Commerce Stack Consolidation Audit (Onboarding)

Commerce Stack Consolidation Audit (Onboarding)

1. 01

   Inventory every commerce tool the client pays for, with monthly cost and named owner

   Pull the last three months of SaaS invoices and card statements rather than trusting the client's mental list. Agencies routinely find 4 to 9 paid commerce subscriptions where the client believed they had two.

2. 02

   Map each tool to the single job it performs in the buying journey

   Tag every line item as discovery, cart, checkout, post-purchase, or support. Anything that cannot be tagged is a candidate for removal before the retainer scope is written.

3. 03

   Flag overlapping feature sets across the stack

   Cart recovery, product recommendations, and live chat are the three most duplicated functions in this category. Two tools doing the same job means one is generating cost without measurable lift.

4. 04

   Score each platform on data portability before recommending it stays

   Check whether order history, customer records, and event data can be exported in a usable format. Open architectures such as WooCommerce and composable platforms like BigCommerce make exit cheap; closed data models make it expensive.

5. 05

   Quantify the switching cost in hours, not just license fees

   Estimate migration, re-integration, and QA time at your blended delivery rate. A $40 per month tool that costs 12 hours to replace is rarely worth removing in the first quarter.

6. 06

   Present a keep, consolidate, or cut recommendation per tool with a dollar figure attached

   Give the client one page: current annual spend, proposed annual spend, and the delivery hours freed. This becomes the baseline the agency is measured against at renewal.

7. 07

   Document the approved stack in a shared register the client can edit

   Record tool name, owner, renewal date, and integration method. Undocumented stacks drift back to sprawl within two quarters.