Do You Have an Online Store? Here’s How to Prepare for Black Friday
At the end of November, we will once again mark the day that kicks off the pre-Christmas shopping season—famous for its big discounts and attractive offers from retailers to buyers. For years now, businesses have been reporting record turnovers and numbers of sales on the last Friday of November, with more and more transactions happening online. On the one hand, this brings more opportunities for businesses; on the other hand, it requires special preparation and technical support.
Problems You Need to Solve
Online merchants who want to maximize the potential of Black Friday for their business should resolve the following common issues faced by e-commerce stores:
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A slow or unavailable website, which equates to missed profits and disappointed customers. The reason for unstable site performance is often a lack of planning for hosting infrastructure and insufficient flexible resources to ensure normal operation of the online store during peak traffic.
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Protection and security, which includes safeguarding your customers' data as well as securing your online store against malicious attacks. Around Black Friday, attacks on online businesses and their users increase.
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Lack of technical resources and equipment to ensure proper management and maintenance of your online store. This pertains to all hardware and systems that need to be maintained, as well as having experts to ensure their normal operation 24/7, and immediate response in case of necessity.
Why Do Online Stores That Rely on Managed Cloud Services Benefit the Most?
There are several popular types of hosting solutions for websites and online stores, each with its own advantages depending on the scale and activity of the business:
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Hosting on your own server and location: an outdated but still common option, where businesses are fully responsible for the maintenance and management of the hardware and systems behind an online business.
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Shared hosting: a popular budget solution where you sacrifice flexible resources in favor of minimal costs. It’s suitable for small businesses that do not anticipate significant growth or sudden spikes in traffic to their online store.
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Public Cloud: a much more flexible and scalable solution, suitable for online businesses that often experience peaks and dips in demand, as is common with e-commerce stores. However, with this type of service, there are risks for businesses related to configuration and management, security and protection, as well as unexpectedly high costs resulting from inattention or lack of experience with such services.
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Managed Cloud: the most modern and effective solution for larger online stores that want to leverage the potential of cloud solutions and at the same time entrust their management to experts, ensuring the right configuration, maximum security, and an optimal budget. This type of service is most recommended for growing and large businesses seeking flexibility and the ability to always be accessible to their customers, regardless of load or number of active users on the website. Proven over the long term, these advantages are key for online businesses, allowing them to repeatedly recoup their investments in maintenance, optimization, and protection of their stores.
Experts Advise:
“If a minimal budget for the maintenance of your online store is a top priority in your strategy, opt for shared hosting, which will provide you with fixed parameters, but also limited resources for your site. However, if your goal is to maximize the potential of Black Friday and the pre-holiday season for your online business, I recommend turning to a managed cloud service, where you use server resources according to your business’s real-time needs. You also benefit from 24/7 monitoring and support from a technical team, ensuring peace of mind and maximum return on investment. Our experience shows that online stores that remain conservative and rely on traditional hosting solutions from 10–15 years ago often see serious missed opportunities, especially during periods of intense sales campaigns and increased consumer interest.” – comments Alexander Minchev, CEO, AbsCloud
Source: money.bg