Whether it’s a physical business or an e-commerce platform, scalability is crucial. After all, scalability ensures that your business can handle increased customers, and cater to orders and requests effectively. However, scalable e-commerce is a completely different ball game. 

In the case of e-commerce, you’re not buying an additional physical outlet. Rather, you need to ensure that your e-commerce store can handle increased online customers, and provide the same level of user experience that it did with fewer customers. 

For example, one aspect when it comes to e-commerce scalability pertains to page loading time. A 2017 Google research showed that if the page loading time increased from 1 second to 3 seconds, the bounce rate would hit 32%.

 Source: Think with Google

This applies to e-commerce websites as well. You want users to stick to your website, rather than to leave it. Right? 

But, that’s just one aspect. Today, we’ll focus on everything necessary to ensure scalable e-commerce. 

Now, Let’s look at how you can ensure a scalable e-commerce platform.

What Ensures a Scalable ECommerce Platform? 

When you’re looking for a scalable ecommerce platform, here’s a checklist of things that you need to keep in mind. 

1. Reliable performance.
2. Peak traffic. 
3. Load balancing. 
4. Lazy loading. 
5. Uptime.
6. Multiple stores and brands.

Now, let’s look at each one of these separately. 

1. Reliable performance

If your platform is scalable, that doesn’t mean that it’s reliable as well. A reliable system won’t break or cease to work in case of increased traffic/orders. 

2. Peak traffic

For an e-commerce platform to function correctly, it must handle peak traffic. To ensure that your platform can handle peak traffic in the right manner, choose the right hardware and software. You can opt for content delivery networks instead of burdening your servers with content such as images and Javascript files. For hardware, you can use a high-powered CPU and additional storage drives such as hard disk drives. 

3. Load balancing

You can use both hardware and software load balancers to evenly distribute the traffic across your servers. Noteworthy devices and software include: 

1. Microsoft Azure Traffic Manager.

2. NGINX Plus from F5.

3. Amazon Lightsail.

4. Lazy loading

Adding lazy loading to your scalable ecommerce platform is a great way to lower the pressure on your servers. In lazy loading, you ensure that some parts of the e-commerce page only load when they are needed. You can do this in various ways.  Either you can use the CSS loading attribute, or you can use Javascript, in case you have an older browser version. Moreover, some content management systems such as WordPress are built-in with the lazy loading functionality. 

5. Uptime

For scalable e-commerce, ensure that your website has a 24/7 uptime. To do this, you need to take hold of a reliable hosting service provider. Some reliable service providers are Hostinger and Bluehost. 

6. Multiple stores and brands 

Scalable e-commerce essentially means breaking your brand into further branches. So, start providing more goods and services under your banner. 

Next. we’ll look at the step-by-step process to ensure that you can achieve a scalable e-commerce platform. 

Steps to Achieve a Scalable E-Commerce Platform

The following are the steps needed to create a scalable e-commerce platform: 

1. Mapping out your proposition.

2. Finding a scalable e-commerce platform.

3. Investing in marketing.

4. Organizing operations and logistics.

5. Building customer loyalty.

6. Focusing on quality.

Now, let’s explain these in detail. 

1. Mapping out your proposition

Before you dive into building an e-commerce website, you need to put time into and understand what it is that you are looking to sell. So, before taking any practical steps, conduct some market research on your end. Identify what it is that you look to sell, and how will it help your customers. Moreover, try and understand what uniqueness your product offers. This will help you map out your entire proposition. 

2. Finding a scalable e-commerce platform

Once you have decided on your proposition, it’s time to look for a scalable e-commerce platform. Yes, there are various e-commerce platforms available including Android app development, but you need to choose one that can withstand the aftershocks of expanding your online business. You can choose from Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento. 

3. Investing in marketing

Now that you have decided on the product you’re willing to sell, and have also chosen a scalable e-commerce platform, you need to invest in marketing to ensure that your product reaches the right customers. Since you’re selling your goods and services digitally, the best way would be to either run social media ad campaigns, or pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Moreover, you can also run an affiliate marketing program by either partnering with an app or a website. 

4. Organizing operations and logistics

Operations and logistics stand at the heart of scalable e-commerce. Once you start receiving a large number of orders, you’ll have to ship them out to your customers as well. This will require you to have robust operations and logistics for your business. To help you with this, you can use inventory/logistics management software. One great example of logistics management software is the Oracle NetSuite. 

5. Building customer loyalty

Once you have everything organized, the next step toward scalable e-commerce is to work on building customer loyalty. Doing this is extremely important. One way to do this is by building a customer loyalty app. 

Statistics show that companies with strong loyalty programs have 25% higher rates of customer retention.

6. Focusing on quality

Everything aside, focusing on quality is most important to ensure the survival of a scalable e-commerce business. When delivering quality, make sure to maintain consistency and always deliver the right products to your customers. Moreover, quickly respond to customer returns for defective products by providing them with a replacement or a refund. This ensures that customers are delighted with your products. 

Keep in mind this six-step process for setting up a scalable e-commerce business. 

Now, to help you understand the concept further, we’ll look at some of the successful scalable e-commerce examples. 

Examples of Successful E-Commerce Business Scalability

Throughout the blog, we have understood what e-commerce scalability is, and how it can be achieved. Now, let’s understand the concept further with the help of some examples of successful e-commerce businesses. The businesses that we’ll evaluate include: 

1. Amazon.

2. Alibaba.

3. Warby Parker.

1. Amazon

Amazon tops the list as one of the best examples of e-commerce scalability, with a net sales revenue of 575 billion dollars in 2023. Amazon started as an online bookstore but has now expanded itself beyond, immersing itself entirely into the retail sector. 

2. Alibaba

On June 28th, 1999, Jack Ma along with 17 other friends, founded Alibaba.com, which was a B2B marketplace site, based in his apartment in China. Alibaba’s scalability can be primarily attributed to its use of AI/ML-based technologies to enhance the customer experience by providing them with recommendations tailored to their needs. 

3. Warby Parker

Warby Parker is a comparatively recent example of scalable e-commerce. The company started in 2010, and thanks to its impressive designs and economical prices, now has many physical outlets as well. 

Now, let’s recap what we learned throughout the blog. 

Wrapping Up

Scalable e-commerce platforms can handle increased traffic and maintain a good user experience. Important factors for a scalable platform include reliable performance, the ability to handle peak traffic, load balancing, lazy loading, uptime, and the ability to manage multiple stores and brands.

If you’re looking to dive into the world of e-commerce, contact Krystosoft. Our experts will provide you with the guidance you need to build a scalable e-commerce platform.