Replatforming: the keys to a successful e-commerce migration with smooth payment processes

After the webinar “Replatforming: the keys to a successful e-commerce migration with smooth payment processes” held on 1 April 2021, this article gives you the highlights of the session on Fleurance Nature’s replatforming project with the help of our three experts: Guillaume Partenet, Engineering Director at Payplug, Emilie Saint Olive, Manager Marketing of Digital E-Commerce & CRM at Fleurance Nature and Vincent Lemaire, Branch Manager at Clever Age.

What is “replatforming”?

As online shopping grows at full speed, replatforming (or changing the e-commerce platform) is proving to be a hot topic for many merchant websites looking to boost their performance.

As e-commerce and omnichannels become major business issues for all companies, replatforming is increasingly coming onto the radar of companies’ top management.

Why change e-commerce technologies?

• To boost the growth of your website
• To achieve better conversion rates
• To process customer data more efficiently and on a personalisation basis
• To rework your e-commerce strategy

Replatforming: an opportunity to review the payment process

With the Magento 1 platform ending in June 2020, many merchants have considered moving to Magento 2 or changing their e-commerce platform.

As the Magento 1 platform is no longer compliant with the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), e-merchants are having to migrate or change their CMS (Content Management System).

Aside from the technical aspects involved in changing CMS, replatforming is also an opportunity to review the purchasing process and integrate new payment methods that are more suitable for customer expectations.

Get support from an online payment specialist

In an e-commerce migration project, it is crucial to ensure the continuity of transaction flows between the two platforms. But payment experts can also play a role in accelerating the process, ensuring simple integration on the modules. As for Magento, Payplug has a connector to facilitate integration between its solution and the Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform used by Fleurance Nature.

Moreover, being an acquiring bank Payplug manages all aspects of the payment process, including:

• Financial reconciliation
• Transfers
• Refunds
• Chargebacks
• Data exports
• Fraud management via a dashboard accessible to merchants

These issues must be managed with the same requirements, regardless of the e-commerce platform used.

Lastly, the Payplug Customer Success team assists and advises merchants on which payment methods to use during the purchase process and when to launch them to improve performance.

What are the best practices for payment processes?

2 types of payment process:

• Redirection: Leaving the merchant website to access a PSP page (Payment Services Provider i.e. the associated bank’s page).
  - Advantage: This can reassure some types of customers
  - Disadvantage: It interrupts the purchase process
• Native display into the site: Integrating payment forms within “hosted fields” for maximum customisation without compromising security

Because the ultimate goal remains the Amazon-style “one click”, there are a set of mechanisms centred around the tokenisation¹ of cards to help merchants avoid lengthy customer processes.

In view of the new challenges associated with PSD2, Payplug also makes it possible to automatically update modules according to the new security and authentication mechanisms, allowing merchants to remain focused on their business.

Moving towards new payment trends

For many merchants, the health crisis has been an opportunity to rethink the shopping experience and the relationship between brands and consumers.

Some trends that were already ongoing have been greatly accelerated in 2020:

• New ways of paying online: “Pay by Link”, “Buy now, pay later”
• New distribution models: marketplace and unified commerce

Through replatforming, we are rethinking processes and integrations. Pay by Link, for example, can be integrated into the e-commerce platform. It is also possible to recover an abandoned basket and link it to the platform.

Replatforming: Feedback from Fleurance Nature

Fleurance Nature, a company specialising in food supplements and organic cosmetics since 1972, considered doing a replatforming because its e-commerce platform had:

• An insufficient level of security
• Performance issues
• Major technical debt

After several months of bidding, Fleurance Nature turned to Clever Age and kept its ecosystem of partners with Payplug, which was already the e-merchant’s payment solution.

“On projects of this magnitude, the human element is an important key to success,” stated Guillaume Partenet.

During the production stage in particular, which is a sensitive phase for merchants and integrators, Payplug has a support strategy with an on-call service for the go-live. Clever Age and Payplug have worked closely together to make exchanges more fluid and transparent for Fleurance Nature, particularly on the more complex payment side.

What were Fleurance Nature’s objectives for this e-commerce migration?

 “Our main goal was to become native first² as soon as possible to avoid having any major technical debt”, commented Emilie Saint Olive, Digital Marketing Manager for E-commerce and CRM at Fleurance Nature.

The company’s other objectives were:

• To be as responsive and mobile as possible
• To improve its reputation with Google and its organic indexing
• To boost the performance of its e-commerce website
• To maintain its ecosystem of partners

 “Validating payment methods according to the point of contact and customer process with the editor and integrator is the key to a successful replatforming project”, Guillaume Partenet, Engineering Director at Payplug.

The 3 key factors to a successful replatforming:

• Set clear objectives
• Choose the right editor and integrator to ensure a successful onboarding on the new platform
• Ensure teams are on board to make the replatforming into a real company project

1 tokenisation: associating a bank card with a single-use token
2 native first: integration with all of the company’s existing tools