Being part of an online business is exciting and can be fun. Nowadays, more and more consumers are buying almost everything online, from clothes, groceries, home appliances, accessories, electronics, gadgets, and many more. E-commerce also requires server monitoring to keep its performance smooth and serve transactions well. 

For e-commerce site owners, of course, the site is the core of the business. Just like a regular store, sometimes we have to connect with customers all the time. Therefore, e-commerce server performance is also very much needed. Below we will discuss how to optimize the performance and user experience of e-commerce servers.

What is E Commerce?

E commerce stands for electronic commerce, which is the trading of goods and services on the internet, or what we more commonly refer to as online shopping. With the development of the internet, the practice of e-commerce has become more common and almost all companies that have products and services are using this method. 

Some companies only sell products online, while other companies only make e-commerce as one of their channels. This means that they still have a physical store, but also handle online sales. 

Either way, e-commerce allows startups, small companies, and even global companies to sell their products through the internet. Sales can reach customers all over the world. 

Reasons E-commerce Websites Should Be Monitored

Companies may invest a lot of time and capital to create an e-commerce website, in order to get a modern design, user-friendly interface, and attractive. With the increasing competition online, monitoring e-commerce websites has become very important. 

Imagine if we as customers enter a website that does not provide services as expected. For example, long loading time, long response time, and various other problems. The possibility of us being on that site may be very low. In addition, the reasons why e-commerce websites need monitors are as follows:

1. Continuous Uptime Monitoring

Uptime is the uptime of a site. Visitors access the site from their mobile phones, laptops, or PCs, from different geographical locations. Uptime monitoring is necessary to ensure that the site is up all the time. 

A good monitoring solution for uptime is done from various geographical locations. The benefit of continuous monitoring is that downtime can be detected early and solutions can be found sooner. 

2. Checking the Website Features are Functioning Properly

The main purpose of an e-commerce site is to provide an online service where visitors can buy products and services without any interruption. Site visitors can browse products, select them, and put them in the shopping cart, and then pay for them. 

The slightest error in this process will be very annoying to visitors. E-commerce site monitoring is necessary to ensure that all functions on the e-commerce site are working properly. Web monitoring services will detect problems at an early stage and alert the site. That way, we can find a solution quickly so that visitors don’t experience further problems. 

3. Check Site Performance and Speed

Studies show that most consumers decide to buy something within 250 milliseconds. In that short time, they will decide to continue shopping or leave the site and move to another site. Every e-commerce site expects visitors to respond quickly. 

Landing pages are tasked with making a good first impression for visitors and usually have poor loading times. It is proven that sites with longer loading time on the landing page, visitors will quickly decide to leave the site. Landing page can be a homepage, product category page, promotion page, or best seller product page.

4. Tracking Server Performance

With e-commerce server monitoring, it is possible to predict some problems and failures that may occur. Many monitoring services also provide info to prevent problems from occurring. A reliable monitoring system will alert you if the site’s workload has exceeded its capacity. 

5. Increase Sales Rate and Customer Satisfaction

E-commerce server monitoring is not optional, it’s mandatory. Its function is not only useful for e-commerce companies, but also customers. A smooth e-commerce site will provide good service and customer satisfaction will increase. Meanwhile, from the company’s side, sales figures are likely to increase if customers are satisfied with the appearance and good service.

How to Optimize an E-commerce Website 

Without a doubt, monitoring an e-commerce website is an investment that must be made if you want this venture to succeed. Here are some ways to optimize an e-commerce website that need to be done:

1. Enable Availability Alerts

As mentioned earlier, e-commerce needs to be available anytime, 24 hours a day. We don’t want to get protests of an error site from customers, because they have trouble buying something. It would be better if we enable alerts related to availability. 

By enabling it, if the loading time of the site page is slow, or there is a problem with a third-party API, and whatever the issue is that causes the shopping process to be slow, there will be an alert sent. From here, it will be easier for us to anticipate and resolve issues before they become severe.

2. Track Uptime with Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Set uptime to be the basis of our e-commerce site using SLAs. This method will monitor and supervise the entire uptime, from daily, weekly, to monthly. That way, we can monitor that the site is always running smoothly at all times. 

People shop online at different times. Some like to shop in the morning and afternoon. But there are also those who shop in the middle of the night. Therefore, uptime should be of high value, if possible no downtime at all. 

3. Enable Fault Warning

Similar to availability, faulty functions also need to have warnings enabled. This way, if a function goes down, we’ll get a warning first because it’s been detected early on. The problem can then be addressed before it gets worse. 

4. Check Page Load Time

E-commerce site speed should be monitored regularly, as this function is essential. Visitors will stay on the site and shop with a short page load time. But if it takes a long time, then visitors will most likely leave the site. 

Make sure there is no problem with your e-commerce server. Improve customer service and satisfaction using services from Netmonk. As a trusted network monitoring service in Indonesia, Netmonk provides a 14-day trial to find out its features and services. Come on, prove it now! 

Reference:

https://www.alertra.com/articles/why-you-need-monitor-uptime-your-e-commerce- website