How do you handle a replatforming project?
In the newest episode of The E-commerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives, host Kailin Noivo sits down with Ash Pallett, Senior Digital and E-commerce Manager at Sarah Raven. Together, they explore the brand’s recent replatforming, discussing the four key phases and how they remained stabilized, as well as the potential of personalization efforts in driving conversion.
The Stages of Replatforming
After seven years of using a proprietary system, Sarah Raven replatformed to BigCommerce three years ago, a decision spurred by their incumbent agency shifting their focus to Shopify Plus.
Given the brand’s focus on perishable goods, replatforming was an intricate process, with special attention given to managing customer expectations and product fulfillment.
The process took 13 months, which was divided across four key stages: due diligence, RFP tendering, reference calls, discovery.
During due diligence, Ash and her team had to reflect on the internal pain points of the company, as well as customer needs and wider market offerings, before starting the platform shift. When tendering the RFP, they worked across documentation, data flow mapping, and strict prioritization processes, using the MoSCoW methodology. Reference calls were crucial for assessing the reliability of potential platforms, and Ash had to ask pointed questions about compromises, deadlines, and support during issues. In the final stage, discovery, everything came together.
Handling Replatforming Challenges
To Ash, a successful launch day has no drama. If there are significant issues, it’s likely that something went wrong.
While Sarah Raven’s replatforming was successful, they did encounter many challenges along the way.
Firstly, the redesign was far more time-consuming than expected, taking them far longer than the time they had allocated. Ash recommends that anyone else allocates significantly more time than expected to design if aesthetics are crucial to your brand.
“If as a brand, your look and feel is everything to you, whatever time you’re thinking of allocating [to design], double it, triple it, because you know that it will pay off dividends later down the line.“
They also underestimated how complex and large the project was, especially in how many resources were necessary for thorough testing. To work around this, they brought in a third-party agency to assist with the backend data flow, allowing internal teams to focus on the frontend.
They also struggled with adopting the new workflows, and should have factored in more time to allow for team members to adapt to the new processes. A lack of familiarity with systems inevitably leads to them being more time consuming.
That being said, three years on, they have successfully navigated these issues and others that have arisen since.
Driving Conversion with Personalization
According to Ash, personalization is key for driving conversions when done in a timely and relevant manner.
For example, Sarah Raven launched a personalized product bundling app which allowed customers to easily add complementary products to their carts. This simple UI change led to £250,000 in incremental revenue in Q1.
Continued advancements in AI are making personalization even easier. AI-based tools can automate tasks, such as product merchandising, based on customer behavior and sales data. This in turn allows team members to focus on more strategic tasks, like analyzing customer data. These insights can then be fed back into the AI tools to improve business outcomes.”
Listen to the Full Episode Below!
Listen to this episode of The E-commerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives with Jonathan Cleaver and Ash Pallett to learn more about the brand’s replatforming experience.
👉 Apple: https://apple.co/3LXCgKm
👉 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Yz0GBi
