Most every ecommerce storeowner, at some point, wants to completely rebuild her store. Whatever the reasons, merchants often believe that an entirely new site would solve all of their problems. But, remember that the point of having an ecommerce store is to make it easier for you to sell products to consumers, and easier for them to buy.
How to Reduce Risks of an Ecommerce Rebuild
Can you afford an interruption in sales? One of the core risks of a rebuild is that the changes would wipeout sales. Can your business afford no sales for a day or two?
If an ecommerce store is only part of your business, you might be able to tolerate the drop while a fix is made. But if your business is 100 percent ecommerce, losing all sales for any time period might be catastrophic.
Plan how you will address and reverse the lack of sales.
What if the rebuild took twice as long and cost three times as much? Just about every rebuild, seemingly, takes longer and costs more than what was originally planned. Even the most experienced developers and merchants will overlook, underestimate, or add tasks to the schedule.
Could your business afford the rebuild if it took twice as long and cost three times as much? Going into a store rebuild with extra time and money ill make the inevitable delays easier to handle.
Consider segregating one large rebuild into multiple smaller ones that are rolled out individually.
What fundamental problems will a rebuild fix? One of the core questions to contemplate about the rebuild is what are the one, or two, or three fundamental problems with your current store that the rebuild will fix?
This question is important. Rebuilds are risky and expensive. What are the major problems in your store that a rebuild — not a patch-over or workaround — will address?
These shouldn’t be minor problems, such as rearranging your home page. They should be major, like switching to a one-page checkout, redesigning how your products are listed and showcased, or adding a backend A/B testing framework to every component on your store.
In short, ecommerce rebuilds can work. But be prepared for chaos. You’ll likely spend more than what you planned. It will likely take longer than what you planned. And the positive impact will likely be smaller, initially, than what you had hoped for. But in the long run it will be worth the hassle.
Courtesy of PracticleEcommerce
