eCommerce Tips & Storebuilder News

Improve Your Website Speed During a Black Friday Traffic Spike

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 00:09:39 Z

For web retailers Black Friday is a significant event. But can your website handle the extra load for a Black Friday spike in traffic?

StoreBuilder obsesses about website speed! We've invested a great many hours into optimizing our platform performance to deliver industry leading response times through the most demanding spikes in traffic.

The thumbnail on this blog post shows how average page load time actually got faster under load, going from an average 2.0 second page load time down to an average 1.75 second page load time when page views went up from an average of 10k pageviews per day to over 18k pageviews on Black Friday.

(P.S. This is WITHOUT a CDN or any kind of web application firewall/accelerator! And includes mobile traffic in addition to desktop.)

Why StoreBuilder Speeds Up Under Load

WARNING: this part gets a little technical and is intended for software developers to understand what we are doing. You can safely skip to the next section if you don't care how this works!

StoreBuilder caches frequently used data in order to reduce unnecessary trips to the database. Data such as the lists of Countries & Regions (States/Provinces/Territories), Locales, Currencies and Units of Measure don't typically change throughout the day and can be cached in memory for faster access. Under higher load the webserver will maintain a primed cache for all cacheable resources resulting in a higher cache hit ratio under load.
StoreBuilder uses optimized SQL Stored Procedures to retrieve complex object graphs from the database in a single round trip. Instead of making numerous calls to SQL Server to fetch a bunch of related data, we can load all related product data, an entire customer cart or all the data needed for a checkout in just 1 SQL request. We then return the data graph as XML to be efficiently parsed into data layer objects for use in the StoreBuilder front end. Beyond the obvious benefits of reducing round trips to the database, parameterized stored procedures can increase query plan caching in SQL Server. Query plan caching is an important part of enabling SQL Server to scale under load.
StoreBuilder has a quality code base that has been tuned to handle concurrency. You will not find any contention between multiple threads (or multiple browser requests) for the same page or resource in StoreBuilder code which means our code executes consistently even as request concurrency rises.

What to do if your website crashed under load on Black Friday

There are a lot of band-aid solutions out there for less than optimal website architecture. If you absolutely must, a service like Cloud Flare may help you handle more traffic no matter what platform you are on.

However, these CDN or web application firewall type services really only improve the read only aspects of your site. They won't magically make your add-to-cart faster or checkout completion faster.

If you want your site to deliver consistent fast processing for both read only operations and purchase type actions, then you need to be using an enterprise class eCommerce platform like StoreBuilder.

Wait a second... you didn't show us any stats for Add-to-Cart speed!

Good observation astute reader! The graph in google analytics for average page load speed is measuring how long it takes for a page on your site to load in customers' browsers - this is a "read speed" measurement. So this graph may improve with content caching solutions like Cloud Flare. But what this graph doesn't measure is user frustration on your website due to slow add-to-cart, slow shipping quotes or a slow checkout.

StoreBuilder measures these user interactions with google analytics user timings.

Many of our competitors won't even be tracking user interactions like this. If you want to check, we can help you get an idea of your current add-to-cart speed by opening your favorite browsers developer tools while testing your current website and checking how long the add-to-cart request takes to process. On other platforms, we've seen day-to-day averages of 1-3 seconds or more and Black Friday spikes of 15-30 seconds or more!

Note how StoreBuilder's add to cart speed is rather consistent over time. On this customer site the average add-to-cart speed is 0.6 seconds with an average of about 110 add-to-carts a day. On Black Friday their add-to-cart volume spiked up to 319 cart additions while the average add-to-cart request was fulfilled in in 0.51 seconds!

It is important to consider your platform's user interaction speed as well as the read only browsing speed for your site. This is a an important factor to consider when comparing ecommerce platforms as the read speed is easier to optimize than the "write speed" where the user is actively changing something in their cart or order. If you are shopping for an eCommerce platform, always ask to see some analytics from a live "production" business website in their portfolio (not just stats from a "test website" - all platforms will perform better in a "laboratory setting" than they will in production use).

10 Photography Tips to Grow Your Online Store

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 22:04:10 Z

Photography is one of the most important investments you can make in your online store. The time and cost involved in creating photos that appeal to your audience is key to your sales. Whether you are doing it yourself, or hiring a professional, here are 10 tips that will help you create the perfect images.

1. Use a white background
Using a plain background ensures that your product takes centre stage. Don’t let things like carpeting, desks, or people distract from the photo. The safest and most professional backdrop is plain white. You can easily set this up at home using large sheets of white cardboard. Or, if your product is larger, try to find a white wall—just makes sure other objects aren’t viewable, the only thing in the photo should be the thing you are selling.

