Planning to move from SiteBuilder to SCA? You’ve probably been considering this for a while. The truth is that SCA is a reliable and stable solution, and we strongly recommend it. As a partner, we’ve witnessed all the progress made and how SiteBuilder merchants have made the switch and faced this change.
With all the benefits that SCA comes with, the main factors explaining why every single online merchant hasn’t migrated yet are the license and support cost, plus the technical expertise needed to do it the right way.
If you are tight on a budget… then you need to ask yourself a few questions:
- Are you having performance issues?
- Is your website still not responsive?
- Are you planning on growing your eCommerce?
If your answer is YES to any of the questions above, then you might want to reconsider moving to SCA sooner rather than later.
To prepare for the migration, you should know the following:
1. Handling Images
Forget about using the web store tab as you used to do on SiteBuilder. Since the first release of SCA, there has been a big difference in how it handles images. The photos are on the file cabinet in a specific folder that you can determine. They will also need to have the same naming convention as the item identifier used, making the association automatic. The association could be through the URL component, item, name, or even a custom field.
You can validate this by going to the associated images on the item detail. If you don’t see it, you might have done something wrong.
You can also forget about uploading a thumbnail for each of your products like you used to do.
2. Commerce Categories
The latest NetSuite releases within SCA bring to the table the Commerce Categories, which will make your life easier, and you can keep using the same structure of categories.
However, it would help if you considered that it is not the same as those you used on Site Builder. You and your NetSuite partner will have to replicate the exact structure you have on SiteBuilder and assign the useful items.
3. Faceted Search
If you never had a faceted search on your site, now’s the time. It’s one of the best features of SCA and a game-changer for your business. You will need to think, re-think, and think again about the filters you’d like to use, based on your items’ attributes. The most common ones used are Price, Color, Size, or any other attribute relevant to your business.
This is time-consuming and can delay your project if decisions are not timely. Or there is a lot of back and forth regarding which filters and which type of filters. The variety of filters can vary from a bar range, a multi-select, color swatch, etc.…
Since Vinson (an SCA version), NetSuite has made it easier for you to control the filters through the SuiteCommerce Configuration.
4. Time to clean up – less is more
If you’ve been on Site Builder for longer than you can remember and with many people touching the code, it’s time for you to rethink your business as you know it and make some big decisions. For those of you who are “hoarders” of customizations, this might sound harsh, but the more you can adapt to NetSuite’s out-of-the-box features, the less painful and time-consuming this migration will be.
Not even mentioning that it will be cheaper. Not everyone likes changes, but in this industry, either you adapt, or you might be left behind.
You need to think of this as moving from one house to another. The new one is far better for sure, bigger, with more solid foundations, and it will be clean and impeccable. However, you might have a basement full of stuff with things that might be useful and others that you have no idea what they are or how they even got there. And for sure, you haven’t done any housekeeping because no one dares to put some order to it. After all, it might break a pricey vase that you have stored somewhere in there.
If you don’t know what you have or in what order, don’t expect the moving company to figure that out for you. You should fully understand what you are getting by default from NetSuite and decide what to take from your basement. If you want to take all the chaos from your basement, the result will probably end up being another room full of junk in your new home.
We’ve seen billion-dollar companies make that change. Thinking your business is not unique, and being open to changes will give you fewer headaches in the long run.
5. Tracking Codes are a pain
No tracking code is equal to the other. Usually, the vendor will tell you, “It’s just a matter of placing this piece of code.” If it’s that simple, I would suggest you go ahead and try it. Remember that SCA is a single-page application, and that may present significant changes from what you had in SiteBuilder.
Google Tag Manager might help ease some of the pain if you use the most common tracking codes for the most common actions you want to track. But tracking codes are a nightmare. And most of the companies that offer them are not familiar at all with NetSuite and always assume that it’s just a matter of copying and pasting.
6. Updates will be much easier thanks to the CMS
Vinson brought the CMS (Content Management System) to the table. It’s one of the most significant changes in all post-Denali implementations. The CMS allows you to update your homepage, links, categories, images, landing pages, and more with no knowledge of code. Just using point & click or drag & drop.
7. Site Builder to SCA: SEO Considerations
If you are making all these changes, make sure your team is fully aware of the impact on the SEO. Work closely on the new URLs’ structure and be on top of the leading 301 redirects that would need to occur when migrating. Not taking this seriously can cause your company to lose traffic and sales.
Having SEO in mind needs to be part of your project during the early stages of the migration and not just the day of the Go Live. Make sure you and your team monitor your Analytics daily to check everything is going as expected. We offer this to our clients and have minimized any negative impact on the site by taking quick actions when something goes wrong.
If you don’t know or you are 90% sure of what you need to do, we would suggest getting involved with someone who does this for a living and taking their advice at all times. Sometimes when trying to save a few bucks, you end up losing thousands of dollars in revenue.
8. Your Partner (Fast – Cheap – Good)
If you decide to go for it and flip the switch, take some time to understand if you have the right technical resources to do the work. If you have an in-house developer, make sure they have been exposed enough to the latest releases or have them implement a test site before you throw them out there.
Besides finding the right partner, you’ll face a usual dilemma that can be solvable with the well-known project management triangle (Fast – Cheap – Good). You have three options to select from, but you can only pick two. Therefore, if you want it fast and cheap… know it won’t be right. And if you want it Good and Fast, know it won’t be cheap.
More tips on finding the right developer or partner will be the subject of another blog post.
If you are choosing an agency as your partner for this endeavor, make sure to check other websites they have done. Look at testimonials specifically focused on SCA. Or even request to talk to some of their clients with a similar experience to what you will be facing.
I would recommend finding out 2 or 3 features that you can do by default with NetSuite and asking them how they would do it. If the answer to every question is “We can build a script,” “We can create custom records,” and “We can hard code it,” then you should open your eyes.
A dedicated agency or developer who knows what they are doing will tell you when something is native to the platform. Even if that means losing the possibility of customizing it and charging 50-100 hours worth of work.
Whatever decision you make, be sure to know that the industry is going that way. Don’t be left behind or wait until it’s too late.
Contact our SuiteCommerce developer team for more help on moving from site builder to SCA, and for more tips on how to get the most out of your eCommerce business!
