The future of eCommerce is essentially limitless…unless your platform is holding you back. As your business grows, you may notice more pinch points and constraints caused by the limitations of your platform. If you’re already encountering those growing pains, chances are it’s time to migrate.
Replatforming may seem like a big endeavor, but the initial investment can save you money and time in the long run. Not to mention, your customers will thank you for streamlining their purchases, upgrading your aesthetic, and improving your overall brand experience. To help you plan, we’ve compiled the essential tips for seamless re-platforming.
#1 Prioritize Performance
Platform migration is a serious undertaking, but it is also necessary for enterprises that are thinking big and looking toward the future of eCommerce. Once you’ve established that your legacy platform is too bulky and performing poorly, you can start planning your exit.
First, you’ll need to select your new platform, and this is the place to prioritize performance. Performance includes everything from page load time, to server response time, to SEO results—just to name a few. When it comes to selling a product, your site speed can (and will) impact your bottom line. If your conversion rates are suffering and you don’t know why the odds are your platform isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.
You can increase the performance of your site without sacrificing in any other department. ZiftrShop handles a lot of the heavy lifting for you by providing fast servers that you don’t need to manage, state-of-the-art caching, a CDN, and sizing images. Now is the moment to take advantage of ZiftrShop’s cutting-edge technology to bring your business up to speed.
#2 Avoid Tools Built on Legacy Architecture
If you’re considering a platform that will only accommodate some of your existing content, think again. The inability to migrate seemingly simple pieces, such as user passwords or page layouts, is common when dealing with monolithic platforms.
It’s for exactly this reason that the industry as a whole is moving toward MACH architecture. New to the term? The MACH Alliance advocates for an “open and “best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem.”
MACH stands for Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless. The Alliance posits that this kind of ecosystem is “agile and nimble, always up to date.” This approach allows for new ways of thinking about business, encourages innovation, and paves the way for unprecedented digital experiences.
ZiftrShop is right there for it, designed from the ground up to embrace headless architecture and API-first design. With ZiftrShop, you can quickly adapt and integrate into any system with ease, enabling you to meet consumer demand. It’s a tool that provides out-of-the-box, ready-made solutions, the answer to many of the struggles eCommerce businesses commonly face when migrating and attempting to scale. ZiftrShop migration even comes with pre-built paths to allow for adjustment of the migration flow. Say bye-bye to the struggle and hello to the future!
#3 Plan Ahead
Once you’ve chosen the platform that will rocket your business to unparalleled success (ahem, ZiftrShop), it’s time to sort out the details. A thorough plan should drive your next move to structure your migration in a way that’s conducive to future changes and customization.
Fortunately, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. ZiftrShop’s Migration Whitepaper provides a step-by-step guide that is designed to help businesses migrate smoothly and reach an exciting level of growth. Following this kind of meticulous plan can help reduce costs, avoid unexpected add-ons, and ensure a headache-free transition once you’re up and running.
Taking an inventory of your existing content is the initial step in developing a solid migration plan. You probably have various technical factors informing your decision, but make sure you make an assessment of your legacy system and its contents to determine the full scope of your migration.
Consider key content elements, like landing pages, images or assets, blog posts, as well as tags and categories (you probably have more than you realize), and your new platform's ability to host your content. Additional aspects of your content such as subscriptions, emails, orders, users, and inventory are areas where attention to detail and customization are key.
You definitely want to confirm your ability to tailor communication, as well, because some platforms don’t allow any modifications. Mobile responsiveness should also be at the top of your list. Search for automation and built-in tools, like the suite of options ZiftrShop provides, to carry content over with minimal effort and a happy sigh of relief.
#4 Versatile Payments and Ability to Scale
Any worthwhile eCommerce platform should also offer the payment capabilities you need now (and for the future), right? Not necessarily. This element can actually be more challenging than expected. That’s why it’s critical to do your homework and make sure your potential platform supports your payment needs.
ZiftrShop enables users to work with diverse payment methods and even allows you to route requests to those methods at the lowest cost possible. In addition, ZiftrShop handles much of the PCI burden. By leveraging ZiftrShop’s API-first design, your eCommerce enterprise can maneuver around the payment challenges of monolithic platforms and ensure that your customers are satisfied with the performance of your site now and going forward.
#5 Marketing Masterfully
Don't forget about the impact marketing, CRM, and reviews have on your platform, too. Whichever platform you choose as a home base for your business can either power or limit the future marketing decisions you want to make. That’s why it’s critical not to settle for a platform that can’t move with you into the future, whatever that may look like.
ZiftrShop gives you the ability to effortlessly move customer data and activity with limitless API integrations with CRM, marketing automation, and conversational interfaces, including Salesforce, HubSpot, MailChimp, Adobe, Microsoft Dynamics 364, LivePerson, Drift, and more.
It’s time to take your business to the next level, maybe one you’ve never even imagined. But you’ll need the right tools to get there. If you’d like to have it all at your fingertips, right out of the box, let’s talk. Contact us today to find out why so many online enterprises are turning to ZiftrShop to propel their businesses forward!