Ecommerce website redesign in Japan – keep your sales and SEO, see the new store first

Six signs your online store needs a redesign

The best signal for an ecommerce redesign is where customers and the people running your store get stuck. Count how many of these apply to your store.

• On a phone, text and buttons are small on the way from product page to cart
• Many shoppers drop off between cart and order complete (check the purchase funnel in GA4)
• You cannot add the payment methods your customers want, such as konbini payment, pay-later or Apple Pay
• Product and stock updates involve lots of manual work every day
• The system or its plugins are no longer updated, which raises security concerns
• Subscriptions, coupons or member tiers you want to offer are not possible on the current setup

If two or three apply, rebuilding is often cheaper over time than patching. Start by noting the pages with the highest drop-off and the tasks that take the most time – that list makes the next decision much easier.

Redesign or replatform: how to choose and typical costs

There are two main routes. You can keep your current cart system and improve the design and flow, or you can replatform to Shopify, BASE or WooCommerce.

• Redesign on the same platform: payments and customer data stay; the theme, product pages, navigation and mobile layout are rebuilt. A good fit when the features themselves work fine
• Replatform: if missing features, an unsupported system or high monthly and transaction fees are the problem, moving to a new platform solves it at the root
• Typical costs in Japan: a store built on a service such as Shopify or BASE usually ranges from several hundred thousand yen to a few million yen; custom or package systems often run into several million yen or more. Product count, integrations and design depth change the figure a lot

When comparing quotes, look beyond the build fee. Add monthly plans, payment fees, apps or plugins and the time it takes to run the store, and compare over a few years. For the step-by-step side of switching systems, see our guide to ecommerce platform migration.

Protecting sales and SEO during the move

The most important goal is that orders and search traffic keep flowing from launch day. Before any build work starts, list what has to carry over.

• Product data: names, prices, SKUs, variants, stock, images and descriptions – confirm you can export them as CSV
• Customers and orders: check whether accounts and order history can move, and whether passwords can. If not, prepare a friendly reset notice
• URLs and redirects: map every old product, category and article URL to its new address and set 301 redirects
• What search engines already value: carry over titles, descriptions, copy and reviews from your best-performing pages
• Tracking and ads: set up GA4, Google Merchant Center and the Meta pixel again on the new store

Missed redirects are the fastest way to lose rankings and break links. Our page on 301 redirects for site migrations shows how to build the map. If your store details change, also republish your legal notice under the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions and your privacy policy.

How an ecommerce redesign runs and how long it takes

Typically a store with a few dozen products takes one to two months; larger catalogs or stores with system integrations take three months or more. The steps look like this:

• Analysis: best sellers, top landing pages and the steps where shoppers drop off
• Requirements: payments, shipping rules, subscriptions, coupons and other features
• Design and structure: home, category, product and cart flow, designed mobile-first
• Data migration: move products and customers, check display and stock in a test environment
• Test orders: payments, shipping fees, email notices and redirects, one by one
• Launch and monitoring: switch at a quiet hour, then watch sales and search daily for a few weeks

Pick a launch date away from sales and peak seasons. Pause new product uploads for a few days around the switch so stock stays in sync between the old and new store.

Common mistakes in an ecommerce redesign

When sales dip right after a redesign, the cause is usually missing checks around launch. Add these to your pre-launch checklist.

• Old URLs are not redirected, so search results and ad links lead to 404 pages
• Customer passwords do not carry over and login questions flood in
• Shipping fees or delivery-time options differ from the old store and cause order problems
• The Google Shopping product feed is not updated and ads stop running
• Menus and category names change so much that repeat customers cannot find products

All of these can be prevented with checks before launch. If your company site needs a refresh at the same time, our guide to website renewal covers the process.

How UNANOBO handles an ecommerce redesign: a free demo of your new store

Before you commit, UNANOBO builds a free demo of your new store using your current products and brand. You open the home and product pages on your computer and phone, try the flow yourself, and decide whether to go ahead once you are happy with how it looks and sells.

The process is simple: free demo, feedback, launch, growth. We look at whether Shopify, BASE or WordPress with WooCommerce suits you during the demo stage, and the founder personally handles data migration, redirects and SEO and ads after launch. Everything runs by message, in Japanese or English.