Almost every eCommerce company faces the same issue – when reaching a particular size of business they feel that the current eCommerce platform can’t cover all the needs, and they think of changing the platform or the provider. To find the right fit for your business, you should go through the checklist we have prepared and evaluate the candidates. Here are a few questions you should ask before you start narrowing down your ecommerce platform choices when approaching a migration.

Company Overview

• The structure and legal status of your company? (Public / Private, Joint Venture, Subsidiary, etc.)
• How long has your company been in business / Experience in years?
• Your top competitors and their market share. How are you positioned against these competitors?
• What is the most current version of your product and when was the last release date / How often do you release new versions? What percent of your customers are on the most recent version of your product?
• How many merchants are currently using your software?
• Please describe your typical customer profile. List 5 Top customers and 5 customers that are similar to our business (scope of services, size, industry).
• How do you price your application? Describe your license methodology / pricing plans etc.
• What documented programs are offered to assist your customers in continuous improvement in commerce / Documentation / Tutorials?
• Describe the partner training or certification programs and their conditions.

Development and UX

• Are your designs mobile responsive?
• Do you offer mobile-optimized checkout out-of-the-box?
• Do you enable persistent shopping cart across devices?
• Are there any additions plugins done by your team / your partners? Would we have the ability to install additional plugins or apps?
• Do you / your partners provide feature upgrades to any themes we purchase?
• Which fonts are available out-of-the-box? Would we have the ability to install & use web fonts?
• Do you automatically cache store assets such as images globally to local points of presence?
• List all 3rd party programming languages required to make website design changes.
• How much of the design customization can be done in a local development environment vs in-browser editing?
• Can we preview the product catalog in any theme before purchasing this?

Hosting and IT

How the software is hosted

• How do you manage automatic backups? How often do you make backups? Define your server redundancy process
• List your most recent uptime results. What uptime did you experience during the last holiday season?
• How many environments (dev/test/UAT/etc.) does a typical client use to manage the implementation of enhancements?
• How software performance can be monitored? How many API calls per second do you support out-of-the-box?
• How the software can be scaled to support additional user and API load?
• How high availability and disaster recovery are addressed?
• What controls are used to protect against malicious code?

Security

• Is the software PCI compliant?
• Does the platform have the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification?
• How security roles are defined and what access restrictions can be managed by role?
• How personally identifiable information (PII) such as customer names, addresses, preferences, and shopping habits are stored and handled in a secure manner.
• How data access and change is audited?
• How security vulnerabilities are identified and mitigated?
• Describe any additional data protection, audit or financial control features of the software.
• Are SSL certificates included?
• Is your software support GDPR compliant? How is this applied?
• APIs and Headless Commerce
• Do you have storefront APIs that allow for a full ecommerce site built using modern front end frameworks like Vue or React? Are you able to host and manage this type of solution?
• Do you have a full suite of API’s that would allow a headless deployment with an Enterprise CMS?

Administration

• How we can manage our product catalog within your system?
• How do you import/export catalogue and customer data? Which formats are applicable?
• Do you have a bulk import/export for products and pricing?
• Do you provide a staging environment to test and preview before launch?
• What admin roles and permissions are available for users?
• Can multiple storefronts be managed from a single login?
• Do you provide a CMS for content pages and blogs?
• What SEO capabilities are available in your platform?
• Do you offer your own POS system or integrate with some? List all POS systems you integrate with.

Products and  Categories

• How do you support custom product pages? Can these be configured per category?
• Can categories be sorted manually in the control panel?
• Can categories be used for private sales?
• Are category filters supported?
• Do categories and products have breadcrumbs?
• Are page/product/category URLs auto-generated?
• How can we customize the product and category level URLs?
• Does the platform support multi-level category navigation?
• Are custom product attributes supported? How variations or options can be configured.
• Do you support both digital and physical products?
• Is inventory management built-in?
• Do you support SKU level images with image switching on variation selection?
• What is your current largest SKU count for a live merchant?
• Is the product image zoom enabled by default? Can multiple images be added per product? Is there a limit to the number or size of images?
• How do you support real-time inventory sync within multiple channels?
• Can inventory be tracked at variation level?
• Is there a quick edit option available to modify stock levels or pricing changes?
• Does the shipping system understand and support the dimensional weight?
• Do you allow pre-orders?

Customer Service

• How can we segment our customers and members into separate groups?
• Can customers access “Saved Addresses” during the checkout process?
• How can customers manage and view order history?
• List all order management capabilities.
• How can we reorder the products on behalf of a customer?
• Do you support wish lists?
• How are refunds/partial refunds managed?
• How do you manage rewards/points / loyalty program?
• Can a CSR complete an order via chat? Screen share to help a customer complete an order?

Analytics

• What types of reports and analytics are included out-of-the-box or via 3rd party app??
• Do you provide a dashboard with business-critical metrics? Which metrics?
• Is Google Analytics integrated?
• How do you support Google Tag Manager Integration?
• Do you provide analytics and insights for metrics including customer LTV?
• Is there a report for total revenue/sales?
• How would you generate a tax report?
• What types of shipping and fulfillment reports are available?
• How low stock inventory report is managed?

Checkout and Payments

• List all the payment systems included out-of-the-box
• Can customers check out as a guest (non-registered)?
• Are customers able to use stored credit cards and shipping addresses during checkout? Is it done natively or with a 3rd party app?
• Are there options for both Authorize & Capture and Authorize Only?
• Can customers save their shopping cart and use across different devices?
• Are tax and shipping estimates provided to customers? How is it implemented?
• Can customers ship to multiple addresses?
• How recurring payments are supported?
• Do you charge any transaction fees if we want to keep our existing payment gateway?
• Does the platform support shipping from multiple warehouses?

Marketing

• How discounts and promotions can be set up out-of-the-box?
• How can promotions be limited to specific products?
• Is there the ability to run shipping promotions?
• Can promotions be scheduled to launch or end at a date and time?
• How multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts works. Are coupon codes supported?
• Can promotions be limited based on customer groups or audience segments? How do you support bundled products? Can the platform handle product exclusions for promotions?
• Can bonus products be added to the cart as a result of the cart contents?
• Does the platform support online and offline gift cards through the same system?
• Is a gift registry (wishlist) supported?
• Is gift wrapping option customers can choose?
• How do you support Google Custom Reviews?
• How do you manage abandoned carts? Can email campaigns to abandoned carts be added?
• Is Email Marketing Automation application included to the platform? What 3rd party email applications are integrated? Are MailChimp, Constant Contact integrations available?
• Is there email-signup form available?
• Are email templates mobile responsive?

SEO

• Can product meta tags be customized?
• How do you support and manage redirects?
• Are SEO-friendly URLs auto-generated for products and category pages?
• Can full URLs be customized? Are there any extraneous words or symbols that cannot be removed?
• Is a sitemap included?
• Do you support canonical tags?
• Do you support Google AMP integration to optimize mobile search results?

Social Media

• Are social media sharing links on PDP supported?
• Are social media sharing links displayed post-purchase?

Omnichannel

• List all 3rd party marketplaces you are currently integrated with.
• Is there a centralized view of all our orders across all channels?
• Can you publish micro-sites from a single store with their own unique inventory?

Services

• Please provide details about your on boarding processes for new clients.
• What is the average timeline for implementation?
• Do you have extended support hours for supporting an event’s onsite operation? Can we get a dedicated support representative if needed?