Eliminating Downtime For Your E-Commerce Store.

OrganizingWeb.net » Shopping » Eliminating Downtime For Your E-Commerce Store.

The world has changed a great deal because of the advent of the internet. No where is this more true than in the world of business, where the internet has become, in only 10 years, an indispensable tool that most companies cannot live without anymore. READ MORE

Eliminating Downtime For Your E-Commerce Store.

Author: EdwardCole | Total views: 34 | Word Count: 803 | Category: Shopping | Date: Apr 24th 2008

Small e-commerce businesses need to focus on keeping all their systems live, not just their website. Customers expect, and need, to be able to communicate with you via telephone, email, fax, and other methods. Since today's systems are so tightly integrated, a failure in a single piece of your infrastructure can interrupt your ability to talk to clients, ship orders, process transactions, and keep customers happy.

The true cost of downtime can be significant, and includes many things other than just lost revenue from lost orders. Increased (and expensive) customer service time, refunded and cancelled orders, loss of customer loyalty, and opportunity loss associated with handling the outage itself can be tremendously expensive.

The major points of failure, where your ability to service clients can be impacted, includes you website hosting, telephone systems, ISP access, email, core application software systems, and electrical power. A failure in any single one of these core infrastructure components can impact your ability to properly serve your customers.

Accessing the Internet from your business can often be the most critical potential failure points. Today's e-commerce business use the Internet to send or receive emails, receive orders from your storefront, and produce shipping labels. Typically, small e-commerce businesses rely on DSL or cable Internet services. There are inexpensive, high-performance wireless based back-up systems available for your business to use in the event of an outage of your primary Internet provider.

When you have multiple ISP access points, you'll need to set-up your network to use both your primary and secondary services. Inexpensive, but powerful, routers can be configured to monitor the ISP access of your providers, and automatically route your Internet access via whatever service is up. This keeps your operations running without disruption, even if your DSL or cable is down.

The newest Internet based toll free services offer a very creative solution to your inbound call handling needs. In addition to being very inexpensive, these systems can be set-up to route your inbound toll free calls to multiple different phone numbers. This way, if your landline is down, your customers can still reach you because your toll free service can route your calls to your VOIP or cellular phone number without disruption.

Since everything in today's e-commerce businesses are run with electricity, a power outage can bring your business to a halt. Installing basic UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) battery back-up systems on your equipment can give you 10 - 30 minutes of power in the event of a power outage. Keep in mind, its not just your PC that needs to keep running, but also phones, routers, modems, and network servers as well.

To manage longer-term power outages, a back-up electrical generator is a must have piece of equipment. Inexpensive units are available at the local home center. Have an electrician wire up a generator transfer switch to your circuit panel to assure you can safely and quickly switch over to generator power in an outage. Test your system from time to time to make sure the generator starts with ease, and that you can switch over your circuits without disrupting the business.

Most of us focus our energy on having a high availability host for our website and stores. The goal isn't just to make sure the site itself has high availability, but also all components that plug into the site. Make sure your payment processor's systems are equally high uptime for both the payment gateway, and the authorizing network.

In the event of a true disaster, the one item you need to make sure you have is a good back up. A truly good back up includes all your critical business files and records, not just for the website, but your financial, marketing, and operational data as well. Take your back-up files off site, at least weekly, to assure you've got your data safeguarded.

The worst time to find out that one of your back-up systems isn't working is when your primary system fails. To keep your online store running well, test your back-up systems periodically, and perform required maintenance when things are running well. Trying to fix your back up systems when your primary system is down is a double whammy to your business.

Investing in redundant and back-up systems for your web-based store is prudent. A business that does only five hundred thousand dollars in business can lose over one hundred dollars per hour when systems are down. If your systems are down 1% of the time, your cost can be over three thousands dollars per year, plus a major disruption to you and your staff's lives. Careful planning, and inexpensive redundant systems can pay for themselves very quickly.

Article Source: OrganizingWeb.net

About the Author

Edward Cole's Internet baby shower party store has shipped thousands of orders. Edward is writer and manager for at PartyPail.com, and he says that the Radio Flyer baby shower is one of his favorite shower themes.

