In the eCommerce industry, staying competitive means staying current.
The latest Digital Commerce 360 report states that 76% of B2B eCommerce sellers and 27% of retailers plan on eCommerce migration within the next year.
Moreover, as of 2023, the urgency of eCommerce migration is evident. Over 56% of working-age internet users are shopping online every week!
This is an obvious sign that having a digital storefront is more critical than ever.
Doesn’t matter what your goals are! Be it embracing cutting-edge technologies or be it meeting rising customer expectations, migrating to an up-to-date eCommerce platform is not optional anymore, it is considered being strategic.
Here is where eCommerce Migration shows up. When done right, it can become an ultimate strategy. It can not only future-proof your online presence but also position your brand for scalable growth.
In this blog, we will breakdown the process of eCommerce Migration and when is the ideal time for eCommerce migration. Further down, we will also discuss the challenges accompanied by it and the ongoing trends.
eCommerce Migration: The Guide Book
STEP 1: Identify Your Needs and Priorities
Start with reviewing your current platform.
Identify any missing areas of improvement and the benefits and potential drawbacks of migrating.
Next, note down the replatforming requirements such as the labor needs, cost outlay, and timelines to complete the task.
STEP 2: Seek Out Stakeholders
ECommerce migration requires the collaborative efforts of both doers and decision-makers.
Your next best strategy is to bring those people together, everyone whom the eCommerce site migration impacts. Present your case for why a migration is necessary.
When presenting your case, make sure you mention the following:
- What you can do with the new platform that you can’t on your current platform.
- Point out the most time consuming activities.
- Automation possibilities that could save time and resources.
- Any ongoing issues with the platform that cause lost revenue
- An estimate of internal resource waste caused by these issues
- Barriers to innovation, store growth, and positive customer experience caused by your current system
- Potential replatforming and migration risks, what to expect during and after, and why
It’s vital you stand strong and confident when discussing the risks of migration.
Be transparent about potential disruptions and the support you will need during and after the migration process.
Your goal is to portray the short-term efforts of switching platforms, which will make up for the long-term efficiency and growth.
Once you have convinced everyone, it’s time to plan!
Here is a quick list of what you and your stakeholders should outline:
- Critical features and integrations your business relies on
- Pain points to fix and ensure don’t resurface
- Future-facing capabilities that support your growth goals
- Manual workflows to automate for improved efficiency
- Key data to migrate, including products, customer records, and orders
- Resource planning—who’s doing what and when during the migration
- A realistic timeline to start and complete the project
STEP 3: Shopping For A New eCommerce Platform
Next, with the help of various resources, you can shortlist five or six ecommerce platforms.
Set up exploratory calls with each.
There are questions that need to be asked such as:
- What’s the estimated cost of migrating our current store to your platform?
- What’s the typical timeline for a migration like ours?
- Can you walk me through the migration process step-by-step?
- How hands-on is your team during the migration process?
- What kind of support do you offer once we’re live?
- Can you share any performance stats like average site speed and uptime?
- How well does your platform scale as we grow?
- How do you ensure our data remains secure during and after migration?
- What security standards and compliance measures do you meet?
- Do you have a list of integrations your platform supports out of the box?
- If we need an integration that isn’t currently supported, what are our options?
Of course, you will have more questions based on your specific business needs. Find your answers, align them with your questions and share them with your team.
STEP 4: Planning the Migration
Now that you have chosen your eCommerce partner,
It’s time we establish a realistic scope of work and timeline for the migration to take place.
Start with mapping out all the key milestones and resources required for each.
Most processes require you to plan sub-projects to deal with the following:
- Creating a new website hierarchy
- Migrating content
- Auditing and deleting existing content
- Front-end design
- Back-end development
- Pre- and post-launch training
- Search engine optimization (SEO) migration planning
The most vital element is Data Migration.
You need to start planning which data to transfer and you need to ensure the safety of the data during the move.
Data migration can be done with the help of a third-party service, API plug-in, app, or manual CSV transfer. It’s best to ask your agency or solution provider on which best to go for your migration project.
STEP 5: Backing Up Your Store’s Data
No matter how prepared you are, there is always a chance of something going wrong, especially when transferring data from one platform to another.
Before you start the migration process, it is best you backup all your existing content and account.
Re-evaluate which content you need and what to remove such as older, outdated, non-SEO-optimized pieces. This ensures that you are only transferring up-to-date content that is current, relevant, and valuable.
Backing up your current business data will minimize downtime and disruption to customers and have data to revert back to in case things go awry.
Plan where you will store your data, where you can access it during the shift and where it will sit in the new ecommerce platform.
STEP 6: Designing and Developing The New Site
The most time and resource costly step of all is the design and development phase.
