Re-platforming your ecommerce infrastructure in 2021

Unless you're Bill Gates, you probably didn't predict the Coronavirus pandemic or anticipate its impact on socialising, shopping and working over the course of 2020.

The virus and the national lockdowns it brought about have hit many sectors hard over the past 12 months, particularly including hospitality and non-essential retail. But there have been success stories even from those worst-hit sectors, among the more adaptable organisations who shifted their focus to online and home delivery.

This year holds a more optimistic tone, as even with new strains of Coronavirus emerging, the roll-out of vaccines on an unprecedented scale moves us closer to being able to open back up.

And with retail's golden quarter behind us for another year, the coming months of 2021 are the perfect time to re-platform your infrastructure and achieve recovery and renewed growth.

The technical challenge of re-platforming

Moving away from older ecommerce platforms can seem like a challenge, but it can be achieved with a proven approach and the right planning.  Some of these challenges will include:

• Delays are experienced on all projects and programmes but you can minimise the impacts of these with clear planning that allow you to keep things moving.
• Project scope will undoubtedly change as more information is uncovered but keeping a tight rein on this will be vitally important to the successful implementation of your new platform.
• Budget constraints will materialise so it's essential to work closely with your chosen technology partner(s) as early as possible who will help you collectively scope out the project and agree what is achievable.
• Poorly implemented testing solutions added late in the project/programme will create too much technical debt making it harder to implement changes later on.   This will also include poor and/or missing non-functional requirements creating further delays and impacting agreed timelines.

• Moving from one system to another with create complex data migration challenges.  Failure to adequately prepare for the move can create many compatibility problems down the line.

How to re-platform in 2021

If you are thinking of re-platforming in 2021, whether your business is ecommerce/retail or any other online service provider, there are some agile technologies at your disposal.

MACH Architecture

Many organisations opt for MACH architecture which is derived from:

• Microservices
• APIs
• Cloud-native
• Headless

While this gives you flexibility to deploy new microservices and APIs quickly, it can also become quite complex over time.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS)

Solutions such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud are highly scalable, cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecommerce platforms which offer best-in-class features and functionality to provide highly optimised ecommerce experience for your customers.

Composable Commerce

Composable Commerce is an even more fluid alternative, one that Gartner predicts will accelerate the implementation of new features by 80% by 2023. You can read more about the benefits of Composable Commerce in our November 2020 article.

How Spike95 can help

The events of the past year have put unanticipated pressure on online platforms and real-world logistics operations - but improving confidence means it is possible to anticipate the demand you might see in 2021.

Remember, early performance testing can be hugely beneficial to allow your new ecommerce environment to be fine-tuned, maximising throughput and minimising API response times.

You can find out more about all of this in our Global Fashion Retail case study.

Don't be left behind as the UK economy recovers this spring-summer and beyond: British businesses will be looking to build back better, and so should you!

Speak to the experts in retail reliability engineering at Spike95 where we bring order to chaos with a proven approach to ecommerce platforming.  Have a free consultation with us to get our best practice guidance when re-platforming your ecommerce infrastructure, where we will be able to map out your key actions, decisions and risks.

Do a quick assessment now using our Spike Success Readiness Calculator

Full details are discussed on our latest webinar below![vlt_simple_link align="left" title="Drop us your contact details and we'll be in touch" link="url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wearespike.co.uk%2Fcontact-us%2F|title:Contact%20Us"][ultimate_spacer height="10"][vlt_social_share title="Like this post? Please share it!"]