Replatforming always entails significant change and includes risks. In this blog, I will explain key risks and how to avoid the most common mistakes.
Composable, All-in-one, or What?
You might be confused about all the Headless, Composable Commerce, and monolithic talk that you encounter across social media, email, and trade shows.
The most important thing is what is best for you and your customers: is it Composable Commerce, or are you good with All-in-one Commerce?
You have to decide if you want to go live faster and pick an accelerator or do a custom implementation, which requires more time and a higher budget.
Commerce Consulting partners like Digital Commerce Advisor help you choose the right technology that supports your strategy.
Typical eCommerce Implementation Process
Discovery
Ensuring on-time and on-budget performance and minimizing the overuse of internal resources, discovery is an essential part of every re-platforming and eCommerce implementation project. Usually, you should allocate 10-15% of your implementation budget to discovery. That can easily save a significant amount of your money when eCommerce implementation happens on time and on budget.
During discovery, the merchant’s responsibility is to advise the partner about all needed requirements so the partner team can prepare a statement of work based on the project requirements.
Design
A mobile-first storefront is essential nowadays, as 70-80% of your visitors will use mobile devices. So if content looks good on a MacBook screen, it should look good on an iPhone screen too. Design matters when you are a brand, but if you have more than one customer segment with its own catalogue, separated Storefronts with their own designs can be a good idea.
Nowadays, content creation is easy with Page Designer and customizable themes, allowing marketers to create, schedule, and edit content without technical skills.
Usually, the Implementation partner, like Digital Commerce Advisor, is responsible for framework design and designing static elements like the Header and Footer or Storefront customization to meet your requirements.
Remember, every element on your storefront is for your customers.
The best practice is to create a prototype of your storefront design using software like Figma.
Integrations
Integrations are an essential part of every eCommerce site. No matter if you are planning traditional, all-in-one, or Composable commerce, you need essential third-party app integrations, e.g., ERP, PIM, probably Payment gateway, OMS, Marketing Automation, and Customer Service.
At Digital Commerce Advisor, we suggest our clients simplify integrations with iPaaS solutions like Mulesoft or Patchworks. When we ensure an easier integration process, we reduce integration management time and budget in the future.
Many third-party services have their own App or LINK Cartridge, making integration much easier and faster compared to custom integrations.
Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Testing
Testing is an essential part of every project. Quality Assurance ensures that everything works as described in the project plan and Statement of Work, and all bugs are fixed, and functionalities work as expected.
User Acceptance Testing is a final test performed by the merchant. The merchant performs test orders, searches, and checks design objects (with multiple screen sizes) and notifies the project manager if something needs to be changed and everything is ready for launch.
Launch and Post-Launch
Launching a new website is always an excellent achievement. However, migrating from one platform to another often results in a drop in organic search rankings. Therefore, ensure that you have a reliable SEO partner and sufficient resources to optimize search both during and after implementation to minimize traffic drops in the following weeks or a couple of months.
Managed Services and Support
When you’re live with a new platform, eCommerce keeps evolving; you need to keep your eCommerce store optimized and develop and A/B testing, promotions, and personalization. The Managed Services Team helps you know more, do more, and sell more by ensuring you get the most out of your platform and be more efficient.
Digital Commerce Advisor is a global commerce consulting firm. We help brands, retailers, and B2B organizations with digital transformation with leading SaaS solutions, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and Shopify.