A recent report from Reuters.com outlines how Google is preparing for a very different 2020 holiday shopping season. Google’s Cloud technology unit is bracing and gearing up for a 4th quarter surge beginning on Black Friday, as consumers are expected to do the vast majority of their shopping online due to COVID concerns.
Google Cloud, utilized for hosting websites and storing company data, plays an essential role in many retailers’ e-commerce operations. The increase in servers needed to handle the load is no longer linear, according to experts. Carrie Tharp, VP at Google Cloud, says “we’re planning for peak on top of peak.” And as this specific technology unit makes more money as site traffic increases, it is expected to see record revenues as well, in a sector which already collects 30% of its revenue in the 4th quarter.
According to the Reuters story, mega retailers like Kohls are already known to put pressure on Google Cloud to prepare months in advance for the heavy shopping season in November and December. But with the recent lockdown orders and giants like Walmart and Target limiting store hours, retailers have seen online “Black Friday” type sales surging through the spring and summer. This perfect storm of circumstances makes the expectation of an unprecedented 4th quarter a reasonable one.
What Online Sellers Should Do
If you have an online retail business – or a brick and mortar business which is currently suffering – you should be aware that this season could represent an opportunity unlike any other in recent years. Although no one is happy about the COVID-19 situation, businesses of all types should be looking at ways to innovate and adapt to take advantage of the coming flood of online shopping.
- Look for ways to convert your offerings: If your primary services have been delivered in person, is there a way to innovate and provide them online? The most obvious and possibly quickest way to accomplish this is to set up an online store. Companies may need to learn to package and ship, but once you do so you can deliver your product instead of relying on brick and mortar locations. You can also repurpose showroom floor employees into a warehouse to pack and ship, preserving jobs. There may be other ways to revamp your services, such as using the “telehealth” model, utilizing Zoom or Skype to provide consultations with your clients. If you are an interior designer, for instance, you can share a screen with a client and utilize software to showcase product ideas and design inspiration.
- Make sure your servers are up to speed: If you are housing and maintaining your own servers, you may wish to upgrade or augment your capability now. The downside to this, of course, is not knowing exactly what you will need, making it possible that you could still be overloaded, without enough processing power (or blow your budget buying too much.) you may also wish to move your processing power to the cloud, which is more readily expandable and scalable.
- Consider managed services: The managed IT services model actually lends itself beautifully to the capacity challenges which retailers will face this year. An MSP can set you up with server capability which is rapidly scalable, allowing you to share the cost of the additional hardware with other clients via server virtualization. Also, should a surge in orders cause the server(s) to become overloaded, you have a team of experts watching 24×7 to make sure that your site does not go down during this critical retail opportunity.
Now is the time to contact Alliance IT regarding how to handle the increased online orders many companies can expect this year. We can recommend strategies and services to take the technical burden off you, and allow you instead to focus on the orders which need fulfilment. If you are small to medium sized business in Sarasota or Manatee County, call us today for more information.
