Sell Your Shopify Store: Prepare, Value, Transfer
To sell your Shopify store, get the books and the store in order, put a value on the business, find a buyer yourself or through a marketplace such as Flippa, Business Exits or Acquire.com, and then transfer ownership in the admin under Settings > General > Transfer store. Shopify handles the transfer of the store itself, but not the sale: the deal, the contract and the payment happen outside Shopify. Several things also do not move with the store on their own, from your domain to your payment accounts.
Prepare the business
Before you list, gather the evidence a buyer will ask for:
- Profit and loss for at least the last 12 months, reconciled with your Shopify payouts and your bank. Books a buyer cannot check make every other number doubtful; the tools are in clean books.
- Traffic and sales reports from Shopify Analytics: sessions, conversion rate, returning customers, sales by channel.
- A list of every app, its monthly cost and what depends on it, plus suppliers, fulfillment partners and contracts.
- Exports you want to keep. Shopify’s Help Center page on changing or transferring ownership, read on October 23, 2026, suggests exporting your billing history and, with Shopify Payments, your payout history and transactions.
The same page lists two blockers to clear early. If you use Shopify Capital or Shopify Credit, you cannot transfer the store. If you have an active Shopify Balance account, you must empty it and contact Shopify Support for help with the transfer.
Value it
Small ecommerce businesses are usually valued as a multiple of yearly profit. Flippa’s 2026 valuation benchmarks (updated August 11, 2026, H1 2026 data across digital businesses) give average realized profit multiples of 2.24x for deals of $10,000–$100,000, 1.85x for $100,000–$250,000, 1.82x for $250,000–$1 million and 2.43x or more above $1 million, with top-quartile deals between about 2.8x and 6x. For ecommerce specifically, the same article gives an indicative figure of about 3.98x profit for stronger cohorts.
What moves your number within those ranges: how steady the profit is, how much of it depends on you personally, how concentrated the traffic is (one ad channel or one marketplace is a risk to a buyer), supplier terms, and the share of repeat customers. Shopify’s page also recommends a business valuation to set a fair market value before you agree a price.
Where to sell
Shopify does not broker store sales. Its Help Center names third-party business marketplaces as the route when you have no buyer yet, with Flippa, Business Exits and Acquire.com as examples, and notes that each has its own listing steps, may offer valuations, legal resources and brokers, and usually charges fees. A buyer you already know, such as a supplier, a competitor or a customer, saves those fees. Whatever the route, Shopify advises a legal professional for the contract of sale.
Transfer the store in Shopify
Only the store owner can transfer a store, and a store has one owner. Shopify’s checklist before the transfer:
- Update the store’s business contact details in Settings > General: store email, phone and address.
- Change notification settings, such as the address that receives new order emails, to the new owner’s.
- Update contact details on any custom domain you bought, and transfer the domain to the new owner.
- Switch billing information to the new owner, including apps that bill outside Shopify.
- Change payout details to the new owner’s bank account for every payment method: in Shopify Payments, edit the bank account and the tax details; for PayPal and other providers, switch or transfer the account.
Then transfer:
- Go to Settings > General and, in Transfer store, click Manage.
- Select Transfer store to a new owner outside your business and click Continue; re-authenticate if asked.
- Enter the new owner’s email address and click Transfer.
The new owner gets an email, clicks Get started, logs in and clicks Accept store; you get an email when they accept or decline. Until then you can follow the status on the same page and cancel with Cancel transfer. If the buyer already works in the store as a user, the alternative route is Settings > Users > Change ownership. On Shopify Plus, stores move through the organization’s expansion stores or with Plus Support; how organizations work is in organizations and stores.
What doesn’t move automatically
| Item | What to do |
|---|---|
| Custom domain | Transfer it separately; Shopify’s checklist requires it if you bought one |
| Payment and payout accounts | Change bank and tax details in Shopify Payments; switch PayPal and other providers |
| Unpaid Shopify bills | Pass to the new owner if the billing threshold was not met before the transfer |
| App billing outside Shopify | Update in each app |
| Email, social accounts, ad accounts | Hand over separately; they are not part of the Shopify store |
| Shopify Capital, Credit, Balance | Capital or Credit blocks the transfer; Balance must be emptied first |
| Staff accounts | Remove your own staff or review their access with the new owner before handover |
Shopify notes that onboarding a new owner can take from days to months depending on the business, so agree in the contract how long you will help after the handover. Other operations guides are in the running a store hub, and raising money instead of selling is covered in funding a Shopify business.
Frequently asked questions
Can I transfer a Shopify store to someone else? The store owner can transfer it under Settings > General > Transfer store, by entering the new owner’s email; the new owner accepts by email. A store with Shopify Capital or Shopify Credit cannot be transferred.
What is a Shopify store worth? Small online businesses usually sell for a multiple of yearly profit: Flippa’s H1 2026 data puts the average around 1.8x to 2.4x depending on deal size, with stronger ecommerce businesses near 4x. Steady profit, little dependence on the owner and diversified traffic push the number up.
Do apps transfer with the store? Installed apps stay with the store, but their billing and any accounts held outside Shopify must be moved to the new owner. Check each app’s terms, since some licenses or accounts are tied to the person who signed up.