Moving NCR Reviews and Ratings to a New Platform

NCR Retail Online was an ecommerce software platform that connected online stores with NCR inventory and business management systems. Its discontinuation has left retailers to move their stores, catalogues and customer information to another solution. Reviews and ratings are easy to overlook beside product listings, orders and payments, yet they shape trust, conversion and the visibility of products in search and shopping feeds.

For Australian retailers, a well-planned transfer of NCR review history can prevent years of customer feedback from disappearing. The work covers more than copying star scores: it includes matching comments to product variants, preserving dates and verification labels, handling personal information, redirecting old URLs and explaining what changed. NCR has directed customers toward alternatives such as Magento and WooCommerce through NCR Counterpoint partners, with the final architecture depending on catalogue, ERP and integration requirements.

Define the migration boundary

Define the migration boundary before exporting anything. Some stores keep review content inside NCR Retail Online, while others use a separate ratings service, imported marketplace reviews or manually added testimonials. The brief should identify each source, the system holding product identifiers, the destination for approved content and the treatment of items that do not match the live catalogue. Aggregate scores, written comments, owner responses, helpfulness votes and media attachments should be treated as separate data sets.

Choose the destination platform according to operational requirements rather than migration convenience alone. Magento and WooCommerce offer strong extension ecosystems, but the chosen NCR Counterpoint partner should also understand inventory synchronisation, order workflows and the retailer’s ERP. Reviews must remain linked to a stable product entity rather than an old storefront URL. Record whether the new store will import every historical review, display only verified feedback or begin collecting a fresh rating system while preserving the previous archive for internal reporting.

Extract and reconcile the legacy data

Extract the review records and associated product data in a documented, repeatable format. Useful fields include the legacy review ID, product ID, SKU, star value, title, body, author name, publication date, moderation status, verified-purchase flag, helpfulness count, language and any attached images. Exporting the corresponding product table at the same time prevents reviewers from being connected to products by name alone. Retain the original timestamps so imported feedback does not appear to have been posted on the day the new store launches.

Reconcile identifiers before loading records into staging. Products can change names, gain colour or size variants and receive new SKUs while retaining the same GTIN, barcode or ERP product code. A repeatable matching rule should prioritise those durable identifiers, then fall back to reviewed mappings for exceptional items. Remove exact duplicates, document uncertain matches and compare the total review count with the source database. Transfers should use encrypted connections, access controls and checksums, while reviewer email addresses, order references and other personal information are minimised or pseudonymised.

Map reviews into the new catalogue

The destination schema should reflect how customers will encounter the content. Translate the old star scale into the platform’s approved rating model, preserve review titles and bodies without unnecessary conversion, and map verified, pending and rejected states into their equivalent moderation queues. Historical dates should remain unchanged. Where the platform automatically calculates a product’s average score, rebuild that value from the imported individual ratings rather than combining it with an old aggregate score, which could double-count feedback.

Test edge cases with representative catalogue records and review patterns. For a low-risk catalogue test, items from the sample home gift catalogue can reveal whether matching rules handle gift bundles, seasonal products and discontinued lines correctly. Compare long reviews, mixed-language content, ratings without comments and comments without ratings. Add an appropriate provenance label where the new platform requires migrated content to be identified, and create permanent redirects from valuable old review pages so external links and search visibility are not lost.

Keep customers informed throughout the change

The archived customer notification guidance explains why clear communication matters during a store migration. Customers who notice that existing feedback has disappeared may doubt the authenticity of the new business. Explain which reviews are being preserved, whether approval or verification status changes, what happens to comments awaiting moderation and where customers can report a product mapping error. Place a clear migration notice on the storefront and send a direct notification to customers who have opted in to review reminders.

Prepare the support team before the cutover with scripts for missing reviews, incorrect product associations and changed product URLs. Give agents access to the mapping report and a simple escalation path for restoring rejected or misplaced content. Commercial electronic messages must include appropriate sender identification and an easy unsubscribe mechanism, particularly when customers are invited to review their purchases again. Keep the legacy export and mapping files available during the support period so staff can investigate discrepancies without asking customers to resubmit reviews that already exist.

Address Australian privacy and consumer rules

Migrating feedback can transfer personal information as well as opinions. If the retailer is a covered entity under the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles may govern the collection, use, disclosure and secure handling of reviewer details, account identifiers and linked order information. The Spam Act 2003 can apply to commercial emails encouraging customers to leave reviews or make another purchase. Product feedback must also comply with the Australian Consumer Law 2010, which prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct; purchased, fabricated or misleadingly presented ratings can create exposure for both the platform operator and the retailer. Australian and state and territory consumer affairs agencies may investigate such conduct.

Several local operating realities should shape the migrated experience. Teams serving customers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane must account for different promotional cut-off times and delivery expectations across the supply chain. Australian shoppers commonly browse products on a phone, check reviews while waiting for Australia Post or collect a Click and Collect order, and expect familiar payment options such as AUD checkout, local bank transfer, mobile wallets and Afterpay. A 10% GST-inclusive price, accurate Australian product copy and a review display that works on smaller screens all influence whether transferred feedback feels credible in the local market.

Test the complete ecommerce journey

Build a staging environment that mirrors the production catalogue, payment configuration, extensions and review-display templates. Reconcile source and target review counts, calculate rating totals independently and compare average scores by product, variant and publication period. Test long names, truncated excerpts, pagination, mobile screens, moderation actions and structured product feeds. A visually correct review can still create duplicate ratings if an extension records customer feedback a second time, so check that the new platform has only one active review submission path.

Rehearse the complete order and payment journey alongside the review migration. The archived international payment configuration provides a useful reference for checking gateway credentials, settlement currencies, redirects, webhooks and reconciliation fields. Test Australian cards, international cards, Afterpay and the payment methods offered by local banks without introducing duplicate orders or failed refunds. A successful migration means product data, stock, checkout, payment confirmation, review invitation and order history all continue to reference the same product identity.

Cut over, measure and close the loop

Use a controlled cutover with a short review freeze near launch. Take a final source export, record its checksum, load any changes missed by the main migration and compare counts one last time. Keep the original database and a recoverable copy of the target until reconciliation is complete. Redirect the most important legacy review URLs, monitor redirect errors and watch the store for missing ratings, duplicate imports or incorrect variant assignments. Preserve old records only as long as they are required for support, dispute handling or legal obligations.

Measure results against a baseline captured before migration. Track review totals, average scores, moderation time, customer support contacts, broken URLs, conversion on reviewed products and the percentage of imports successfully matched. Investigate unusual changes rather than assuming every difference indicates failure, especially around seasonal products and discontinued catalogue lines. Once the new platform is stable, retire unnecessary legacy access, document the final mappings and establish a routine export process so future migrations do not require reconstructing the transformation. The next concrete step is to appoint a migration owner and book a two-hour data inventory workshop with the selected NCR Counterpoint partner.