Domain name
If you purchased the domain name for your Shopify website through Shopify (and not another provider like GoDaddy) then you can follow the instructions below on how to point the domain at the ShopWired servers.
If your domain name is registered with another provider like GoDaddy or 123 Reg then you can follow our instructions here on how to point it to ShopWired.
Domain status during the transfer
During the transfer of your domain name there should be no reason for your website to suffer any downtime. During the transfer process your Shopify website will remain live, even after you transfer the domain name to your new domain registrar. Only after you change the DNS records for the domain (with your new registrar) will your website point to ShopWired. Throughout this time your website should remain live.
Transferring your domain from Shopify
In order to offer domain name registration services Shopify uses a company called Open SRS.
If you have a login for Open SRS then you can just login to that account and make the DNS changes to your domain name to point it to ShopWired by following the instructions here.
Unfortunately Shopify doesn't, as standard, issue Open SRS login details when you register your domain name so you probably won't have these login details (they won't be the same as your Shopify account login details). You can contact Shopify support and ask for them, but they may take a while to respond to you.
An alternative is to transfer the domain name from your Shopify account to an external domain name registrar (ShopWired does not provide a domain name registration service).
To do so, you'll need to open a free account with a domain provider, we recommend doing this with GoDaddy.com.
Once you've opened your account you can then begin the domain name transfer.
Prepare for transfer
Please Note!
Shopify will not allow you to transfer your domain name away from Shopify within 60 days of registering the domain name.
.co.uk, .eu or .be domains
Shopify will not allow you to initiate the transfer of your domain from within your Shopify account if it has a .co.uk, .eu or .be extension. To transfer these domains you will need to contact Shopify support.
Once you have logged into your Shopify account select 'online store' from the menu and then 'domains'.
In the Shopify-managed domains section, click on the name of the domain name you want to transfer.
Next, click the transfer domain button and then transfer to another provider.
Review the information displayed and click the 'confirm' button.
A domain name authorisation code will then be displayed (as shown in the example below).
You need to make a note of this code.
Next, you'll need to initiate the transfer with the new domain name registrar.
Initiating the transfer
Please Note!
You should only complete this step once you have prepared the domain name for transfer
Once you've opened an account with a new domain name registrar (e.g. GoDaddy) you should login to the account and either look for a section/menu about transferring in a domain name or searching to register a domain name.
Enter the domain name that you want to transfer (excluding any www).
Click to proceed with the transfer for that domain name and then, when prompted, enter your authorisation code.
You maybe required to pay a renewal fee for the domain name but this shouldn't cost you any additional money than you would already pay to renew the domain name. For example, if your domain has 6 months left (before renewal) with Shopify then when transferring the domain name you will register and pay for an additional 12 months but your domain will have 18 more months left until it expires.
Help guides
We've put links beneath for help guides on how to transfer domain names to the most common domain name providers:
- GoDaddy
- 123 reg
- Fasthosts/UK Reg
- Names.co.uk
- 1&1
- UK2.net
- LCN
Changing DNS
Last step!
During the domain name transfer from your Shopify account to your new domain name registrar account your website will remain live and pointing to the Shopify servers.
Once the transfer is complete you'll need to change the DNS records on the domain name to point to the ShopWired servers (and therefore display your ShopWired website).
If you transferred your domain into GoDaddy then you can follow our step-by-step instructions here.
If you have used another provider then please see more details here.
Support
Whilst we are happy to help all customers in any way that we can, support that we can offer on domain name transfers is limited because we do not have any management access to your Shopify account and we do not have any management access to your new domain name registrar account.
If you feel we can help please don't hesitate to get in touch.