Ecommerce
Replatforming
Replatform you store and take your business to the next level.
Benefits of Replatforming
Why Migrate Your Website to a Newer Platform?
Sites running on outdated technology, or which have become
expensive to maintain and change, can hold you back and stop your business growing.
A new platform can lead to new opportunities and savings, supporting the latest store features, enabling your business to grow sales and enter new markets. With some research, planning, and stakeholder involvement you can achieve amazing outcomes for your business.
The Big Question
Should You Replatform?
The first step is to work out if replatforming is right for your business. What are the critical drivers making you consider a new ecommerce solution? We suggest sitting down asking these questions:
Are you using outdated technology?
If any of these sound familiar then you could be using outdated technology and should consider replatforming.
- Your current site is slow or suffers from technical problems
- It’s hard or time-consuming to develop new features and innovate new solutions
- You’re falling behind your competitors
- Your site difficult to manage or has limited features
- Your site is unable to handle peak traffic conditions
Are you struggling with marketing and SEO?
If any of these sound familiar then you’re struggling with marketing and SEO, and replatforming may be the solution for you.
- Testing changes is difficult, making it hard for your marketing team to optimise
- It’s almost impossible to utilise new technologies and add integrations such as personalisation, powerful and fast site search, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- You’re unable to optimise for ‘mobile first’ technical SEO changes and your SEO has been affected because of it
- You feel unable to handle the future brand strategies demanded by marketing or others
Are you dealing with security concerns?
If you’re familiar with the security issues listed below, then you may want to consider replatforming.
- You’ve has a security or compliance incident
- The costs and risks of constant security patches are a business concern and you’re left with a ‘versionless’ ecommerce solution
Are you facing operational overheads?
If you’re facing large overheads and resonate with any of the points below, then replatforming could be the answer.
- There are issues integrating with other parts of the business
- Middleware connections are expensive or resource-heavy
- You need to streamline integrations to increase efficiencies
- You have large bespoke architecture that’s costly to support
Are you experiencing scalability issues?
If you’re struggling to scale or are familiar with any of the issues below then you should consider replatforming.
- Failing to compete with fast-moving online marketplaces
- Your current platform prevents you from implementing business changes such as growth, acquisition, or internationalisation
- Your current system prevents you from adopting an omnichannel approach
Should you improve your integration and efficiency?
If any of these integration and efficiency issues sound familiar then replatforming could help.
- You’re having issues integrating with other parts of the business
- You need to streamline integrations to increase efficiencies
- Middleware connections are expensive or resource-heavy
Where do I start?
Plan a Discovery
Once you’ve settled on replatforming, we recommend conducting a discovery phase. The outcome will be a deep understanding of your business objectives and goals which will identify what you require from a new platform.
We recommend reading this White Paper by BigCommerce. It has an excellent, platform-agnostic guide to conducting the discovery phase.
Who's the Right Vendor?
Choosing the Right Platform
Using the information from the discovery phase we can narrow your potential vendor list down to a few options. Once we’ve agreed a new vendor, we can plan the migration and build.
We have experience guiding businesses through every step of the replatforming process. We work closely with you to take your business objectives and requirements and translate them into a successful ecommerce solution.
BigCommerce
Shopify
Adobe Commerce
Salesforce
Getting Started
What You'll Need to Replatform...
There are three main areas to consider during the project itself:
Data Migration
Data is the heartbeat of the business and is often the step that requires a lot of manpower to migrate.
Before you begin replatforming, we’ll need to map out all the data to migrate. This will typically include the product catalogue, customers and pricing – this may include customer specific pricing if you’re a business-to-business organisation.
When considering replatforming you’ll need to answer these questions:
- What data needs to be migrated?
- What is the single ‘source of truth’?
- Will it be your back office system (e.g. an ERP), or the ecommerce platform itself?
Integrations
We specialise in integration planning and development, and have a track record in successful implementation across a variety of systems.
We work with our clients to identify how any integration should work. To do this, we gain a deep understanding of your business, get familiar with your data, and act as an extension of your team.
Integration Checklist:
- Critical components: such as integrating with your ERP. These must be completed during the project
- High level integrations: these are not critical to the operation but are highly valued, such as your email marketing system.
- Low level integrations: nice to have but are not essential for going live, such as email signup popups
User Experience and User Interface
Many people want to start the project by focusing on the user interface as this is where you can see the most visual progress.
However, planning data migrations and integrations are the most critical steps. Once these have been planned it’s time to create the new look and feel of the site.
It can be a great idea to workshop with your marketing team. Consider your overall brand strategy and get feedback on what is working (and not working) on the current site. Rely on information from the discovery phase here as well.
It can be beneficial to define different types of customer and consider their buying experiences.
Consider these:
- User Experience
Consider the overall ease of the buyer’s journey. How will customers interact with the products and how will the store help them to convert at checkout. - User Interface
Consider the actual assets that customers interact with on the UX journey.
Need Help with Your Replatforming Project?
We take pride in being there for you, every step of the way.
From bouncing ideas to technical support and insights, from introducing fresh features to advising on upcoming trends for your store, we’ll guide you and partner with you to secure your long-term success.