Replatforming an ecommerce stack is rarely a tech-only decision. Done well, it lifts conversion, reduces ops overhead, and frees engineering time for product work. Done badly, it stalls roadmaps for two quarters and burns goodwill with merchandising.
When the math actually works
Replatform when at least two of the following are true: build velocity has dropped below 1 meaningful change per sprint, you cannot run a flag-gated experiment without merging into a release branch, or platform fees are growing faster than GMV.
What to swap first
Always the storefront — it is the highest-leverage piece, and a headless storefront in front of the legacy commerce engine buys you 6-12 months to rebuild the back-end at lower risk.
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