Use case · E-commerce

The independent e-commerce winding down

Six years, twelve thousand orders, three thousand eight hundred customers in the database. You close the shop — but the accounting and GDPR obligations run for another decade. How to archive cleanly, leaving neither cash nor memory hanging.

The setting

You opened the online shop six years ago. You spent your evenings on it, you shot the photos yourself, you wrote every product page, you learned to integrate a payment platform, to run logistics, to handle returns. You took twelve thousand orders from three thousand eight hundred customers. The market has shifted, margins are thinning, fatigue is there. You decide to close while cash allows it and remaining stock can still be sold off.

Closing an e-commerce is not flicking a switch. Obligations survive the shop: invoices must be kept for ten years (French Commercial Code, art. L. 123-22), sale contracts for five years (article L.110-4 of the same code), the statutory warranty of conformity for up to six years depending on the goods. And there are your customers: the CNIL requires informing them of what happens to their data, and keeping their rights of access, portability and erasure available.

Technically, the site itself is rarely the difficulty. What is complex is separating what must remain accessible (catalogue, terms of service, returns FAQ) from what must be locked down (cart, customer accounts, payment) — and keeping both in tension for years to come.

A closing e-commerce does not stop communicating: it stops selling. The nuance changes everything in what to keep, for whom, and for how long.
  • 6 years of activity
  • 12,000 orders processed
  • 3,800 customers in base
  • 10 years accounting retention

What is at stake

  • The product catalogue. Photos, pages, SEO descriptions accumulated over six years. Search-engine equity (keywords, inbound links) cannot be rebuilt; preserving the catalogue in read-only mode keeps that digital equity for former customers as well as for the editorial archive.
  • Orders and invoices. Article L.123-22 of the French Commercial Code requires ten years of preservation from closure. This obligation persists after registry removal: it transfers to the former directors personally.
  • Customer accounts. Personal data subject to GDPR: you must maintain the rights of access, portability and erasure for each customer until final deletion. See GDPR after cessation.
  • The e-commerce site. Often still visited after closing by former customers searching for an invoice, a customer-service number or warranty information. Plain disappearance fuels negative reviews and disputes.
  • Customer-service mailboxes. support@, contact@, returns@ receive payment reminders, refund requests, delivery-return notices for months after closing. Without email continuity, those messages bounce silently.

How Archivum operates

  1. 1

    Scoping the case

    Catalogue perimeter, order volume, customer base to archive, underlying contracts (payment, logistics, marketplace), shutdown procedure (voluntary cessation or liquidation). Detailed quote, then a template contract adapted to e-commerce.

  2. 2

    Catalogue and order-base extraction

    Full export of the product catalogue (text, media, metadata), the order base (anonymised where appropriate for time-barred orders), PDF invoices, return slips. Everything is encrypted, indexed and stored on sovereign French infrastructure.

  3. 3

    Site frozen as static

    The catalogue is regenerated as static HTML. Cart, customer account and payment funnel are disabled. A "Our shop has closed" page explains how to retrieve an invoice, exercise GDPR rights, or reach customer service. See site continuity.

  4. 4

    Customer-service email taken over inbound-only

    support@, contact@, returns@ are taken over in inbound-only mode. No outgoing message. Incoming mail is consultable by the authorised parties set out in the contract, fully logged.

  5. 5

    Layered contractual conservation

    The contract sets differentiated archive durations: 10 years for accounting, 5 years for contracts, 3 years for the prospecting base (CNIL recommendation). Each layer has its own end-of-period arbitration.

  6. 6

    End-of-period arbitration

    Three months before each deadline, the former directors (or their successors) are notified. They decide collegially between extension, deletion and transfer — see end-of-period arbitration.

Five years on

The former directors — or the successors named in the contract — decide according to the agreed voting rule.

Extension

A new period, aligned with residual obligations. Accounting justifies an extension up to ten years after closure.

Deletion

Secure destruction of layers whose preservation is no longer needed (e.g. the prospecting base after three years). Certificate issued to the former directors.

Transfer to the trustee

Archivum inherits contractually the domain name, the editorial catalogue and the brand, releasing the former directors from future obligations.

How much it costs

For a case like the one above — six years of activity, 80 GB of archives (media included), a 600-page product catalogue, a base of 3,800 customers, three customer-service mailboxes — over five years, the order of magnitude is a few thousand euros per year, with volume tiers. Product-media weight (high-resolution photos, video) drives cost more than the text catalogue. The final price is set in a quote.

Scope your case

The most efficient path is to talk for an hour before cutting payment and logistics. We understand the e-commerce context, we validate a perimeter per layer, you walk away with a scoped quote and a customer-communication plan aligned with CNIL expectations.

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