Convenience of online shopping has resulted in its growing popularity. This has given a tremendous boost to development of ecommerce, which can be judged by number of new online shops and ecommerce businesses being launched every day.
Ecommerce and WordPress
Since WordPress is the most frequently used Content Management System across the globe, the trend can also be witnessed in number of ecommerce sites that are powered by it irrespective of their sizes. It is estimated that three out of ten ecommerce sites are built by using WordPress.
The effect of ecommerce is also evident in terms of the global growth of online businesses that is poised to touch a whopping figure of $27 trillion by 2020. Therefore it is essential to understand significant features of WordPress from ecommerce perspective. We will have a brief overview of essential features and needs of ecommerce business and try to understand how WordPress is geared up to match these requirements.
Significance of availability
Easy accessibility and continuous availability are essential highlights of ecommerce stores in comparison with physical shops. One of the most compelling features of online shopping is the round the clock availability of the ecommerce sites. Customers can enjoy 24 hour access to these stores by just reaching out for their smart phones or home PCs with internet connectivity. Online shoppers can shop anytime as per their convenience and to facilitate this feature, ecommerce sites must ensure their uninterrupted availability.
It is for the same reason every single ecommerce business owner attaches significant importance to uninterrupted network uptime and demands the same from web hosts in the form of SLAs. The highest uptime guarantee being provided by majority of established web hosting providers is 99.99 percent that allows total downtime of sixty minutes in a span of 365 days or a year.
Significant impact of downtime is felt particularly during peak traffic hours or during special sales campaign seasons. It is estimated that Amazon had to forego a huge volume of $3.75 millions in terms of lost sales during a downtime in March 2016 that lasted for only twenty minutes. To make things even worse, the downtime did not occur during any special campaign or a holiday season.
Importance of security measures
Everyone understands essence of security while operating a business critical website such as an ecommerce site. It is comforting to know that the core of WordPress CMS is very secure. However this can hardly imply that WordPress sites can enjoy immunity towards malware or multiple ways of hacking attempts including ransomware, DDoS attacks or adware to name a few.
This explains the importance of a multi-faceted approach towards securing ecommerce sites. WordPress powered ecommerce sites must design security policies by considering the following parameters.
It is found that majority of hackers or cyber-bank on loopholes in defenses of the site and they can have a great time if your site’s extensions or add-ons are not updated regularly. Manual way of patching is not advisable due to the time factor although it is a trusted way of securing your extensions.
This underlines need to find a host that is capable of providing managed WordPress hosting and has ability to facilitate automated updates as far as the core of WordPress CMS and plug-ins are concerned.
Monitoring of security measures is equally essential aspect of WordPress hosting in ecommerce environment. One must be able to forecast an impending attack for implementation of defenses at the right time. This must be backed by real-time monitoring and notification of breaches in security systems.
No website is supposed to be seamlessly secured unless proper backup measures are not implemented. Regular and scheduled backups enable rolling back to the most recent version of site in case of any eventuality. Backups guarantee your website’s continuity in spite of any disaster.
Access to developer tools
Developer friendly features including phpMyAdmin, WP-CLI, Git version control, and other abilities of cloning or staging are part of hosting plans offered by reliable and established hosts. Developers are able to access these features that allow instant control for managing the environment of application development.
Testing can be performed without any hassles with help of software applications that enable staging and cloning. These applications also facilitate uninterrupted and expected rollouts. If the developer is going to execute site redesign or new coding elements, then the software for staging and cloning will be of great use.
Assured support
Every aspect of ecommerce hosting is governed by feature of round the clock availability including the technical support facility offered by the host. Technical glitches can hamper site’s online presence and will in turn cause revenue loss and missed customers.
The most sought after and reputed ecommerce hosts provide guarantee of 24×74365 technical assistance. Their support personnel are available round the clock and can be accessed through phone or live chat for instant resolution of technical glitches.