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Scalability always matters. Yes, we know that the festive season is now firmly in the rearview mirror, and we hope you were able to capitalise on your Christmas and January sales events. For some of you these might be ongoing. For others, you might be feeling glad to see the back of it all. If that rings true for you, well, this mini series on scalability and why it matters could offer some key insights into how to improve things.
In Part 1 of this mini blog series, we talked about what scalability means, how it impacts how your online business operates, and why it’s so important. We also looked at the impact of slow-loading websites, or even individual webpages. If you missed it, you can read Part 1 here.
Back to Part 2.
In this post, we’re going to be discussing checkouts - and their inevitable and obvious direct impact on sales. We’re also going to be talking about the effects of administration limits on productivity and crucially - delivery.
Painful checkout process
There’s actually a lot going on during the checkout process. Getting from basket to having an order placed usually involves a series of steps, all of which add complexity and time taken. Things like calculating shipping options and costs, actually placing the order, emailing the customer, integrating with third party systems such as warehouse systems, communicating with payment providers, and more. What this means is that the checkout can’t just look pretty, it has to be seamless and efficient. And every step, every cog in that wheel has to work or the whole thing falls apart (or gets really clunky and unusable).
An easy checkout process is critical to convert a potential sale to an actual sale.
If your customers are sitting watching a spinning wheel as your backend processes desperately try to keep up with the (hopefully) many simultaneous checkouts taking place – you run the risk of losing them. And your dream scenario rapidly turns into a nightmarish cycle of unhappy customers who abandon their shopping carts in frustration. What can you do?
How We Do Code can help: Our development team has a serious pedigree of working in the ecommerce space, particularly working on streamlining and scaling capacity at checkout. We can help you reconfigure and optimise your tech, or point you in the direction of a more efficient solution.
Limited ability to administer your web applications
Achieving sales isn’t the end of the process for you as a business. The next and equally crucial stage is fulfilling customer orders. It sounds simple enough. And during less frantic periods, you and your existing platform might be able to cope just fine. Maybe nothing in your online shop ever really sells out. Simple.
But…what if you’ve got a killer marketing campaign? Amazing! Only, your existing systems aren’t keeping up in real-time, and you’re now faced with the scary prospect of having sold more product than you currently have in stock. What then? I mean… you could panic (most people would panic), or you could take a moment and reach out to a company who specialises in just these kinds or problems (we mean us - you got that, right?).
How We Do Code can help: Ok, so we won’t exactly ride in on white horses sporting super heavy armour, but we can help transform how your business operates. We’ll suggest strategic solutions and investigate possible integrations that can enhance your online performance. We’re a big fan of Magento 2 due to its stellar reliability, scalability, flexibility, and ability to enable multiple administrators to work simultaneously - freeing you to worry about real world logistics, not your tech.
If all of this sounds confusing to you, firstly, we’re not doing our job very well (sorry about that) … and secondly, you’re not alone. We understand that not everyone is a tech nerd - and you don’t have to be to capitalise on technical innovation. That’s what we’re here for! Drop us an email or give us a call to discuss what’s been a thorn in your side this winter.
