One can take note of the fact that the global e-commerce segment is indeed exploding. In this year i.e. 2017, the market size is marked to cross the $2.2 trillion estimate, and this will double in 2020. The retail giants such as Amazon, Flipkart, and Alibaba do account for a large portion of that number, nearly 63 percent of such revenues are being driven by the mid-market globally, and smaller businesses with niche products and are brand loyal customers.

How is the market set up for startups?

The market is indeed rather attractive for startups, and it appears perhaps e-commerce businessmen can take advantage of it. What is required?
• One has to find the right audience while trying to build up business.
• Also devising unique marketing campaigns.
• SEO.
• Social media impact.
• Branding.
• Advertising.
• Inventory management and many more.

Perhaps, the most important issue on hand is to make sure one’s online storefront does deliver an incredible customer experience. Research indicates that 79 percent of the customers who are disappointed with an online shopping experience are in fact less likely to return, and that could indeed be quite disastrous for a new business. The performance of one’s online storefront does play a major role in this experience.

Why website business crashes?

Do we tend to wonder as to why one hears about websites crashing when too many people try to get in? So many stories have come into focus such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday events in the US, where big brands such as Old Navy, Macy’s and Walmart, all experienced the availability issues on account of increase in traffic, although these businesses are rather mature. Even the budget and qualified teams to support their systems.

Why does this happen?

  • A large part of the problem involves a dated infrastructure strategy. Many companies are still making use of traditional dedicated server hosting as well as networking solutions for the scale, security, and management of their respective websites as well as web applications.
  • Not considering the usage of the cloud for its infinite capacity and of course for its utility consumption model.
  • Lack of expertise in bringing all the disparate pieces of the solution together.

How does it impact a startup?

  • Startups do have the opportunity to learn from such mistakes and do pursue a different path as far as the underlying infrastructure of their online storefronts.
  • Traditional, on-premise server deployments are quite expensive and time-consuming and one does face challenges to manage them.
  • In case the critical functions end up getting deployed as a Software as a Service (SaaS)-based utility in the public cloud, everything does change.
  • The deployment, in fact, does become a service and is indeed managed by a software vendor rather than the company which is reliant on its respective features.
  • Eliminating the need to constantly buy and upgrade capacity.
  • Scaling out in case there is an increase in traffic which is automated, instant and cost-effective, versus installing more physical servers.