The decision to move your existing E-Commerce operation to a better, quicker and latest platform should not be considered lightly. E-Commerce Migration is an essential milestone of growth for any online business. You will have to make several decisions to avoid potential pitfalls.
As soon as you make a strategic decision of E-Commerce Migration, it has to be performed very smoothly. This activity is similar to relocating an offline store to another location. To make E-Commerce Migration a successful one, it is vital to follow five important guidelines.
Top 5 Guidelines for Successful E-Commerce Migration
When you follow a well-defined process with the five guidelines mentioned below, it will assure a seamless transition while performing E-Commerce Migration.
- Backup Product Data and Organize Catalog
E-Commerce Migration from one platform to the other is the right time to make a re-evaluation of how you manage your product data as well as the catalog. Let your product development manager and product teams prepare a chart after examining the product data to find out the potential areas that need improvement.
Collect the existing product data that comprises of product description, product photo, SKUs, product name, price rules, etc. to move it to the new platform. The principal objective should be to know how your product data looks at the PoS or Point of sale and track your inventory to remove the discontinued products or add fresh products.
It is important to make changes to your inventory at this stage, as the changes you make in old inventory will not get reflected in the new store once the migration process begins.
- Pay Attention to Visual Design and User Experience
Your online store should attract the attention of the users through an impressive visual design. Pay attention to how your color scheme, logos, and banners will look on the new e-commerce platform. Plus, optimize the user experience to make your shoppers buy more quickly.
You must also consider tweaking the checkout process, re-organize the products and have a brand new navigation setup. Remember, each template and platform is distinct in its way, and such features will not have the same effect after the migration process gets over.
If you are planning for a logo redesign or make changes to the settings of your online store, perform it now. Usually, the recommended time taken by E-Commerce Migration is from 6 to 10 business days. If you wish to make more changes beyond the backgrounds and colors, then consult a designer.
It is also the perfect time to check your new platform and get familiar with its settings to understand how the changes you make will be reflected in the new template.
- Enhance Utilities
While migrating to a new e-commerce platform, you have to pay attention to the utility aspects of your online store and enhance it to serve your customers in a better way. It is inevitable to alter your major business processes during this period.
Consider revamping your store settings to choose from several secure payment gateways, add store functionalities like modules, plug-ins and extensions and terms of shipping to assure your buyers a pleasant shopping experience.
Prepare a flowchart about each process in the existing system and later map it to the latest platform. It will help in analyzing and identifying the critical processes and the ones to eliminate.
If you are not happy with the service of your existing shipping provider, then try switching the providers at this time of E-Commerce Migration. Also, consult your CPA, tax attorney or finance controller to clear your doubts regarding the tax rates based on the locality and region of operations.
- Test Thoroughly
Like any other latest IT system, the latest e-commerce platform must be tested offline thoroughly, once the configuration and data migration gets completed successfully. It must be a rigorous testing process that builds time for fixing the bugs and identifying the issues that have to get resolved.
This step must begin thorough testing in every department in the organization as a part of the planning process of e-commerce migration. Departments like Sales, Marketing, IT, Finance and Accounting, which have a pivotal role to play in e-Commerce process must be vetted by the system to know how it coordinates with the operations.
The issues that get identified must be rectified, and the opinions from each department about the latest e-Commerce platform should be recorded and obtain the views of the users who have operated the system. Check how potential buyers respond to features.
It is essential to populate the data in both the latest and existing platforms and test the performance before migration.
- Go Live
To minimize confusion, and create better customer impact, it is essential to have an elaborate plan and careful consideration before going live. Make sure that transition timing and regular schedules of customer activity consideration are taken into account. The time of a day, seasonal business and days of a week must also be configured.
Your customers should be informed about what is taking place and what they will experience. It is important because your site may take many hours for propagating and the shoppers who visit your site during this migration period have chances of viewing both your earlier and new website. So, you will be getting orders from 2 sites while giving you an idea of what is working and which needs refining.
It is true that e-commerce migration can be a tedious process but, with the right planning, consideration, and preparation by various departments of your business, execution of the project can be much more comfortable. Make sure that you work with a well-versed migration expert team to ensure that the launch of your online store in a brand new platform is a painless and hassle-free process.