Ecommerce businesses define the modern retail industry. With large scale marketplaces and small online stores, this new landscape of retail is shaping the industry in ways that we cannot imagine or expect. Not only buying and selling, but the way e-commerce portals manage and maintain data, analyze consumer behaviours, and use technology, has changed our very understanding of retail. A large contributor to such a paradigm shift can be attributed to cloud computing and cloud-based services. Being online means dealing with huge volumes of data, information, and resources. And none of these can be managed manually. Ecommerce portals need a robust infrastructure that can drive smart processes, are highly efficient, and most importantly, sustainable.
Let’s see how cloud computing has been able to shape this growing industry space.
Data management
Whenever there is a huge volume of data and information to be managed, processed, and stored, it becomes a challenge to maintain the efficiency of the same. Cloud computing makes data management more organized and by streamlining processes. Also, since storage involves least or almost no physical hardware, there is better security of data. Additionally, automation of virtual computing systems cuts down on laborious processes, equipment, and personnel.
Site hosting
One of the most indispensable aspects of an e-commerce business is its need for constant scalability. With time and effective marketing techniques, site traffic continues to grow. To be able to manage this successfully, online retailers can easily opt for cloud-based solutions like cloud hosting. With a cloud hosting service, you can easily manage resource scalability, which is one of the best features of this hosting technology. Its pay-as-you-go model allows you to opt for resources like storage, hardware, etc. as and when you need. So, whenever you have a traffic spike on your site, especially during peak buying times and seasons, you can add more resources to manage the same and keep your site up and running. Also, cloud hosting makes for a more secure hosting environment, which is very important for e-commerce businesses, since they deal in a lot of online payments, customers’ details, bank account details, and so on.
Accessibility
Cloud computing creates one-point management for all information. It centralizes information to be easily disseminated to customers, suppliers, partners, payment vendors, and anyone else involved in the business. Even if each of these parties is geographically located remotely, the cloud infrastructure allows easy accessibility from various locations through a centralized server, thus expediting operations and reducing transmission time.
Data backup and recovery
As we said before, cloud computing ensures better management of data of e-commerce portals. This also means that backing up such data is also process-driven. You could easily integrate an automated process in place and set a backup schedule, so you don’t have to worry about doing it manually and missing any backup session. Cloud storage involves data duplication, which creates copies of all information and even system data and spreads across the network. At any given point in time, if one version is damaged, the required data can easily be recovered from the other sources.
Summing up…
As experts believe, the global e-commerce market could touch $4 trillion by 2021. This means an incredible opportunity for all aspiring retailers to join the growing industry. And with technologies like computing growing at light speed, being a part of such global growth would be inevitable.
