Your eCommerce website is a crucial part of your business, and keeping it up to date is of the utmost importance. Sure, you’ve been keeping things up to date and adding the right extensions to make sure your users have the best experience. Lately you’ve been noticing your site isn’t as fast as it used to be. On top of that, you’ve also noticed that you’re spending more money on development to get your site to look the way you would like, and you’re adding more and more integrations to get the functionality you need for your customers and your staff. Then, you’re having to worry about manually rolling out security updates and patches on top of everything else.
As all of these pile up, you start thinking to yourself, “can this platform continue to grow (and work) with my business?”
It’s a very valid question to ask, and quite common.
All of the drawbacks above are key indicators that it’s time to look into replatforming your site to a new platform. Let’s dive deeper into the pain points above, and give you tips on knowing when it’s time to replatform your eCommerce site.
1. Your site speed isn’t as good as it used to be.
Slow site speed is one of the killers of a good eCommerce site, and a sign that your platform is aging. A slow site can be tied to many different factors including:
- Excess javascript files
- Large image sizes
- “Heavy” integration files on the site
- Hosting
- Your eCommerce platform itself
While it’s hard to pinpoint a slow site to just one factor, any of the above can (and will) slow your site down. As you’re well aware, a slower site means your customers will leave frustrated without making a purchase. Not to mention, Google also prioritizes faster loading sites too. When your site performance starts to dip, that’s a key indicator that it’s time to look into improving your site speed, or replatforming completely.
2. Your development costs are increasing
Utilizing a developer to make enhancements to your site isn’t a bad thing; using them to make “basic” enhancements is.
What do we mean by that?
If you have to pay a developer to change the slider image of your site, create new pages, or make content changes to your site, that is a clear sign that your platform is showing its age.
Modern eCommerce platforms have easy to use page builders that make it unnecessary to have coding knowledge to publish them out, or to make and publish changes.
The more reliance on a developer can also lead to delays in getting updates made to your site, and using a different one each time can also lead to code that is “cobbled together” which also impacts your site’s performance.
3. You’re adding more integrations to get your platform to function
Similarly to the last point, relying more heavily on integrations to get your site to function the way you need it to is yet another sign that your platform is aging. From a cost perspective, you may have to pay for licenses, or work with a developer on creating one for you. Once again, the costs for these will inevitably add up in the long run.
While open source eCommerce platforms are great for customization, some of the paid options may work out better for your business in the long run from a financial perspective. This is especially true if you can consolidate your hosting costs as well.
4. You have to manually roll out patches and updates
Just like the integration and development costs, you may end up having to pay a developer to get your site updated with new security patches or updates. An important consideration to this, is making sure your site will not break when the update occurs. Incompatibilities with .php versions can break your site, or custom integrations, so researching and understanding any potential issues are extremely important before rolling them out. Not to mention, if you roll out updates, and your site goes down, it can take some time to get it back online. And there can also be costs associated with having a developer assist if things go horribly wrong.
Considerations for replatforming your website:
Now that you have four key signs it’s time to replatform your website, how does your website stand?
Is it time to make a switch?
If/when you decide to replatform your website, we strongly recommend working with an agency to help you do so. Not only is it beneficial for you from a resource standpoint, but you can also have someone with a ton of experience with replatforms be able to help you get your website migrated without any issues. Migrating your website can be an undertaking, but take it from Cognito Motorsports; it’s totally worth it in the long run! In a case study 121 did with them, we ported their old, outdated, open source website to Adobe Commerce. They were experiencing a ton of drawbacks with their old site from a performance and usability standpoint. By porting their old site to a new, more-modern platform, they were able to see a huge benefit in only a few weeks.
No matter where you are at with your website, 121 is here to help!
We’ve helped consult many clients on switching platforms, porting their site, and how to manage their data. Just send us an email, or contact us directly and we’ll be more than happy to help!
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