Why data is the highest-risk part of any migration
Theme and plugin work fail loudly — something looks broken and gets fixed before launch. Data problems fail quietly: a handful of custom attributes that didn't map, order notes dropped in the export, a duplicate SKU that silently overwrote a real one. Those don't show up in a demo; they show up in a support ticket weeks later.
That's why we treat data migration as its own workstream with its own audit, mapping, and validation steps, rather than a side effect of building the storefront. Product catalogs, customer accounts, and order history each have different failure modes, and each gets checked separately before cutover.
