Upgrading Your Website: 10 Tips for Replatforming Your E-Commerce Site

3. Before you sign with a provider, ask questions. Not knowing the breadth of what's included in a contract can result in a number of ancillary costs you weren't expecting to pay. Ask your chosen solution provider these questions to ensure you won't be paying out of pocket down the road:

• What's included in the implementation bid and set-up fees?
• What's included in monthly costs, and what will it require to change orders?
• Are all of the features and functionality highlighted in the demo included on my site?
• How do the business tools work? What can I change on the site directly?
• What will my website look like once it's live?

4. Assign team leaders and set up a time line. Time is of the essence when you embark on replatforming, so assign leaders and have a dynamic team in place from the start. All organizations are different, therefore there's no magic number of people to assign to a replatforming. But there are a few key point-people to consider:

• a project manager to keep your team on pace and ensure it hits major milestones;
• a project sponsor at the board-level to advocate the project both internally and externally; and
• a project team, which should include user experience, implementation and testing leaders.

Implementation
5. Create project phases and outline major milestones. It's important to be realistic about your time line. Don't underestimate the time required for design, integration, among other tasks. By properly planning your implementation phase, your chosen solution provider will be better able to build its time line and development approach, and everyone will be well-aligned as you move forward to meet your major project milestones.

The key to meeting time lines is your readiness. Do you have the final requirements, or are you looking for the vendor you select to drive the final requirements? The latter may take more time. How easy will it be to integrate with your back-end systems or provide the data files the e-commerce solution needs? Integration is usually the part of the project that's most often scoped incorrectly. Create your own project plan and be realistic.

6. Have a tight information architecture. A lot of mid-sized companies are moving from static to dynamic sites. With that comes a flurry of state-of-the-art options like targeted landing pages and banners, rules-driven recommendations and promotions, and automated recommendations. Be mindful about how you lay out your web pages, and be sure to reserve certain areas on your site for targeted data.

Your merchant zones also need to be connected to your content management tools so you don't have to rely on IT when you need to make changes. If you have the tools to merchandise more quickly and effectively, you can drive profitability. Today's solutions offer powerful content management tools, but only if the site is built to take advantage of them. Understand what the business tools can do, then build your site in a way that uses these tools.