Unfortunately, nothing about business is predictable. Business operations would be a lot simpler if they were! Something you can never accurately plan for is your site’s traffic. It will always fluctuate and you’re unlikely to ever experience a constant level of demand. 

Imagine you’re launching a new product. Your marketing has created a buzz around the release and on launch day you receive double the anticipated traffic. But you currently pay for a set capacity and your site ends up struggling to keep up with the day’s rush. Customers experience longer load times and the website crashes. You end up with a lot of unhappy customers and the entire launch ends on a bitter note. 

No one wants this scenario to happen to their business. But, on the other hand, you don’t want to pay for a larger capacity on the off chance you experience a busy spell. You’ll end up wasting lots of money on capacity you rarely use – if ever.

This is where autoscale hosting comes in.

What is autoscale hosting?

Autoscale hosting adjusts your site’s capacity to keep up with current operation. If you experience a sudden rush in traffic, your site’s capacity will increase to keep up. It requires no intervention from your team and ensures you’re always able to match demand.

Without autoscaling (dedicated hosting), when you reach full capacity, your site slows down as it can’t handle the traffic. It’s then your responsibility to increase your capacity and pay a higher price accordingly. But then you’re left paying this higher price until you choose to lower capacity again.

Autoscaling works by adding web servers to your site’s infrastructure as and when you need it. This means capacity is automatically adjusted based on the current traffic demand-. So when things quieten down again, your site’s capacity will go back down to make sure you’re never paying for more than you use.

Benefits of autoscale hosting

Autoscale hosting is automatic and offers you 100% uptime all the time. It gives you complete peace of mind that your site will always perform under pressure. 

It will reduce a lot of worry and stress as your site keeps up without any intervention from you or your team. There’s no need to agonise over forecasting slumps or busy spells. You’re always ready.

It can also save you a lot of money. If you’re underprepared, you miss out on sales and could get a bad reputation with customers. 61% of online shoppers would abandon checkout because of website errors. And if you’re overprepared, you end up spending money on capacity you barely use. Either way, you’re the one who’s missing out. Autoscale hosting ensures you’re only ever paying for what you’ve actually used.

Autoscaling helps your site consistently perform at the optimum level. You’ll always be able to offer an efficient user experience, no matter the time of day. By offering a competitive customer experience, you’ll be able to establish a good reputation for the business. This will lead to new customers and continual business growth. And as you grow, your capacity automatically will too.

At Shopit we use quick and secure Google Cloud hosting. Bringing autoscaling into your operation will provide a competitive user experience and gives you the confidence that your site can always keep up with demand. You can focus on growing even bigger. Find out more here.

Sam Gilhouse
Sam Gilhouse

Sam is an ecommerce enthusiast with a background in digital marketing, web design and many other talents

Sam takes a keen interest in customer problems so he can help develop solutions to help everyone move forward