2. Find a brightly lit area
A dark or poorly lit photo is not only hard for customers to see, but it suggests that you might be hiding something. Make it easy for someone to trust you, by setting up your photos in a brightly lit area. Be cautious of areas that have florescent lighting, as it can cast a green hue on your photos.

3. Take multiple angles
Buyers don’t have the luxury of picking up an item and looking at it in person, so to make them feel safe about their decision, ensure that you show them multiple angles of the product. The more angles you can take, the more certain a buyer will be about completing the purchase.

4. Keep things in focus
If your photos are blurry, it shows that you don’t care about being professional. Show your best shots only, and choose the ones that are clear and in focus.

5. Show details
Another hinderance in a customer purchasing online is that they can’t see enough detail to make them decide. If your product has zippers or pockets, take close up photos of those. Are there details that are important parts of your product? Use a close up lens to capture those aspects.

6. Be honest
It’s important that a customer trusts an online shop. Don’t use photos from someone else’s store, or from an online search. Take your own photos and prove that you are a trusted and honest supplier who isn’t misrepresenting the products in any way.

7. Make sure your product is perfect
When choosing your products to photograph, always choose the best one. Ensure there are no cracks, scratches or dents. Or if it’s a fabric item, ensure it is well ironed and smooth, not wrinkled.

Also, while you are placing the item, make sure to wipe it off so there are no fingerprints or dust in your photo.

8. Avoid flash
When using your camera, make sure your flash is turned off. A flash can create numerous problems, such as bright spots on shiny items, or overexposure on some areas of your product. The best advice for lighting is to find a bright, natural light source—for example, in front of a large window during the day.

9. Use large images
Another red flag for online shoppers is small images that don’t enlarge. When putting your photos on your site, ensure that you are using large enough images that can be enlarged if needed. A .jpg format works best, just make sure that you keep your images under 1 megabyte so that they don’t take too long to load.

10. Don’t cut off edge
When taking your photos, make sure the whole thing shows in the shot. If you only show one piece of the item, or cut off sections, the buyer will wonder if you are hiding something. Always make sure that your photos fully show all aspects of your products.

Happy shooting!

5 things to do before starting an online store

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 22:10:13 Z

An online store is no different than any other business. It requires products, a carefully thought out business plan, financial support and a staff to help with operations. Once you have all those things in place, you can start to think about how to create the store itself. Here are five things you will need to know in order to get your store up and running.

1. Choose your system carefully
The online shopping system you choose will be critical to your success. A store that takes too long to load, doesn’t offer enough flexibility, or is difficult to use, will hinder your business, and in some cases may be enough to make you throw your hands up in defeat. The ideal eCommerce solution will be able to offer you flexible solutions, and be able to handle fast filtering, navigation and searching, which can drastically improve a customers’ experience. Not only that, but adding and managing products should be easy to do, and have the flexibility to expand as your store grows. One of the best eCommerce enterprise solutions available is Storebuilder.

2. Find unique products
Finding unique products that appeal to a wide range of customers is one of the best ways to become successful online. Look for products that are not already sold by other online retailers, or, find products that allow you to set up exclusive distribution rights with the manufacturers. Another way to be unique is to be first. Look for niche markets and products that may not yet be available online.

3. A store is not enough
Just like retailers who have physical storefronts, setting up an online store and waiting for traffic is not enough. You must drive traffic to your location, no different than a retail shop in the mall. In order to build awareness and get people to visit your store you must use multiple avenues to get the word out. Advertising, social media, referrals and PR through professional bloggers are all crucial to increasing traffic. Using search engine optimization to increase your search rankings, and building email lists are also important tools. Research and prepare your marketing plan to ensure your success.

4. Don’t forget the logistics
Sometimes, the devil is in the details. You have been so busy obtaining products and setting up your online store, that you forget about some things that are truly crucial to your success. These include things like figuring out what payment methods you will accept and setting up payment gateways, finding reliable shipping providers and working out rates, and, coming up with a plan for who will fulfill the order. Will it to be you, or do you need someone to pack and ship the order, and send shipment confirmations? Make sure you examine every aspect of your business, from the initial idea, right through to final delivery of product and customer satisfaction.

5. Branding is key
An online store may have great products, but what if a customer doesn’t trust the brand? If your site looks old, dated and unprofessional, you may be losing customers before they even start shopping. A modern, well designed site is key to building your brand, and should be considered before you even start building your shopping cart. Having a professional looking site instills trust and actually helps in keeping and attracting buyers. Don’t let all your PR and advertising tactics go to waste, get your site professionally designed to ensure customers will click through to see more once they get there—whether they are on their computer, tablet or mobile phone.