It's time to start preparing your e-shop infrastructure for the busy season. Think ahead and get ready for the high demand for your products.
Now is the perfect time to prepare your infrastructure for the busy season. Many e-shops focus mainly on marketing campaigns to boost sales, but they forget that if these marketing efforts are successful, their e-shop might not be able to handle the influx of customers.
If preparations start taking place in the fall, the infrastructure upgrade might not be completed in time, leading to lost orders. If the website is slow or crashes, customers will shop elsewhere- it’s as simple as that. Don’t believe us? We recently conducted a survey that shows how much revenue businesses lose if their websites loads longer than 3 seconds.
So, think ahead and prepare your e-shop for the anticipated demand for your products. Now is your chance to outsmart the competition and steal their thunder with a fully workable website.
Here are 7 important tips on how to keep your website functionable.
1) Verify Your Solution's Capacity
Ask yourself and your employees about the past season. How much did the demand on your infrastructure increase during that time? It's crucial to compare this with your average annual operation. Once you have this comparison, you can roughly calculate the expected increase for this year using a simple formula.
However, it's entirely possible that this year's main season will be even more successful. That's why we recommend planning for an additional 20% performance reserve and you should consult with your hosting provider on this matter.
Increasing the capacity of your hosting solution is best tailored directly to your needs because, in many cases, performance cannot be linearly increased. It also depends on the software technologies your e-shop utilises.
If you are unsure on any of the above, then feel free to contact us on consultation@vshosting.co.uk
2) Make Sure To Include Your Marketing Team In Discussions
A surprisingly successful marketing campaign might be every e-shop owner's dream, but only if the e-shop is prepared for it. If it's not, there's a risk that the website might crash due to the increased traffic, and the money spent on the campaign would go to waste.
That's why it's essential to communicate your planned campaigns with your hosting provider well in advance. This is especially crucial if you're planning a larger campaign, such as a TV ad. So, make sure to have a prepared plan for an unexpectedly successful campaign.
3) Consider Premium Database Backups
Think ahead; it's about your reputation and money- both are extremely important.
Prepare a backup plan for emergencies and consider premium database backup. After all databases are the heart of every e-shop.
For instance, if your database suddenly stops working due to reasons like accidental deletion by a careless colleague or a failed disk drive, orders will soon start disappearing. You won't know what customers bought and for how much, let alone where to ship their purchases. While you might have a backup of the database, it was likely quite extensive, so restoring it could take several hours. With premium backup and "point-in-time recovery," data restoration is lightning-fast (up to 10 times faster!) this minimises any data loss by restoring the database to its correct state.
Contact us for more information - we can tailor the backup solution to your database technology.
4) Make sure to have a backup plan
Regardless of how thoroughly you prepare your infrastructure for the season, unexpected issues can always arise. This is why we always recommend having a disaster recovery plan in place. It's a recovery plan designed primarily to ensure that you don't lose anything in a crisis situation and know exactly how to proceed.
Do you have such documentation ready? Do you have an idea of how long it would take to recover the data if needed? It's a worst-case scenario, but if it happens, it's critical. It's not just about your company's reputation but especially about your profits and customer data. You need to respond quickly, efficiently, and salvage as much as possible.
Check out our guide on what disaster recovery plans should include.
5) Switch to a dedicated solution
Many clients switch to VPS hosting when they outgrow their existing solutions, especially when using shared infrastructure in web hosting. They start hitting performance limits, typically during traffic peaks, when numerous e-commerce websites compete for limited shared resources.
A prime example is the Christmas season, which sees the highest demand on e-commerce infrastructures. This period, between September 1st and December 23rd, often accounts for more than half of an e-commerce business's annual revenue. Slow loading times or, worse, downtime is simply not affordable.
From our 15 years of experience, we can say that if you're on web hosting or any shared solution and expect higher traffic than usual, you should at least consider a dedicated solution. For growing and successful e-commerce businesses, we recommend transitioning to an infrastructure where all the resources are dedicated solely to them, ideally several months before the peak season.
6) Don’t underestimate the importance of security
Security is crucial, whether it's about protecting data or ensuring the availability of your e-shop.
Security is closely related to software updates, which include security patches. That's why, with managed services, we monitor the software's current status and alert clients if it becomes outdated. We also perform operating system updates upon agreement.
As a successful company, you can also expect DDoS attacks – either from random hackers or directly from competitors. Unfortunately, these incidents are becoming more frequent. That's why we recommend not underestimating security. At vshosting, we have our own anti-DDoS protection, which reliably shields our clients from such attacks. Don't forget about training your employees, who are your first line of defence against phishing attacks.
7) Test the quality of your provider (and consider switching in time if necessary)
To prepare the infrastructure for your e-shop, a reliable partner is key. What are your experiences with your current hosting provider? Do they proactively address issues before they occur? And what are the experiences of their other clients? We always recommend checking their references.
At vshosting, we believe that if something goes wrong, you should have access to a team of senior administrators and technicians who will immediately start working on the problem. Even at 2 in the morning, including weekends. That's why we provide this quality of service to all clients without exception. Whether it's a large e-shop with a billion-pound turnover or a smaller e-shop that is just starting out.
We hope you have found these tips helpful. If you have any questions on how to keep your E-shop prepared for the busy season, then please contact us on cosultation@vshosting.co.uk