Every online merchant strives for consistent and sustainable growth. But are you prepared to manage unpredictable spikes in demand for your product or service? You can, if you work on the scalability of your SuiteCommerce store.
But what is scalability in eCommerce?
In short, scalability for an eCommerce website refers to its ability to:
- manage growth in traffic,
- handle the increase of incoming orders, and
- support order management and fulfillment.
In addition, it also means having a platform that not only helps you achieve this but also pushes for the growth of each one of these points.
…and, why is it so important?
It’s essential to build your business preparing to accommodate its healthy growth. However, in today’s high-technology marketplace, it’s becoming increasingly important to talk about instant scalability because consumer behavior can change a lot very fast.
Sudden surges in traffic or orders can happen at any time. Maybe you hit it out of the park with a successful ads campaign, or your brand went viral. Or perhaps your product became of first necessity overnight (as is the case with many items during the COVID-19 Pandemic).
Speed and Flexibility: the key to scalability
The reality is that you cannot control the volume of traffic you will receive at any given time. So your eCommerce platform must be designed with speed and flexibility for growth in mind:
Speed
You must offer a consistently fast and responsive online experience to shoppers. If your website suddenly takes a lot more than usual to load because of higher traffic, the probability that people will click away from it increases by 123%. And once customers leave in frustration, it’s improbable that they will return.
Flexibility
You must adjust to how customers want to interact with you without limiting their order fulfillment abilities. Considering 30% of eCommerce sales are now made via mobile, you must simplify processes as much as you can for those users. Improved web performance leads to more pages viewed, broader navigation, and, most importantly, increased cart conversions and revenue.
So, what can I do?
If your online store is running on SuiteCommerce, there’s plenty you can do! Before you begin, we suggest you perform an SCA performance audit, though, as it will help you identify the areas on which you’ll need to focus the most.
Following that, in terms of overall messaging strategy, your business needs to adapt and react to the market quickly. Luckily, SuiteCommerce has an integrated drag-and-drop Content Management System. This means you can instantly update catalog, promotions, and site-wide informational content yourself, without the need of a developer. Also, SuiteCommerce has Single-Page Application architecture, so you’re offering an enhanced user experience from the get-go.
SuiteCommerce and SuiteCommerce Advanced have many built-in features that streamline the ordering process, enabling the fast handling of requests. Easy Reorder is one of them, making it much easier for repeat shoppers to access their purchasing history and reorder with one click of a button.
Likewise, Corporate Account Management helps shoppers see from My Account, transaction history, quotes, credit limits, or make online payments.
Meanwhile, On The Go allows shoppers and your mobile sales force to access the product catalog and order from any mobile device. Finally, there’s Smart Upselling, which, based on the user session and transaction history, presents relevant product offers, e.g., Customers who bought X also bought Y or Recently Viewed Items.
Additional resources
Once your eCommerce is set up to run smoothly with all the built-in SuiteCommerce features, you can still go the extra mile and implement additional solutions to make the shopping experience truly unique for users.
There are countless resources developed for SuiteCommerce and SuiteCommerce Advanced to make the buyer journey even smoother. For example:
- Machine learning or artificial intelligence integrations (like 4-Tell),
- Services that simplify your shipping operations (like Pacejet), and
- Innovative solutions that streamline the checkout and paying process (like Apple Pay or Affirm).
The options are, without a doubt, endless.
In conclusion
As your marketing strategy begins to bear fruit, you meet new challenges as customer demand increases. The question is, will you be able to survive that influx and sustain that new growth over the long term?
Please consult with our team of professionals to learn how to implement scalable strategies. Our mission is to help you optimize and customize your SuiteCommerce business. Schedule your free consultation here.
