Thinking about replatforming your eCommerce site? It’s a big decision. It seems overwhelming to make a switch or upgrade to a new eCommerce platform.
Is it worth the risk?
This article will help you understand what it takes to replatform your eCommerce site. Full disclosure, it’s not as bad as it seems!
Why Replatform Your eCommerce Site
Whether you change with it or not, retail is always evolving. Changes and improvements in technology give merchants new options. The eCommerce site you built your business on a few years ago, may no longer be the best platform for you.
Your first eCommerce site might be slow, costly, and prohibiting you from providing a better customer experience. Upkeep and maintenance can be a nightmare. Your business has outgrown your current platform and needs more advanced features.
Merchants experiencing these problems should ask themselves if there’s a different platform out there that solves these problems.
There is! Merchants have so many choices today when it comes to eCommerce platforms. So, what’s stopping you from making the move?
Fears of eCommerce Replatforming
Merchants have many fears of replatforming.
They worry about losing site traffic and customers. Merchants think it takes too long to migrate and it just won’t work. They believe the cost of replatforming can easily get out of hand.
Others object because they feel they’ve put too much time, effort, and resources into their current platform to switch. It’s too big of a waste.
The risk just seems too big. However, you’re also taking a risk by not doing it. You risk getting left behind by your competition and not providing the experience your customers are demanding.
Is it worth the risk?
It’s a tough question to answer, but one you have to answer. See how you can overcome your fears about eCommerce migration.
The Process for Replatforming eCommerce site
The risk of replatforming doesn’t have to be so large and daunting. Following a strategy like this one below helps ensure your company doesn’t have a painful migration.
Pick New eCommerce Platform
First, choose the new eCommerce platform you want to use. Do not worry about the process of replatforming until you know what you’re switching to.
You have lots of choices to choose from. Use other resources like these articles to help you choose.
- Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which One is Right for You?
- Magento vs PrestaShop
- Shopify vs Volusion: Start Your eCommerce Business Right
Design New Website
This step can’t be stressed enough. Before you dive into migrating data, your new site must be fully designed. It’s hard to migrate data between two different platforms if you don’t know what the end destination is.
When designing your new site, it’s helpful to work with a partner that specializes in that platform. A web design partner can ensure you create a new, unique site experience that you’re striving for.
Prep Data
Once your site is designed, you’re ready to start migrating your data. There are partners and web tools available that can move the data. A good tool or partner will focus on data prep before a full migration.
Data requirements of your old eCommerce platform and your new platform will be different. For example, some platforms validate that the zip code matches the state of a customer. Others do not. This can cause an order to be rejected during your migration.
You must understand requirements like this and cleanse your data appropriately beforehand. This is an important step. Take the time to do it right.
Test and Migrate Data
A sample set of your data should be migrated first. If there’s any problems, changes can be made. After that, you’re ready to run a full migration. Then, your new eCommerce site is ready to go live!
Integration
An important reason merchants choose to replatform is to use a platform that more readily integrates with their fulfillment and accounting systems. Integrating your eCommerce site to these systems helps build multi-system processes.
Integration is critical to providing a better customer experience. It can improve relevant product content, real time inventory availability, and transparent order status.
After replatforming, you’ll want to see how to integrate your new eCommerce site with the rest of your systems using a system like nChannel’s multichannel management platform.
What to Do Next
Replatforming can be the right choice for your business. Don’t let the fear of costs and wasting time prevent you from improving your business. There are partners and tools available to sellers to ensure your migration from one eCommerce platform to another goes right.
If you’re trying to decide between different eCommerce platforms, check out an article like this one:
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