Running an e-commerce store can be hard. Most business owners are extremely well-acquainted with the dynamics of the markets in which they operate \u2013 they are experts when it comes to drafting product value propositions, pricing tactics, competitive strategies, etc. But, a common theme in my conversations over the last three years with e-commerce business owners\u00a0 is that they don\u2019t know their infrastructure nearly as well.<\/p>\n
The most important component of an effective e-commerce infrastructure strategy is hosting, and choosing the right hosting provider is critical to success.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re considering hosting your online storefront with a dedicated hosting provider or re-negotiating your contract with one, here are some questions you should ask potential vendors before you make a decision:<\/p>\n
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Ensure that your hosting provider has a good understanding of e-commerce platforms. Besides being able to successfully host an application, the provider should be familiar with the nuances of specific platforms. More importantly, they should be familiar with the vulnerabilities that these applications have, and know how to overcome them both from a hosting, architecture, and security perspective.<\/p>\n
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In dedicated hosting environments, infrastructure is sized for the estimated peak load on the system. When not at maximum capacity, you\u2019re over-provisioned and over-spending. If you try to reduce your costs and size the architecture for a more typical load on the system, you run the risk of going down at your busiest times. Many of the companies we speak to on a daily basis have experienced poor performance and downtime, especially during Holiday Season, because their peaks turn out to be more than they planned for, thus disappointing end users.<\/p>\n
Further, any addition to provisioned capacity is reactive and not in real time \u2013 whereas the inherent nature of application traffic is dynamic and unpredictable. An application\u2019s scaling needs are open-ended and instantaneous, which means that the only way to cope with them is via auto-scaling. You should ensure that scaling is automated, happens in real time, and without your storefront\u2019s availability taking a hit during the process.<\/p>\n
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Slow is the new down. 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2\u00a0seconds\u00a0or less. 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than\u00a03 seconds\u00a0to load. Mid-market e-commerce businesses are growing, even in the shadow of giants like Amazon, because they are creating memorable and distinct user experiences that ultimately eclipse the \u201cbig box\u201d mentality of the large players. Performance is critical to delivering great user experience.<\/p>\n
With dedicated hosting providers, you rarely get performance optimization. Remember \u2013 their core focus is hosting<\/em> your application, not running it effectively.<\/p>\n
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Whether it\u2019s bad code or an outage, your hosting provider must ensure that they have a business continuity mechanism built in, so your business isn\u2019t affected in the event of unexpected downtime. The fact is \u2013 outages, which are outside the control of the hosting provider, will happen. Even the largest public cloud environments have had some downtime<\/a><\/u>. It\u2019s bad for any business, especially e-commerce, as even a few minutes of downtime can directly translate to millions in lost revenue, and indirectly to erosion in brand loyalty.\u00a0 Ensure your hosting provider can bring you back up and restore your application and data to its last known state as soon as disaster strikes.<\/p>\n
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According to an industry report, cybercriminals accounted for up to\u00a013.5%\u00a0of all retail login attempts in Q1 2018, and\u00a032.8%\u00a0of new account creations. Losses from these and other forms of e-commerce fraud could top\u00a0$19 billion\u00a0this year alone. A malicious attack can result in significant damage to a storefront\u2019s brand, revenue, and customer loyalty.<\/p>\n
Moreover, as online stores migrate to the public cloud, the attack surface area of applications increases significantly. Robust cybersecurity measures must be adopted to protect the business and its customers.<\/p>\n
A basic web application firewall (WAF) just doesn\u2019t cut it anymore, for anyone. Ensure that your hosting provider is employing sophisticated cybersecurity measures to prevent large scale attacks, and even the seemingly minor ones. Ask them if they target attacks specific to e-commerce and the platform you run, and if they do all of this proactively. Ask them how they combat attacks initiated by malware, DDoS, and the myriad of bad bots traversing the Internet looking for storefronts to exploit. Security is an arms race \u2013 once the most recent attacker has been blocked, the next one gets more sophisticated.\u00a0 Make sure your dedicated hosting provider has expertise in security \u2013 unfortunately, most don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
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Okay, we should leave it right there. The fact that traditional dedicated hosting providers throw people at the problem should be enough to scare you away from this outdated approach.<\/p>\n
What you should look for is complete automation \u2013 so that every process can be done instantaneously, at the push of a button. If you can\u2019t push content or functionality out at the click of a button (or invalidate them the same way), it doesn\u2019t matter how inexpensive your hosting provider is. Your productivity and revenue will suffer, no matter what.<\/p>\n
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In almost every hosting environment, as you layer additional features and functionalities, the complexity of your infrastructure increases \u2013 leading to maintenance hassles and higher costs.<\/p>\n
An ideal hosting provider can not only get you started quickly, but will provide you with a bundled solution with sophisticated plug-and-play features built from the ground up, so management and troubleshooting are easier and faster.<\/p>\n
As an e-commerce business owner, your application is your business! If you truly wish to focus on your business (versus constantly worrying about your infrastructure), you need the support of a hosting partner who isn\u2019t bound by the shackles of servers and other hardware. You need someone that focuses on application success \u2013 uptime, performance, security, and user experience.<\/p>\n
Dedicated hosting was a good fit for yesterday\u2019s challenges. Today? Not so much. Learn more about better alternatives<\/a><\/u> available today. Reach out to us at\u00a0sales@webscalenetworks.com<\/a><\/u>\u00a0or fill out this form<\/a><\/u> for a free consultation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"