Platform Migration

Having the right eCommerce platform for your business is a critical and difficult decision.

THINGS TO CONSIDER.

Initial setup cost

Ongoing maintenance estimes

Ease of use

Do features match your needs

Lifespan of platform

Expert agency availability

Ecosystems modules and add ons

Disaster recovery

THE LIST GOES ON.

At Absolute, we’ve a wealth of experience in helping our clients choose the best platform for them. We will walk you through the considerations, ensuring that you feel informed enough to make the best choice.

Our firm belief is that technology should serve the business, not vice versa. We take a pragmatic approach, avoiding the common trap of having features which don’t provide an ROI, whilst bearing in mind that some benefits – such as design – are more intangible.

Our approach is consultative and tailored, as it’s important that we understand your customers and your internal business needs.

Many of the new site builds we conduct are for clients who have an already successful eCommerce presence, and who now need to upgrade or migrate.

A few common reasons we see for switching platform:

Leaving a proprietary, locked-in platform
Current platform is obsolete and no longer supported for security releases
Outgrowing current platform in terms of feature set
Cost reductions, usually around ongoing maintenance and updates
Being a non-transactional site, now ready to start selling online
Simply wanting to refresh the site!
Breadth of ecosystem for modules and addons
Frustrations with ease-of-use

Many of the above will be self-explanatory, but some need more thought. We cover a few of these in detail below.

MIGRATION FROM A PROPRIETARY ECOMMERCE PLATFORM.

Many eCommerce solutions are specific to software vendors. You, as the client, have no access to the source code and are reliant on the vendor’s credibility and competence for security, quality, cost, and more.

As an agency, we favour open-source software such as Adobe Commerce, because it’s incredibly flexible. Partner agencies such as Absolute understand this platform inside-out, and can make any changes you might need, at competitive market rates.

Open-source software also benefits from a far wider ecosystem than licensed products, with many reliable module vendors, and security is improved thanks to researchers who help keep the platform secure.

Migrating from a proprietary system can provide a better disaster recovery position, and changes the cost model to a more competitive market-driven approach.

To some extent, migration depends on co-operation from the current vendor, and the ease of exporting data such as products, categories, orders, and customers. If this data export isn’t easy, consider why that may be the case. There's no such lock-in with open-source!

We have a long history of migrating our clients from platforms, such as:

Visualsoft to Magento

Visualsoft to Shopify

Magento to Shopify Plus

WooCommerce to Shopify

BigCommerce to Shopify Plus

Orderwise to Magento

Orderwise to Shopify

Shopline to Magento

MIGRATING FROM AN OBSOLETE OR INSECURE PLATFORM.

Obsolescence in software is, deceptively, not always a problem. Provided you can keep your site looking good and easy to use, and - ultimately - making sales, the choice to migrate may not always be clear.

However, there are two imperatives which put a time limit on all solutions: security and maintainability.

Of the two, security is the most important. Your customers and their data are your most valuable asset. Putting their data at risk is not just an ethical concern, it has practical implications, too. There’s no worse publicity than a customer card data being stolen and misused. In the UK, businesses can be fined for security breaches, and, in the worst case, their online card providers may withdraw service.

If your platform is no longer receiving regular security updates, re-platforming is vital. It may seem costly, but the PCI DSS Fines for non-compliance are £4,000 to £80,000 GBP per month, depending on the size of your company and the scale of non-compliance. For a corporate body, the maximum penalty is 0.2% of the total income for the income year that the contravention occurred.

A more subtle driver is the straightforwardness (and costliness) of updating and supporting the platform. In theory, a good developer could keep some of the software running indefinitely.

But all software depends on lower-level requirements, which have dates beyond which they won’t be updated. Over time, this results in software becoming increasingly difficult to manage, update, and expanded upon. Eventually, it will be a false economy to keep working with outdated software.