Guide
eCommerce Replatforming: What It Is and Why It Matters
Replatforming in eCommerce is the process of moving your business from one eCommerce platform to another, often driven by the need to modernize outdated technology, improve performance, or scale for growth. While it sounds straightforward, eCommerce replatforming is far from a simple switch—it’s a complex process that requires careful planning, strategy, and execution. The end goal is to enhance your business capabilities without disrupting day-to-day operations, improving everything from site performance to user experience and backend integrations.
Why Businesses Resist eCommerce Replatforming
Despite the potential benefits, many businesses hesitate to replatform when they should. Common reasons for this reluctance include:
- Fear of disruption: Businesses worry that eCommerce replatforming will lead to downtime, disrupting sales and damaging customer relationships.
- Cost concerns: The upfront investment for replatforming can seem daunting, especially when considering the costs associated with migration, system integration, and new platform licenses.
- Complexity of migration: The technical complexity of moving data, rebuilding custom features, and retraining staff often leads businesses to delay making a change.
- Vendor lock-in: Many companies feel trapped by their existing platform, concerned that moving to a new solution will be too difficult or restrictive due to custom-built elements or a lack of migration pathways.
While these concerns are valid, they can lead to even bigger problems down the road, such as poor site performance, inability to scale, and limited flexibility to meet modern customer demands.
Common Triggers for eCommerce Replatforming
Businesses typically decide to switch eCommerce platforms when they hit a wall with their current solution. Some of the most common triggers include:
- Outdated technology: Older platforms struggle to keep up with modern demands, resulting in slow load times, poor user experiences, and frequent downtime.
- Inability to scale: As businesses grow, their platforms must be able to handle increasing traffic, larger inventories, and complex workflows. When platforms can’t scale, businesses risk losing out on revenue.
- Limited features: Modern customers expect personalized shopping experiences, real-time inventory management, and fast, seamless checkout. When a platform can’t deliver these, businesses lose their competitive edge.
- Vendor support issues: Limited support, costly upgrades, and frequent disruptions during updates can make staying on an old platform more costly in the long run.
eCommerce Replatforming Strategies: Phased vs. Platform-to-Platform vs. Microservices
When approaching eCommerce replatforming, businesses have a few key strategies to consider. Each has its pros and cons, depending on the size and complexity of the organization.
A phased migration strategy involves gradually transitioning parts of your eCommerce system to the new platform. For example, you might start with non-critical aspects like the catalog, then migrate the checkout process, followed by the full customer experience.
- Pros: Reduces the risk of downtime and allows for a smoother transition. Teams can test each part of the system before moving fully.
- Cons: It can be more time-consuming, with longer timelines for full migration.
This approach is especially useful for larger businesses with complex eCommerce systems, allowing them to manage the process with minimal disruptions.
Platform-to-platform migration is the more traditional method, where you move all data and operations from one platform to another in a single migration event.
- Pros: Typically faster and provides a clean break from outdated systems.
- Cons: This is a high-risk, high-reward approach, as any issues with the new platform could result in extended downtime or glitches post-migration.
This is often used when moving from an outdated platform to a more modern solution, especially if staying on the current system presents too many risks.
For businesses looking to future-proof their eCommerce, a move toward microservices architecture is increasingly popular. This method involves breaking down your eCommerce platform into individual services—such as payments, inventory management, and product catalog—and managing them independently.
- Pros: Highly flexible and scalable. Businesses can update or change specific services without overhauling the entire system. This model also lends itself to composable commerce, where businesses can select and integrate only the functionalities they need.
- Cons: Requires strong technical expertise and can be more complex to implement.
Microservices are ideal for businesses looking for the flexibility to scale without committing to an all-in-one solution. When paired with headless commerce—where the front-end experience is decoupled from the backend—this approach allows businesses to build unique, seamless customer experiences across channels while maintaining the backend flexibility to evolve.
eCommerce Replatforming: Step-by-Step Guide for B2B and B2C Companies
Connecting Replatforming to Unified and Headless Commerce
As eCommerce businesses replatform, many are turning to unified commerce solutions that consolidate all sales channels, data, and customer interactions into one system. This not only simplifies operations but also enables more personalized and consistent customer experiences.
A shift to headless commerce often occurs during replatforming, especially for businesses seeking to deliver highly customized user experiences. Headless commerce separates the front-end user experience from the back-end system, allowing more creative freedom while maintaining flexibility on the backend.
Both unified and headless commerce represent a forward-thinking approach to eCommerce, making them ideal for businesses replatforming with scalability, flexibility, and omnichannel experiences in mind.
Seamless eCommerce Replatforming with Kibo Commerce
When it comes to eCommerce replatforming, businesses need a solution that offers flexibility, scalability, and minimal disruption to operations. Kibo Commerce excels in providing exactly that with a modular, composable commerce platform designed to support your unique business needs throughout the replatforming process. Whether you’re looking to modernize your tech stack, move to a headless or unified commerce model, or simply need a more scalable solution, Kibo offers the tools and expertise to make the transition smooth and successful.
Why Kibo for Replatforming?
Kibo understands that replatforming is a critical decision, and we’re committed to simplifying the process. Our composable platform is built to be adaptable, allowing you to replatform at your own pace. Whether you want to start small with a specific set of capabilities or overhaul your entire infrastructure, Kibo’s modular approach ensures that you only implement what you need, when you need it. No more “rip-and-replace” nightmares—Kibo enables businesses to incrementally adopt new features and modernize without disrupting ongoing operations.
Modular Flexibility for Phased Migration
Kibo’s flexible architecture supports phased migration strategies, allowing businesses to replatform gradually. Start with essential modules like eCommerce, Order Management, or Subscriptions, and add capabilities over time as your business grows. Our microservices-based architecture allows you to migrate individual components without overhauling your entire system, giving you the freedom to replatform on your terms.
- Composable eCommerce: Build a front-end that suits your brand while maintaining back-end control. Kibo integrates seamlessly with your existing tech stack, offering complete API coverage and customizable workflows.
- Order Management: Our modular OMS lets you manage inventory, optimize fulfillment, and streamline order routing as you migrate, ensuring consistent performance across channels without the need for massive operational overhauls.
- Subscription Commerce: Move your subscription models to Kibo with ease, managing both digital and physical products under one unified system for a consistent customer experience.
Speed and Scalability
Kibo’s cloud-native, API-first approach ensures that your replatforming project can scale quickly. Unlike traditional monolithic platforms, Kibo’s composable and headless eCommerce capabilities give you the speed and flexibility you need to make swift updates, introduce new services, and meet growing demand. Whether you’re transitioning from a legacy system or expanding into new markets, Kibo is designed to support your growth.
Reducing Technical Debt
Replatforming can often introduce complexities that add to your technical debt. Kibo’s unified data model and microservices-based infrastructure eliminate the need for multiple integrations, allowing you to consolidate systems and reduce technical bloat. This means lower operational costs, faster time to market, and fewer long-term maintenance challenges.
Future-Proof Your Commerce with Kibo
As your business evolves, so should your platform. Kibo’s composable architecture ensures that your commerce platform can evolve with you, supporting new features, third-party integrations, and ongoing customization without the need for future replatforming. With Kibo, your business is future-proofed, giving you the confidence to scale and adapt to the ever-changing eCommerce landscape.