Previous Article - Next Article

Copy and Paste Article Code.

Remember: The article body, title, author bio and links may not be changed or removed. By publishing this article, you agree to all the terms in our Terms of Service.

Small e-commerce businesses need to focus on keeping all their systems live, not just their website. Customers expect, and need, to be able to communicate with you via telephone, email, fax, and other methods. Since today's systems are so tightly integrated, a failure in a single piece of your infrastructure can interrupt your ability to talk to clients, ship orders, process transactions, and keep customers happy. 
The true cost of downtime can be significant, and includes many things other than just lost revenue from lost orders. Increased (and expensive) customer service time, refunded and cancelled orders, loss of customer loyalty, and opportunity loss associated with handling the outage itself can be tremendously expensive. 
The major points of failure, where your ability to service clients can be impacted, includes you website hosting, telephone systems, ISP access, email, core application software systems, and electrical power. A failure in any single one of these core infrastructure components can impact your ability to properly serve your customers. 
Accessing the Internet from your business can often be the most critical potential failure points. Today's e-commerce business use the Internet to send or receive emails, receive orders from your storefront, and produce shipping labels. Typically, small e-commerce businesses rely on DSL or cable Internet services. There are inexpensive, high-performance wireless based back-up systems available for your business to use in the event of an outage of your primary Internet provider. 
When you have multiple ISP access points, you'll need to set-up your network to use both your primary and secondary services. Inexpensive, but powerful, routers can be configured to monitor the ISP access of your providers, and automatically route your Internet access via whatever service is up. This keeps your operations running without disruption, even if your DSL or cable is down. 
The newest Internet based toll free services offer a very creative solution to your inbound call handling needs. In addition to being very inexpensive, these systems can be set-up to route your inbound toll free calls to multiple different phone numbers. This way, if your landline is down, your customers can still reach you because your toll free service can route your calls to your VOIP or cellular phone number without disruption. 
Since everything in today's e-commerce businesses are run with electricity, a power outage can bring your business to a halt. Installing basic UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) battery back-up systems on your equipment can give you 10 - 30 minutes of power in the event of a power outage. Keep in mind, its not just your PC that needs to keep running, but also phones, routers, modems, and network servers as well. 
To manage longer-term power outages, a back-up electrical generator is a must have piece of equipment. Inexpensive units are available at the local home center. Have an electrician wire up a generator transfer switch to your circuit panel to assure you can safely and quickly switch over to generator power in an outage. Test your system from time to time to make sure the generator starts with ease, and that you can switch over your circuits without disrupting the business. 
Most of us focus our energy on having a high availability host for our website and stores. The goal isn't just to make sure the site itself has high availability, but also all components that plug into the site. Make sure your payment processor's systems are equally high uptime for both the payment gateway, and the authorizing network. 
In the event of a true disaster, the one item you need to make sure you have is a good back up. A truly good back up includes all your critical business files and records, not just for the website, but your financial, marketing, and operational data as well. Take your back-up files off site, at least weekly, to assure you've got your data safeguarded. 
The worst time to find out that one of your back-up systems isn't working is when your primary system fails. To keep your online store running well, test your back-up systems periodically, and perform required maintenance when things are running well. Trying to fix your back up systems when your primary system is down is a double whammy to your business. 
Investing in redundant and back-up systems for your web-based store is prudent. A business that does only five hundred thousand dollars in business can lose over one hundred dollars per hour when systems are down. If your systems are down 1% of the time, your cost can be over three thousands dollars per year, plus a major disruption to you and your staff's lives. Careful planning, and inexpensive redundant systems can pay for themselves very quickly. Article Source: <a href="http://www.organizingweb.net" target="_blank">OrganizingWeb.net</a> About the Author: Edward Cole's Internet <a href="http://www.partypail.com">baby shower party store</a> has shipped thousands of orders. Edward is writer and manager for at PartyPail.com, and he says that the <a href="http://www.partypail.com/red-wagon-baby-shower.html">Radio Flyer baby shower</a> is one of his favorite shower themes.