitCommerce for channels and something else for labels, this is where the consolidation pays.

• Shipping core — free. Unlimited labels, no monthly fee, no volume minimum. Marketplace orders flow directly into labels without a second integration.
• Returns Automation — $29/mo. Branded self-serve portal with USPS Label Broker QR codes so customers do not need a printer, plus automatic disposition rules.
• Freight and LTL — free. Palletized quotes alongside parcel.
• Hazmat — $19/mo. Dangerous-goods paperwork for lithium batteries and similar regulated items.
• Wholesale B2B — $39/mo. Dealer and wholesale pricing, if you sell that way.
• Recovery and Audit Suite — 25% of recovered funds, no monthly fee. Carrier invoice auditing and automated claims.
• Cross-border runs on Zonos with a guaranteed landed cost and a real DDP commitment at checkout.

Only cancel LitCommerce once every channel you are moving has run clean for a full billing cycle — and keep it if it is still managing channels ShipWave does not support.