eCommerce website conversion

 
 
 

The majority of established companies that sell online also have established websites. However, those websites, like any other, benefit from being kept ‘fresh’. In doing so, there are proven benefits in terms of sales, marketing and SEO-driven traffic.

Some of the major retailers are now on their third or even fourth generation eCommerce website. Understandably these big players have big budgets, and can afford to have a redesign every couple of years. But not every company can afford to do so – it can be a big investment.

We’ve completed several eCommerce conversions: typically from Magento v1 to WooCommerce.

More than that: those businesses who have converted or upgraded their websites have experienced dramatic increases in sales.

 

Reasons that you might wish to consider a new eCommerce website

1. Your business has outgrown your current website

Your online business may have started on a hosted platform, such as Wix.com or Squarespace, or on a package such as Actinic catalogue. Back then, you had no idea whether your business would succeed, so you took a risk and invested a small amount in a website. However, your business has become successful, and a good proportion of your sales comes from your online site.
However, it may be that you want to expand, and your current website doesn’t provide the features that you need to expand. That’s where a rebuild would be a solid investment. A rebuild would give you the ability to add those features, and to expand the business into new areas.

2. Your current website has experienced a drop in sales

You may have found that your previously-successful online business has experienced a gradual reduction in sales. It could be that the constant changes that Google makes to the way it ranks websites have caused fewer people to find your site, and so this has directly impacted sales. It could also be that your website is old, and not properly optimised. Some of the older eCommerce platforms, including Prestashop, OpenCart and Magento v1, which were good in their day, no longer cut the mustard with Google in terms of Search Engine Optimisation.
These sites are likely to have seen a drop in traffic, and sales.

3. Your current website isn’t secure

Back in 2017, Google announced that it would start to prioritise secure websites in the Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERPs). Websites require an SSL certificate in order to be secure.
Not only that, but web browser software was also updated, and began to warn people when they were visiting an insecure website.

Chrome warning Internet Explorer/Edge warning

The browsers began to give warnings like these whenever the user viewed an insecure website. Obviously the website user would find this very off-putting!
So, insecure websites found that they were losing sales.

Most web designers responded ahead of the update by advising their customers to buy SSL certificates, or even by installing them for free, as we did. But some of course did not.

If your website is in this category, then you need to get an SSL certificate as a matter of urgency.

 

4. You need a more user-friendly website

Many of the old eCommerce systems were over-complicated and hard to manage. Systems like Magento contain many more features than most businesses need, and the complexity can make the website hard to administer. This can lead a company to spend many hours more making changes to the website and products than necessary. Time is money, so the more that can be saved, the better!

A more modern eCommerce platform such as WooCommerce, Shopify or Bigcommerce can mean that website administrators spend far fewer hours making updates.

Put simply, if your eCommerce website isn’t bringing in sales, then it’s time to look at why!