Sev­en Immutable Laws of Ecom­merce Replatforming

Let’s start with why
 

If you’ve been down the ecom­merce plat­form migra­tion process road before, you already know you’d rather Gnaw Off Your Arm Than Replat­form. Most CEOs do. And the appre­hen­sion is quite under­stand­able.

Ever heard the say­ing ​“A man is only as good as his tools”? Well, it sort of applies here too. It could be that, for a num­ber of rea­sons we can dis­cuss at a lat­er time, you don’t pick the most suit­able ecom­merce plat­form for your spe­cif­ic needs. But even with the right plat­form, a poor imple­men­ta­tion can spoil the whole thing. And there are many things that can lead to a sub-opti­mal imple­men­ta­tion.

First, we could argue that a tool is only as good as the peo­ple using it, and there­fore, not hav­ing a team or agency with the right expe­ri­ence to han­dle the project can be a major issue, whichev­er the plat­form. With­out the right peo­ple in place, ade­quate­ly resourced and well aligned, the migra­tion might not go as planned, espe­cial­ly if the require­ments are unclear or incom­plete.

And the chal­lenges don’t end there. Fail­ing to prop­er­ly trans­fer data could lead to an over­ly rough tran­si­tion, inte­gra­tions can be botched, SEO can be mis­han­dled, and a steep learn­ing curve or train­ing issues can dis­rupt the whole process.

“There is noth­ing as use­less as doing effi­cient­ly that which should not be done at all”

Peter Druck­er

All things considered

With so many ways for things to go wrong, it’s no won­der eCom­merce replat­form­ing feels like a night­mare. The many draw­backs or poten­tial headaches asso­ci­at­ed to replat­form­ing make many com­pa­nies stick to what­ev­er solu­tion they once decid­ed would be a good idea to adopt. 

The same hap­pens with the fears and uncer­tain­ties about what would be good rea­sons to migrate.

In oth­er words, even though inaction is dan­ger­ous, it feels safer than a big over­haul project.

Before embark­ing on the jour­ney, you need to be clear about why you are doing it. Which close­ly relates to what you expect to achieve with the change.

If you must bite the bullet:

If you have a sol­id under­stand­ing of your rea­sons to take the plunge, and con­sid­er the ben­e­fits out­weigh the poten­tial dan­gers, there are a few things to do to make sure the effort is worth your while. What­ev­er the rea­sons, what­ev­er the platform.

1. Top down lead­er­ship align­ment, or it will fail.

Before you even con­sid­er this, make sure you have full stake­hold­er align­ment. Migra­tions often include the sec­ondary effects of miss­ing dead­lines, bud­get issues, deal­ing with mul­ti­ple ven­dors, research, learn­ing, adopt­ing new tech and going through the learn­ing curve, and a whole load of oth­er chal­lenges that will be spe­cif­ic to you, your brand and your team. And migraines. 

If you don’t have every­one aligned you won’t be able to face the down­turns with con­vic­tion and pur­pose. If your team has your back you’ll be able to make the tough calls, as well as the brave ones.

2. Mea­sure twice, cut once

The process is sim­ple, at least on paper:

Real­ly under­stand the rea­sons why you’ll replat­form. Iden­ti­fy­ing the real prob­lems to solve is key to find­ing the right technology. 

Next, look for the prop­er tech­nol­o­gy that match­es your needs, bud­get and com­pa­ny work­flows. Gain trust in the plat­form, not their marketing.

Then, ask every­one you can about that tech­nol­o­gy. Dat­ing is not get­ting mar­ried. Get real input from real peo­ple in real trenches.

Ques­tion every­thing. Again. Just in case. Big deci­sions are actu­al­ly easy when you’re real­ly con­vinced by facts as much as by guts.

Final­ly, make a deci­sion that’s as informed as pos­si­ble. And go beat the competition.

It’s unre­al­is­tic to run a tru­ly objec­tive score­card-like assess­ment on why you should choose one plat­form over anoth­er. There are mul­ti­ple fac­tors in the equa­tion that will affect your deci­sion, includ­ing pure­ly sub­jec­tive and even emo­tion­al ones – you like an inter­face bet­ter than anoth­er, the sales guy is more con­vinc­ing, the founders have a par­tic­u­lar fix­a­tion with a plat­form or approach, and many more. 

There’s no mag­ic rule of thumb for it. We advise you to write down your eval­u­a­tion thought process in detail, share it with peo­ple inside and out­side your orga­ni­za­tion, and reach a good, sol­id deci­sion that you can get back to if some­thing goes wrong and you need a bit of reassurance.

3. Get a con­trol group

If you have sub-brands, sec­ondary brands, or mul­ti­ple mar­kets, it’s wise to start small. Launch on a sin­gle web­site so you can:

Make sure you real­ly like it and it real­ly works

Spot bugs, prob­lems, inte­gra­tion or cus­tomiza­tion needs

Get famil­iar with the plat­form and take the learn­ing curve with less pressure

Make mis­takes where they don’t cost you mon­ey or clients.

