When it comes to eCommerce, shifting priorities are simply a part of the course. As eCommerce shifts from monolithic to composable commerce, businesses are striving hard to enhance their infrastructure to align with market needs and user preferences.
The million-dollar question here is — How can businesses make this vital leap?
The answer to this is eCommerce platform migration.
As the market changes and customer demands evolve, many eCommerce websites become obsolete and unscalable. This is when businesses need to switch their eCommerce platforms for more scalable and functional websites that allow growth and expansion.
If you are also confused about whether to re-platform your eCommerce website or not, this blog can help you understand when and how to ensure successful commerce platform migration.
Ready? Let’s begin.
What is eCommerce Re-Platforming?
An eCommerce re-platforming process refers to moving your eCommerce platform from one platform to another. This process involves transferring your site’s data and content and integrating all features and functionality important to the website from your current platform to a new, more robust, and relevant platform.
What Are the Benefits of eCommerce Re-Platforming?
A shift to composable platforms from monolithic eCommerce platforms has several benefits. Let’s take a look at them.
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Enhances value for the company and customers
Having a robust and advanced website platform not only makes your site functional but also adds value to your company and customers. Organizations that have implemented eCommerce migration best practices have witnessed improvement in sales and financial gains.
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Better integration with tools and services
eCommerce migration allows you to leverage platforms that easily integrate with your system’s tools and services, such as CRM, inventory management systems, and marketing automation systems.
This saves time and minimizes human errors, allowing employees to focus on other important aspects of business operations.
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Boosts website speed and performance
If your website is outdated, slow, and lacks essential features, it can negatively impact its performance and user experience. eCommerce success significantly depends on the customer shopping experience.
Choosing eCommerce re-platforming allows you to integrate modern and user-friendly platform features like seamless navigation, personalization, page speed, mobile optimization, and more. A positive user experience retains old customers, attracts new ones, and boosts sales. Besides,
Cyberattacks find old and outdated platforms the perfect target for cyberattacks. eCommerce migration lends you the opportunity to shift to a new and robust platform that reduces the chances of cyberattacks with features like regular security updates, encryption, and compliance. You can also partner with the best eCommerce website development company in USA to implement security best practices to ensure that your website is secured and protected against malware and cybercrimes.
When Do You Need eCommerce Platform Migration?
Here are some signs indicating that your business must migrate website to a new platform –
If the current platform does not support the functionality and performance of the website, it is time that you upgrade it. For example, your site is loading slowly, there is a sudden increase in downtime, there are frequent crashes and technical glitches, etc.
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Not supporting business growth
If your current website does not support your business growth, changes in ideologies and business goals, changing your current website platform for a more powerful one is the best decision you can make.
Technology change is rapid. It is essential to keep up with this change and choose an advanced eCommerce architecture to ensure business growth. If you are still using old platforms that do not support advanced technology and are outdated, it is time to look for a better platform.
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Scope for increased efficiency
Old and outdated platforms might not support your current operational needs. Choosing platform migration may help you boost your operational efficiency and give you scope for improvement.
Step-By-Step eCommerce Migration Guide
To ensure a successful migration, it is important to follow a step-by-step guide or a detailed eCommerce website migration checklist like mentioned below –
Step 1. Plan Your Migration
Before you jump straight into the migration process, it is important to evaluate your current platform’s functions, features, and content and have robust data migration strategies. This includes the most valuable asset of a website, such as payment gateways, sensitive customer data, and service or product catalogs.
Furthermore, conduct a thorough analysis of the current web performance metrics, such as conversion rate, page load speed, bounce rate, etc. This also helps you identify the scope of improvement for a better-performing website.
Also, understand your current website’s SEO efforts to understand your loopholes and migrate your website without losing your current search engine rankings.
Step 2. Choose the Right Platform
A streamlined eCommerce platform migration process involves choosing the right platform to strengthen the foundation of your website. A robust platform refines the performance of your website and enables you to meet your business goals and objectives.
When choosing your website platform, consider your business’s complexity and size and analyze your requirements. The most common platforms widely used are WooCommerce and Shopify, which are ideal for small businesses. Larger enterprises may require platforms with more complexities, such as new and more secure payment options, flexible shipping methods, multiple product categories, etc. Such platforms include Salesforce Commerce Cloud or Magento.
To find the best platform for your business, you can partner with the leaders of migration and align your platform with your business needs and challenges.
Step 3. Test the New Website
Testing the new website is at the core of the eCommerce platform migration checklist. After the migration process is completed and the essential data are transferred, testing the new website thoroughly helps you identify errors and analyze the website’s performance, functionality, and user experience.
This includes testing the website’s search functionality, navigation, shopping cart, product categories and pages, checkout process, and payment gateway integration.
Consider conducting your website on different devices and various levels to ensure that your website performs well across different screen sizes and can handle the increase and decrease in traffic.
Step 4. Redirect the URLs
URL redirection is a critical aspect of your eCommerce migration project. Redirecting your URLs ensures that visitors who accessed your old website are automatically directed to your new URL. This retains the old traffic and also preserves your SEO achievements. There are several types of redirection, such as 301, 302, and 307 redirects.
Step 5. Update Your SEO
SEO efforts are essential for driving organic traffic to your website. When migrating your eCommerce website, consider updating your SEO to prevent losing your rankings and SERP visibility.
The last step is to monitor the performance of your new website. Integrate several analytical tools and technologies to gain insights into your website and find the scope for improvement to ensure enhanced website performance and user experience.
To make the process impactful, follow the above eCommerce migration checklist or partner with a migration or website development vendor to find the best strategies to update your existing website.
Final Thoughts
eCommerce website migration is a daunting task. However, it is essential when your current website is outdated or your business needs have changed. Following development best practices and a detailed checklist for successful eCommerce website migration will ensure that you can effectively transfer your current website to a new platform.
To make the process seamless, you can contact experienced professionals offering effective eCommerce solutions and migration strategy.
