I want my eShop!But what is this “hosting” thing?
Ecommerce Usage (World)
Ecommerce Usage (Greece)
What are the WooCommerce pains
• You just added WooCommerce plugin to your WordPress and now is slow.
• Don’t worry. This is a very common problem and is due to the way WordPress manages all eCommerce functions
• Google says that a 100-400ms slower site reflects to User Experience (UX) so on sales as well
SQL Options• A dedicated cluster: the most expensive but by design
the more availability (in theory 99.999% uptime)
• A mysql replica: not so expensive, but less uptime (about 99.9%)
• A single mysql: the cheapest, but worst uptime (95-99%)
• NOTE: The uptime numbers are related to the mysql service aliveness/availability, issues like disks are full, potential corruptions or others can affect any of three solutions and make availability to go down
Type of Hosting is important
• The problem is that product pages are coming directly from the DB(classic MySQL server speed bottleneck)
• So hosting a WooCommerce on different infrastructure is seriously impacting your eShop
Scale is not about SKUs or revenue
• When working on sites that need to support high volumes of traffic, like on a Cyber Monday, SKU count won’t help you
• Also revenue is not a metric because also incomplete sales also have a performance cost that needs to be considered
The metric of scale
• The most effective way to measure how well a WooCommerce store will scale is to use “Add to Cart” events or ATCPM
• 200 ATCPM for about $100k / month revenue
• 2.000 ATCPM for about $1MM / month revenue
To host/scale you need expertise in
• Payments gateways
• PCI compliance
• Network redundancy
• Hardware for a failover
• MultiDC deployments
• CDNs
• Load Balancers
• Varnish/Redis cache
Types of hosting
1. Are you a geek dev? Try it locally with Docker!
• How: Download Docker Toolbox and choose your image
• Cost: Free (Yes! but not for public sites)
• Pros: Quick at your laptop
• Cons: You have to be a dev
2. Do you have time and need a solution at the cost of a coffee?
• How: Using a Shared Hosting solution
• Cost: Usually starts around 3-10 euro / month
• Pros: The cheapest way to get online
• Cons: You need time to install WordPress and WooCommerce. You manage everything. Based on shared resources (not suggested for eShops with traffic)
2. Do you have time and need a solution at the cost of a coffee?
2. Do you have time and need a solution at the cost of a coffee?
2. Do you have time and need a solution at the cost of a coffee?
3. Do you care about your time and you have a bigger eShop?• How: Using a managed Wordpress Solution
(suggested for agencies and devs)
• Cost: Usually starts around 15 - 25 euro / month
• Pros: Multiple installs, Managed updates, backups, security and performance (CDN, caching / database optimisation / PHP workers etc)
• Cons: You still need to add and configure WooCommerce via the Wizard
4. Your eShop is making money. You don’t want to spend time on infrastructure?
• How: Using a managed WooCommerce Solution
• Cost: Usually starts around 25 - 100 euro / month
• Pros: Optimised WooCommerce, 1-click demo content, marketing and payment gateways ready, shipment tools ready, SSL, CDN, Caching
• Cons: High price
DIY
DIY
DIY
Before you choose a hosting solution please
• Understand that eShop hosting is different than common hosting
• Your customer makes MONEY (don’t go cheap on him)
• Your customer PAYS MONEY to vendors like Skroutz, AdWords, Facebook
• Your customer PAYS MONEY to affiliates
Do your homework
• Understand your (or your customer’s) needs
• Understand WooCommerce and it’s pains
• Do proactive load testing
• Plan for a failure with your hoster (warm backups, cold deployments, hot infra)
Identify quick Enterprise Customers
• High quantity of data (or products) - independently on traffic
• High quantity of traffic - independently on quantity of data (or products)
Make your Hoster be your Partner not a
Vendor!
–Frank
Thanks
