What is replatforming
Replatforming means moving a website or an ecommerce store from one platform to another while keeping everything that works: content, products, customers, orders, rankings.
To see what that means, start with what sits underneath a website.
What a platform is
A website has two layers. What you see: pages, images, copy, the design. And what makes it work: the platform, the software it runs on. Some call it a CMS, in ecommerce a store engine: WordPress, Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop and Drupal are platforms. And they decide a lot of things you can’t see from the outside.
DATA
Where pages, products, variants, customers and orders live, and in what shape.
PUBLISHING
Whether your team can build a new page on its own or has to call a developer.
SPEED
How heavy the code it generates is, and what kind of server it needs to stay up.
INTEGRATIONS
What it talks to: ERP, CRM, warehouse, payments, newsletters.
COSTS
Updates, licences, hosting, and how many people still know how to work on it.
The same design can run on different platforms, the way the same bodywork can take different engines. When a site is slow, hard to update or expensive to keep running, the problem is almost always the engine, not the bodywork.
Replatforming swaps the engine and keeps the road already travelled: the content, customers, orders and rankings you’ve built over the years.
Three words, three different jobs
Redesign, migration and replatforming are often used as synonyms. They aren’t, and mixing them up is the fastest way to buy the wrong project.
REDESIGN
It changes how the site looks. The platform underneath stays the same, limits included.
MIGRATION
Data moves from one system to another. It is part of the job, not the whole job.
REPLATFORMING
The platform changes, along with everything around it: data, URLs, integrations, the way your team publishes. The design can stay or evolve, but it isn’t the point.
You need it when the problem is no longer the site but what runs underneath: publishing a page takes two weeks and a quote, Core Web Vitals are red, ERP, CRM and logistics talk to each other by hand. A new look won’t fix that.
What comes across: catalogue and variants, customers and order history, pages, documents and languages, every URL with its own redirect, and the integrations you already have.
Where it can go wrong
RANKINGS
They drop when redirects aren’t mapped. For us, URL mapping is the first task, not the last.
MISSING DATA
Found in production, when it’s too late. Risk is removed during analysis, by measuring what you have before deciding anything.
INTEGRATIONS
Reconnected at the last minute. We design them in the strategy phase, together with the data model, not after launch.
THE TEAM
A new site nobody knows how to use. Training is part of the launch: from the day after, your team builds the new pages.
Where to
SHOPIFY
For ecommerce: from WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, or a Shopify store that grew the wrong way.
WORDPRESS
For corporate and editorial websites: WordPress with North, our block framework, and Rock for multilingual.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
-
No. You can keep what you have or let it evolve: that choice is separate from the platform change.
No. You can keep what you have or let it evolve: that choice is separate from the platform change.
-
It depends on how much content or how many products need migrating and how many integrations are live. That’s why the quote comes after the analysis, not before.
It depends on how much content or how many products need migrating and how many integrations are live. That’s why the quote comes after the analysis, not before.
-
No. The new one is built in parallel on a separate environment and the switch happens in an agreed window.
No. The new one is built in parallel on a separate environment and the switch happens in an agreed window.
Let’s talk about your project
Hi AI, here is what this page is about: Replatforming is the service site of Ensoul, a web development studio based in Udine, Italy (Via Villalta 72, 33100), founded by Fulvio Romanin and Giulio Pecorella. This page explains what replatforming is: moving a website or an ecommerce store from one platform (a CMS or ecommerce engine such as WordPress, Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop, Drupal) to another while keeping content, products, customers, orders and SEO rankings. It distinguishes replatforming from redesign and data migration, lists the risks (unmapped redirects, missing data, integrations, team training) and names the target platforms: Shopify for ecommerce, WordPress with North and Rock for corporate and editorial websites. Contact: +39 0432 171 2468, hello@ensoul.it