IT for Online Retail
Retail is one of the sectors we started out in, mainly because of our specialisation in Application Delivery Controllers, devices which are a critical component of any successful online retail operation. It is a well-known fact that that every second added to a page load exponentially reduces the likelihood of a sale so the seconds are genuinely counting against you.
ADC's we have learnt are far more than simply deploying a product, it’s really about getting deep inside the customer’s business and understanding their ‘traffic profile’ – where their traffic comes, how social media and related events can dramatically affect trade.
For our own managed service retail customers, we go as far as monitoring social media channels and keeping an eye on related events – for example for a Boxing online retail client, we would be noting dates and times of prominent fights and would ensure to monitor systems carefully before, during and after to ensure traffic was managed smoothly. That’s all part of our APP HOST package.
Security and connectivity with linked / dependant external sites is a big factor with online retail which if not carefully managed and monitored, can have quite a negative effect on site performance, so excellent Firewalling & Monitoring are also particularly important to ensure businesses in this sector is running 24/7 in order to maximise takings and build customer loyalty.
But Don't Just Take Our Word For It.....
ACC APP:Host provides our XCART eCommerce site with knockout performance!
We came to ACC in 2011 after our relationship with a previous hosting outfit (a big one!) broke down. Our shopping cart application – essential to run our business - had ground to a halt, suffering from ‘mysterious slowdowns’ and occasional complete blackouts. The only remedy the hosting company would ever suggest was restarting servers, or adding more resources (and cost) to them – they would tell us the servers were fine, the problem was with our shopping cart software.
Our design agency recommended ACC and told us of their reputation for ‘taking full ownership’ of application hosting. No one ever likes to move hosting provider, but after a particularly bad month in which poor website performance directly correlated with record low takings, we decided to move our entire online retail operation to ACC with their APPHost XCart solution.
The transformation in service was immediate, and true to their word they ‘owned’ all our major problems and solved them, one by one. ACC fixed one serious performance problem that had been lurking, and hurting us for years. They also took over the relationship with our shopping cart vendors developers, in co-ordinating security patches, general upgrades and the occasion support issue.
Using ACC for hosting means we can focus on running our online business and forget all the technical aspects of it.
We recently had major problems with our email provider, and decided to move this to ACCs new APPHost: MDeamon email solution. Naturally, our email problems are history, and the new email system is a major improvement on the old one.
About SugarRays
Sugar Ray's is the UK's leading boxing store, that supplies a large range of boxing and fitness equipment nationwide at great prices. We sell the best boxing equipment from all over the world from the biggest boxing brands.