4. Nev­er redesign and replat­form at the same time

The best trick to a healthy replat­form process that’s pain­less and smooth, one where you can have a sol­id and sat­is­fac­to­ry out­come in time and bud­get, is to remove from the table every­thing that’s not a priority.

This is coun­ter­in­tu­itive because, when fac­ing this kind of project, we all tend to think that since we’re in this mess, we might as well do it right and have the web­site of our dreams. This is a trap. Design, in par­tic­u­lar, requires an act of juggling:

• Pure­ly sub­jec­tive per­cep­tion. You like it, or you don’t. And it has lit­tle to do with whether it’s good or not for your business.
• A lot of objec­tive research. Your cus­tomers like it, or they don’t. And it has every­thing to do with whether it’s good or not for your business. 
• And some cold num­bers. Per­haps you like it, but does it per­form and con­vert? Does this improve the sales of your cur­rent web­site? Are pos­i­tive opin­ions turn­ing into KPI growth?

So fast-track the jour­ney to the new plat­form focus­ing on the right stuff: Tech adop­tion, per­for­mance, data migra­tion, smooth release, and min­i­miz­ing the impact on your customer. 

Once you land­ed safe­ly on the new tool you can either redesign, or start a process of iter­a­tive step by step improve­ments.
 

On aver­age 6.8 peo­ple are stake­hold­ers in any B2B deci­sion (Dixon, McK­eena 2022). Align­ment is good. Sup­port and trust are great. Design­ing by com­mit­tee is sabotage.

5. Realign instead of redesigning

Which leads us to our next tip, which is kind of the same tip: Don’t redesign. 

Instead of mak­ing a big, dra­mat­ic change to adopt the lat­est trends and styles, con­sid­er a growth-dri­ven design approach. Essen­tial­ly, this means:

Under­stand­ing where we want to go. Work­ing with your design and brand­ing team or your trust­ed part­ners, to write down a very ambi­tious list of every­thing you’d like to see on your Ecom­merce store. This includes design styles, inspi­ra­tion, com­peti­tor fea­tures, pure­ly tech fea­tures, advanced Ecom­merce tech­nol­o­gy, new inte­gra­tions, you name it. 

Ignor­ing con­straints for a while. Ask your­self ​“what would I do if I had an end­less bud­get and unlim­it­ed time for this?”, and brain­storm that wish­list.Sort­ing it out. Next, refine, pri­or­i­tize, and eval­u­ate the effort required.

Get­ting it done. Final­ly, begin to tack­le changes, one thing at a time.
You’ll be amazed at how much faster you see results that you can actu­al­ly mea­sure and con­trast with per­for­mance met­rics, and how sat­is­fied you are with new fea­tures unfold­ing month after month. 

This requires a par­a­digm shift: Your web­site is not a mas­ter­piece you can start, end and hang on a wall. It’s a liv­ing organ­ism that needs con­stant nur­tur­ing to grow and evolve.

6. Have a bud­get. Stick to it.

This should be self-explana­to­ry, but we have all gone through projects that look good and then derail quick­ly. Make sure you’re okay with sunk costs, make smart choic­es, don’t get stuck on things. Hav­ing a bud­get that’s writ­ten in stone helps you, as well as any imple­men­ta­tion part­ners, team mem­bers or part­ner agen­cies to real­ly under­stand what’s pos­si­ble and what’s not, what’s essen­tial and what’s accessory.

7. Stress test early 

We can­not stress this enough. Work with your tech­nol­o­gy part­ners to:

- Make sure you start with data migra­tion. Yes, you’ll have to do it again at the very end, but giv­ing the process a test run ear­ly can help you sur­face your blind spots.

- Make sure test­ing is done prop­er­ly from day one.

- Make sure the tech­nol­o­gy is proven on com­plex scenarios.

- Make sure you’re cov­er­ing as many blind spots as possible.

When the time is right to show your new web­site to the world, you can run soft releas­es to test your platform’s endurance with real traf­fic spikes and demand, real pur­chas­es, and very real inte­gra­tions with your ful­fill­ment process. 

It doesn’t have to be (that) painful

As long as you have a clear goal, a prag­mat­ic approach from day one, a good tech­nol­o­gy part­ner that’s right for you, align­ment and sup­port from team and stake­hold­ers, prop­er and real­is­tic ambi­tions, and a bud­get that’s clear and suf­fi­cient, you’ll be on your way to a great eCom­merce replat­form­ing. Or at least, one that goes as smooth­ly as pos­si­ble.
 

Rick Wat­son said it as hilar­i­ous­ly and dra­mat­i­cal­ly as it gets:

A major eCom­merce replat­form effort is like walk­ing a tightrope, over a pit stocked with alli­ga­tors, while 3,000 feet above the pit. While jug­gling chainsaws.

But jug­gling chain­saws is also FUN.

Remem­ber that once you fin­ish fight­ing alli­ga­tors, you can shift your focus to mak­ing more mon­ey and hav­ing hap­pi­er cus­tomers than ever before on a plat­form that’s no longer an ene­my. An expert eCom­merce devel­op­ment team may help.