The Business
The Buying Network, established in 1999, serves the commercial marine sector as a purchasing cooperative, service provider, and distributor. It aims to provide the best service to its customers. The Buying Network grew with supply service operations and commercial sales they provide for small businesses.
eCommerce businesses need to compete with giants as well as their smaller competitors. For this very reason, The Buying Network realized that their current eCommerce platform may not have the capabilities for company process efficiency and increased sales. They considered re-platforming. In August 2020, Optimum7 worked with the professionally prepared eCommerce migration checklist, then got started working with the Buying Network to boost their growth.
The Objective
In this project, our main objective was to successfully switch our client’s online store to a new eCommerce platform with no data loss. We chose the eCommerce platform that would best fit the product, category, customer, and order volumes: BigCommerce. This platform would enhance the eCommerce site functionality and performance and provide a better customer experience.
We also had to improve the first touchpoint on the new store’s front-end store with visitors. A cleaner and simpler design would help customers focus on the offerings provided for them rather than distracting them from the services.
The Strategy
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eCommerce Migration
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Template Customization
eCommerce Migration
Our developer team drew up a list of all data that we migrate to the new eCommerce site on BigCommerce. This prevented unintentional data loss. After making sure that we got all the data from the current site until the moment we launched the project, we successfully completed our testing period.
To keep the SEO ranking authority high after the migration process, we mapped all existing URLs to the new BigCommerce URLs by seamlessly implementing 301 redirects.
The following items were migrated to the new store:
- Products
- Options
- Option Categories
- Categories
- Customers
- Orders
- Order History
- Info Pages
Template Customization
Undoubtedly, only data migration would not be enough for the targeted improvements to boost sales after the re-platforming process. Good design for the storefront of the eCommerce site would positively affect customer experience. The design ensures the first touchpoint between the visitor and the eCommerce site.
At the beginning of the project, our client selected a responsive pre-built BigCommerce template. The team set up that template, customized it, and adjusted the navigation
elements along with the site width. We implemented all written content including the Homepage, About Us, Contact Us, and Customer Service pages. The client also provided high-quality visuals.
Once the developers completed the migration and design process, we set up all payment, taxes, and shipping configurations on the new BigCommerce store. Then we made the site ready to use.
Results