Your designers and expert development team will be up long hours to create the front and back ends of your new eCommerce store.
This step is also where all your up-to-date data is now sitting in their designated places.
This phase is the right time to make any significant changes to your website if you want.
STEP 7: Migrating Store Data
You can either manually migrate your stored data yourself |(if you have the right technical expertise)…
Or you could get the help of a migration app or hire a third-party to do it for you.
Make sure you hire an eCommerce migration expert to help you with switching from and to. Furthermore, they should be able to handle the entire migration accurately and securely.
STEP 8: Optimizing The Checkout Experience
Depending on the platform you chose, you may be able to customize and optimize your checkout experience.
This is the perfect time to make sure that the new check out experience matches what you had hoped for. The goal is to make sure that the new experience is fast, secure and efficient for visitors and clients.
STEP 9: Conducting an SEO Audit Prior to Launch
eCommerce Migration comes hand in hand with risks from an SEO perspective. You are much likely to run into a wide variety of variables during the shift. They may negatively or positively impact your search rankings for a short while.
The best way to lighten the impact of the risks, you have to:
- Audit your existing content, and remove old and duplicate content
- Create a detailed redirect plan that maps pages on a one-to-one basis
- Ensure that any new web content is optimized appropriately with your keyword targets
- Migrate all metadata and schema markups from your old site (and optimize it, if needed)
It is vital that you keep monitoring your organic traffic, search rankings, and technical SEO profile once the site is launched. Use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs.
Look out for 404 errors, site speed issues, etc that might indicate compromised performance.
STEP 10: Testing (and more testing)
It is vital that you test every part of your new platform before launching it. The more you test, the more problems you can find and fix before D-day.
Use a performance auditing tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to check how smoothly the site runs. This will help avoid slow pages and other issues that could result in frustrated customers.
In this phase, you could use all the feedback, be it your team or the customers. Have people go through the site as if they were genuine buyers.
Fish out loyal customers and ask them to explore your new site early and share their feedback.These feedbacks will enable you to make final improvements before the launch day.
STEP 11: Launching The Website
Plan your launch window!
This will minimize disruption to your customers. With the help of your solutions partner (if any), create a launch checklist in advance. This way you can work through your tasks in order.
When Is The Right Time For An eCommerce Migration?
Usually, the motivating factors of eCommerce migration are either to gain new specialities and catch up to trends or avoid certain issues…
OR a combination of both.
Which one is the reason behind your migration are you looking for a solution to:
- Poor site performance
- Website speed and responsiveness issues
- Functionality gaps in their existing platform
- Poor admin or back end
- Time-consuming and costly maintenance
- Poor UX
- Mounting technical debt
- Lack of platform innovation
- Lack of scalability
- Unreliable eCommerce infrastructure
OR are you looking to gain the following:
- Improved scalability
- Better customer experience
- Modern integrations and apps
- Convenience, security, and affordability
- Customized and optimized checkout experiences
- Better tracking and analytics
- Easier site maintenance and upgrades
- Better site and data security
So, is it the right time for you to eCommerce Migrate?
The Ongoing Trends of eCommerce Migration
More and more people are choosing online shopping over traditional shopping. As a result eCommerce migration is escalating to a whole new level.
Businesses are looking to upgrade their older platforms in order to catch up to customer demands. Here are some of the Key trends pushing eCommerce migration:
- Improved User Experience (UX) & Mobile First: Business leaders are migrating in order to obtain faster sites, modern designs, and seamless mobile shopping experiences.
- Scalability & Cost Reduction: Shifting to a new platform helps increase traffic and product catalogs. Often reducing the overall operational costs.
- Composable & Headless Commerce: A significant shift towards flexible, API-driven architectures (composable) that separate the front-end from the back-end (headless) for greater customization and agility.
- Advanced Functionality: Integrations with AI (for personalization, recommendations, chatbots), social commerce, live stream shopping, and diverse payment options are crucial.
- Data Security & Compliance: With eCommerce Migration, newer platforms promise better built-in security and enable you to meet regulatory requirements.
Conclusion
eCommerce Migration is a crucial step to stay on top of things in the digital world. It requires careful planning and execution to ensure long-term success. From identifying your needs to launching the website, every detail counts.
Also, choosing the right platform is equally important. Afterall, there is a reason online business owners migrate, either to find a solution to their issues or to gain new specialities.
This is where Grow My Ecommerce comes in!
At Grow My Ecommerce, we offer digital commerce solutions to empower businesses to deliver high-performing experiences. Our services include Ecommerce SEO Services, Paid Media, Data & Analytics and more.
You have your guide on how to start your eCommerce Migration process.
Enough hesitating and jump into it!