How to improve the UX of your eCommerce store with replatforming

Is your website sliding down the Google rankings, and is your cart abandonment rate at an all-time high? If so, it might be time to review the user experience, or UX, of your website.

Nearly nine out of ten customers are less likely to return to a website if the user experience is poor. While you might be able to make changes to your existing site to keep shoppers happy, it may be more efficient to replatform an old, slow, or low-quality eCommerce store.

If you’re new to the concept of replatforming and want to know how to use it to improve your store’s UX, we’ve put together this guide.

What is replatforming?

Replatforming is when you move from one eCommerce platform to another.

For example, let’s say you’re using WooCommerce on WordPress. While the system has served you well over the years, the number of orders you receive is steadily increasing, and you think it’s the right time to migrate to a more specialist platform like Shopify or Magento.

The main advantage of replatforming is that you can take advantage of new technology that wasn’t available on your old site. Think of it like replacing your old car with a new one. Your new car might come with an inbuilt satnav, heated seats, or digital radio, fantastic features you didn’t have before!

5 ways replatforming can transform the user experience of your website

There are lots of benefits to replatforming your eCommerce site, but how does moving to a new platform help the user experience? Here are five reasons why replatforming will make your eCommerce store easier to navigate and use.

1. You can take advantage of extensions and plugins

Earlier in this article, we mentioned that you can benefit from new features when you replatform your site. Many of the popular and well-known eCommerce platforms come with incredible functionality, either as standard, or that you can install on your site in the shape of an extension or plugin.

While not all of these extensions and plugins relate to UX, many have been developed to help you provide a faster and more functional site.

Let’s take Shopify, a SaaS platform that’s used by over 4 million stores worldwide. There are plugins that boost your site speed, offer live chat, manage out-of-stock items, and let shoppers curate their own wish lists. The great thing is that you can add extensions as and when you need them, meaning you can customise your site to meet the ever-changing needs of your visitors.

As well as extensions and plugins, many newer platforms have advanced API functionality. This lets third-party systems quickly post and retrieve data from your site, meaning you can customise your site to fit the specific needs of your target audience.

Want to find out more about the unique features each platform offers? Check out our guide!

2. You can optimise your site performance

A slow, clunky, and unresponsive website is one of the biggest customer turnoffs.

Half of shoppers expect a website to load in less than three seconds, with over one in ten demanding that sites are ready to view in less than one second!

Replatforming your site means you can benefit from speedier servers, advanced caching options, and more efficient database queries. Not only this, but some platforms offer content delivery networks, which means websites load faster for users, keeping them happy and meaning they’re more likely to stay on your site.

Another benefit of replatforming your eCommerce store? It gives you the perfect opportunity to audit your old site and give it a spring clean, meaning you can eliminate bloated code, unused extensions, and slow-loading images!

3. You can implement headless architecture

Most modern eCommerce platforms, for example, Adobe Commerce, give you the option to utilise headless commerce. This feature can give you a significant advantage when it comes to improving your onsite UX.

Headless commerce splits the front end and back end of your website, by which we mean the site your customers can see, and the servers and databases that power it. This allows both parts to function separately, making them more flexible.

For example, let’s say you want to launch your eCommerce store in a country that speaks a different language and uses another currency. You can use headless architecture to make these changes to the front end of your website without having to amend the back end. This means you can launch faster and make on-the-fly changes as needed without restrictions.

Headless commerce is also brilliant for omnichannel support. This is because you can deliver a reliable and seamless UX across different marketing channels, like a mobile app, social shopping, even through smart assistants. Consistency is critical to the omnichannel experience, with 90% of customers expecting it across all their interactions with a brand.

4. You can enhance security while keeping shoppers happy

Tight security and a high-quality user experience can often work against each other. Your customers want you to keep their data safe, but if they have to memorise a 20-digit password to log in, they’re likely to get frustrated!

Replatforming allows you to implement effective yet straightforward security measures. For example, you can offer two-factor or multi-factor authentication, so shoppers have peace of mind that scammers can’t steal their personal information. If your store has a mobile app, you can even take advantage of fingerprint authentication or face ID.

Different eCommerce platforms have different security features you can take advantage of without compromising how your site looks and functions.

For example, Magento and Adobe Commerce offer clickjacking protection, meaning customers can’t be maliciously redirected to another website. Shopify provides built-in PCI DSS compliance as standard, giving shoppers peace of mind that their payment information is always protected.

5. Replatforming makes it easier to scale and adapt

It’s critical to build a website that grows and evolves as your business does. The problem is that you might not know how large you’ll become in the future, what your customers want, or how world events might affect you.

After all, nobody could have predicted the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown!

The best eCommerce platforms are fully flexible, meaning you can quickly add new features without rebuilding your site or migrating to a new provider.

Let’s revisit headless architecture, for example. You don’t have to implement it straight away. You can replatform to an eCommerce provider that offers it, and set it up when you’re ready to take advantage of the technology.

Of course, it’s always good to plan ahead and identify what you need in the future when planning to replatform your site. However, choosing a platform that can help you develop a scaleable and adaptable online store will give you a significant advantage in an ever-evolving marketplace.

Xigen: the replatforming specialists

If this article has inspired you to replatform your online store, our expert team is here to help.

We’ll audit your existing site, help you choose the right platform for your needs, and develop a replatforming plan to ensure everything is moved across quickly, without disruption. By working in partnership with us, your shiny new eCommerce website be bringing in sales in no time at all!

Contact us today and take the first step in improving the user experience of your eCommerce store.