How to switch your COA pages without reprinting a single label
The first question every brand asks before changing how they publish lab results: what about the thousands of units already printed, packaged, or sitting in a warehouse with QR codes on them? Short answer: nothing happens to them. Here's why.
The one idea that matters: a printed QR code is just a frozen URL. You can't change the ink, but you control where the URL leads. Migration means pointing old URLs at better destinations. It does not mean replacing labels.
Step one: scan your own label
Grab a unit off the shelf, scan it, and look at the address that opens. Every brand we've reviewed lands in one of three cases.
You own that URL. That means old labels can land on something better than the PDF list they were printed for. Two ways to do it:
- Keep the page, upgrade what's on it. In the theme editor, add the COA Vault lookup block to that same page. The URL never changes. Every label you've ever printed now opens a live batch search instead of a wall of PDFs.
- Or redirect it. Unpublish the old page and add a URL redirect (Online Store, then Navigation, then URL Redirects) from the old path to
/apps/coa. Had a separate page for each batch? Shopify takes bulk redirect imports by CSV.
Go with option 1 if you can. It keeps whatever search ranking and customer bookmarks the old page has earned.
Leave it alone. That PDF is the certificate for that batch, and it always will be. The link stays correct forever. Old stock keeps resolving to the right document, and new batches get new codes from COA Vault.
You can't change where those go. You also don't need to. Old stock keeps working through the portal, new labels switch over, and the old system retires itself as that inventory sells through.
Pick a cutover rule and stick to it
The only way to get burned in a migration is running two live sources of truth, updating one, and forgetting the other. Pick a rule. Batch-forward: every new lot goes in COA Vault and the old page gets frozen as a clearly labeled archive. Full backfill: move everything, then retire the old page. Batch-forward takes about ten minutes and is the right call for most brands. Backfill earns its keep when customers regularly look up older lots.
What new labels get
Codes from COA Vault don't encode your store's domain. They route through a stable redirect domain we maintain. Rename your store, change domains, replatform entirely: every label you've printed keeps working. That's the exact trap your current frozen-URL codes have you in, and there's no reason the next print run should repeat it.
One honest note in the other direction. A code printed before its batch has a certificate linked will show "no certificate found" until you link one. The app warns you before you print. And since the code itself never changes, labels printed early start working the moment the certificate is attached.
Upload your COAs, link lot numbers, print QR codes. Lookups are anonymous and your documents stay on your store's own file storage. 14-day free trial, $14.99/month after.
Install free on ShopifyNot sure which case you're in? Email me at brian@lotfoundry.com with a link to your current lab-results page and I'll tell you.