When And How To Replatform Your ECommerce Store
In a highly competitive eCommerce space, the success of your business depends on many factors. The platform you have built your store on is one of the factors that have a major impact on your shop’s performance and success. eCommerce platforms are unique and are created to meet different requirements. So, not every platform is suitable for you. You need to regularly assess how your eCommerce platform stacks up against others in terms of meeting your needs and addressing your priorities.
Why should you consider replatforming?
Scalability – Has your site outgrown the platform it’s built on?
When your business grows, you will have to expand the capabilities of your store constantly to keep up with the changing needs. For instance, when you start operations in another country, your site should be able to support a new currency, adhere to the tax rules, and add support for the language of the country. If your eCommerce site outgrows the ability of the platform to support such expansion, it can cause downtime, outages and errors, necessitating a replatforming exercise
Cost of Ownership – Are you spending too much too often?
The costs of having an eCommerce site and maintaining it are ongoing. Sometimes, the upfront costs can be ideal for your purpose, but the cost of upgrades, renewals, hosting, licensing and maintenance can be quite high, increasing the cost of ownership. If you find yourself spending on unforeseen expenses to keep your site running smoothly, then you should replatform.
Customer Experience – Is your customer happy with the experience?
Customer experience is of paramount importance for any eCommerce business. If your platform is dated or being phased out, it would have lagged behind in terms of user experience enhancing upgrades, performance, stability, and security. Replatforming is absolutely essential in those situations. Even some of the most contemporary platforms could be difficult to use and may not offer specific features/add-ons that let you customize the site extensively and serve your customers better. Features such as automated customer support are indispensable these days. You can replatform when you do not get the upgrades and features you need to meet your business objectives.
Integration – Is your eCommerce site integrated with the rest of your systems?
Integration with existing systems across the tech stack can make life easy. For instance, integrating with ERP Systems help you leverage data from across the organization and helps you make order management, inventory management, a nd other operations better and efficient. If your site does not integrate properly with your other systems, you may find yourself manually carrying out repetitive tasks. It will not only reduce the productivity and performance of your store but will also snowball across departments, consuming time and resources. When your eCommerce platform does not provide seamless integration with existing systems and plugins, you can consider replatforming.
A Step-by-step Guide to Replatforming
1. Assess your current performance
Get clear insights into the performance of your site with thorough data analysis. Identify the gaps and the areas that require improvement.
2. Identify your requirements and plan for the future
List the features that you need and identify your future needs. Plan ahead and choose a development path for the future. Take into account all the risks of replatforming before you decide.
3. Budgeting
Identify all the possible costs you may incur upfront and in the long run. Finalize a budget for the replatforming and assess whether the benefits of replatforming outweigh the investment.
4. Communicate with your Team
Replatforming has an impact on the operations of all the departments. It is important to engage with all the departments as well as decision-makers and get to know the requirements of everyone.
5. Shortlist the Most Suitable Platforms
List down the platforms that meet all your requirements, based on the identified needs and the finalized budget
6. Issue a Request For Proposal
An RFP helps to consolidate all the requirements, state the goals and objectives, and clearly communicate with all the parties involved.
7. Hands-on with Shortlisted Platforms
Gaining first-hand experience with the shortlisted platforms gives you better insights into the capabilities and foreseeable changes you may need to make to accommodate the new platform.
8. Choose Your Platform
Brainstorm the findings from your demo with all the stakeholders and choose the right platform for your needs.
9. Design a New Ecommerce Site
It is highly recommended to redesign the site completely by fully utilizing the features and capabilities of the new platform.
10. Backup and Migrate
Backup the data from the old eCommerce store and migrate all the data from the old site to the new one.
11. Optimize
Setup the shopping cart and checkout processes. Thoroughly test the ordering and shipping processes. Iron out all the issues and fine-tune those operations to provide a good customer experience. Do an SEO audit and make your site easily searchable on the Search Engine.
12. Test and Deploy
Test the new site thoroughly and scrutinize everything using the testing tools provided by the platform. Once you are satisfied, launch your brand new site and communicate with customers.
Arizon Digital – a reliable replatforming partner
When you take up a complex task like replatforming an eCommerce site, you need a wellexperienced partner who can assist you in every phase of the transition, right from the assessment and planning phase, all the way to testing and deployment. Arizon Digital is an expert in replatforming and data migration. With dedicated teams specializing in every popular eCommerce platform, Arizon Digital excels in facilitating the smooth and seamless transition of eCommerce stores from one platform to another. To know more about how we can help you with replatforming,
