Is your webshop personal and inspiring enough? Does your shop looks great but is the search functionality slow? Is your webshop actually ready for the growth ambitions that you have for the future? In this second blog about replatforming, we dive deeper into elements that strengthen your webshop.
In the previous blog of this series, we specifically explained why the end-of-life of Magento 1 offers a great opportunity to think about replatforming. The 3 most important reasons why replatforming can give your webshop a huge boost are:
One of the main reasons for organizations to opt for replatforming to another eCommerce platform is the expansion of scalability. A B2B platform must be able to handle large amounts of data. Just think of the often complex, logistical, administrative and financial business processes that you want to incorporate. Or all information about suppliers.
You may not have much ambition now, but you will in the future. Can you still manage your platform? What if you spread your wings abroad? If other VAT rates apply there, you use different prices for your items. Then you want to be able to expand with a separate shop.
It is also possible that you already have different web shops. A packaging supplier such as Paardekooper manages twenty of them. Then it is nice if you can manage them all from one platform and provide them with updates.
Afb. Paardekooper manages 20 shops from one environment.
The desire to improve performance is often an important replatforming argument as well. Downtime almost certainly means loss of income. eCommerce customers are impatient, like all online shoppers. A delay of a few seconds can already cause you to lose your customer.
Hiccups sometimes happen at peak times. If it has just been that radio or TV commercial in which you have invested so much, you do not want the first impression of a potential customer to be an unstable webshop.
Speed is also important for customers with many own, unique products (stock keeping units). For example, anyone looking for a wholesaler between different types of bolts, nuts and screws, doesn't want to take too long.
Speaking of searching: search data often contains a wealth of information. You can understand how your customers search, which keywords they use and why one keyword converts better than another. Can you do this within your platform?
A common mistake in the B2B world is: "This is B2B, customers know exactly what they want and that is why a functional webshop is sufficient." Replatforming gives you the chance to check again if the webshop looks attractive enough. Is the quality of images good? Are the colors used matching? Do call-to-action buttons attract attention or are they lost in the seas of text?
Replatforming can also be the time to do more about storytelling, to inspire visitors. Vegetable and fruit supplier Van Gelder for example, does a lot to enthuse customers with blogs and videos. At furniture supplier Goossens, inspiration is even the first option that you come across in the navigation menu. From an inspiring blog, the link is made with the product to add it directly to your shopping basket.
Personalization works, it ensures a higher conversion. Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos said, "We have 6.2 million customers, so we should have 6.2 million stores." When a visitor views your webshop, he sees a limited part of your products. By showing as personal an offer as possible, you make the selection process easier and you increase the chance of conversion. For this it is important that you know a lot about your customer.
With replatforming you look again at making the shopping experience personal, relevant and exciting on your e-commerce platform so that the customer experience increases and the customer loyalty strengthens.
In the third blog from this series we take you through the selection process for a new e-commerce platform.
Do you want to know more about replatforming? Meet Cloudsuite; the platform for complex B2B and B2C environments with solutions for all conceivable e-commerce strategies.
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