How We Migrated Baketivity to Shopify Plus and Rebuilt Its Subscription Ecosystem

Baketivity creates baking kits and educational programs for children and families in the US. The brand’s products combine cooking, STEM/STEAM activities, and shared family time. Monthly kits and educational programs help children develop practical skills through baking, experiments, and working with recipes.

At the start of our collaboration, the store was running on WordPress/WooCommerce. It was a functional eCommerce business, but the platform was more difficult to manage, develop, and adapt to a subscription model on a daily basis.

Baketivity’s product range included more than just individual kits. The core offering consisted of subscriptions, recurring deliveries, custom bundles, seasonal kits, and educational content tied to a specific month of the program.

The client wanted to refresh the store design and migrate to Shopify Plus — a platform that would be easier for the team to manage day to day and provide greater flexibility for managing subscriptions. At the same time, the migration had to preserve customers, orders, products, active subscription data, and SEO continuity through properly configured redirects.

The work did not end after launch: Stellar Soft continued its collaboration with Baketivity as a long-term technology partner.

Stellar Soft migrated the store from WordPress/WooCommerce to Shopify Plus and created a new custom theme.

A separate focus was rebuilding the subscription engine. The team updated the logic for renewals, shipping date calculations, and kit progression, while also unifying the behavior of subscription scenarios running through Recharge, Shopify Subscriptions, and internal APIs.

For educational subscriptions based on ClassWallet, we developed a separate system that allows payments through educational grants and manages recurring orders outside the standard card payment flow.

The team also implemented:

• automatic unlocking of video lessons based on the current subscription month;

• a custom kit builder;

• free gift and add-on product logic;

• separate shipping rules for different products and kits;

• subscription upsells;

• inventory tracking based on subscription duration.

As a result, Baketivity received a Shopify Plus store with a new design and custom logic adapted to the brand’s subscription model.

1. Adapted Ready-Made Solutions to a Non-Standard Subscription Model

Off-the-shelf subscription solutions were not enough to cover all of Baketivity’s scenarios. Recharge handled standard subscriptions, but two specific tasks required custom logic:

• accepting payments through ClassWallet educational grants;

• linking each recurring order to a specific subscription month to unlock the required educational content.

That is why the team used a combined approach: Recharge remained in place for standard functionality, while the specific scenarios were implemented through separate custom Shopify apps.

2. Live Store Migration

The store had to be migrated from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus without data loss. The migration included:

• customers;

• orders;

• products;

• active subscriptions;

• SEO structure;

• redirects.

The team also adapted the subscription logic to Shopify Plus, including renewals, shipping dates, and kit progression, so all subscription scenarios would continue to work correctly after the migration.

3. Custom Solutions 

Recharge Integration App. The app determines whether an order is linked to a subscription, retrieves the current month via the Recharge API, and records it, for example Month 3, in the order note. This data is then used for further logic, including displaying the relevant educational content.

ClassWallet Subscription App. For subscriptions funded through educational grants, the team built a separate tag-based subscription engine. When the app detects a product tagged classwallet:subscription-6, it creates a subscription record and generates monthly Shopify Draft Orders with the corresponding month tags.

Backend: Vercel and Neon.

Video Block on the Order Page. The Shopify Customer Account UI extension identifies the subscription month from the order note and displays the relevant video lessons from product metafields and metaobjects.

Subscription Inventory Tracker. The custom tracker adjusts inventory based on subscription duration so that stock levels reflect the store’s actual commitments.

Node.js Automation Scripts. Node.js scripts automate selected internal team operations.

4. Work Process

The project combined platform migration, design updates, and the gradual rebuild of the subscription logic.

The main stages included:

1. Analyzing the WordPress/WooCommerce store, catalog, and subscription scenarios.

2. Designing the Shopify Plus structure and a new custom theme.

3. Migrating customers, orders, products, and active subscription data.

4. Adapting Recharge and developing the ClassWallet subscription app.

5. Implementing educational content logic based on subscription months.

6. Setting up bundle functionality, add-ons, gifts, and shipping rules.

7. Testing changes in the dev/staging environment.

8. Launching the updated store and providing ongoing post-launch support.

After launch, the collaboration continued as a long-term partnership. The team works on new sections, content formats, the mega-menu, seasonal campaigns, and other product updates.

5. Technology Stack

• Shopify Plus — the foundation of the eCommerce platform.

• Liquid, JSON templates, sections, and blocks — the custom theme and modular page structure.

• Recharge — standard subscriptions.

• ClassWallet — payments through educational grants.

• Shopify Draft Orders API — creation of custom recurring orders.

• Shopify Customer Account UI extensions — display of educational content on the order page.

• Metaobjects and metafields — mapping video lessons by subscription month.

• Klaviyo — email and SMS communications.

• Node.js — internal automation scripts.

• Vercel and Neon — backend for the custom subscription app.

• Fulfillment and shipping-label APIs — delivery operations.

Technical Results

• Migration: the store was migrated from WordPress/WooCommerce to Shopify Plus while preserving customer, product, order, and active subscription data.

• SEO migration: redirects were set up for old URLs to maintain access to existing links and support SEO continuity after the migration.

• Subscription logic: renewal logic, shipping dates, and kit progression were updated.

• Custom scenarios: ClassWallet subscription flow, month-based content unlocking, bundle logic, and subscription-aware inventory tracking were added.

• Releases: a dedicated dev/staging environment allows changes to be tested before they are deployed to production.

• Content: the modular theme simplified the creation of landing pages, seasonal campaigns, and new content sections.

Business Results

• Operational management: the team received a Shopify Plus store that is easier to manage in day-to-day operations.

• Subscription model: the platform supports multiple subscription programs, recurring deliveries, bundles, add-ons, and seasonal kits.

• User experience: subscribers receive relevant educational materials based on the current month of the program.

• Payments: education buyers can use ClassWallet as an alternative payment flow.

• Returning customers: according to the client, they account for around 65%.

• Order growth: according to the client, order volume grew 19% YoY.

• Ongoing development: after launch, Stellar Soft continued supporting the store as part of a long-term partnership.