Cloud Computing in E-Commerce: A Passing Trend or The New Normal

A major shopping trend has surfaced over the last few months – Retail sales has taken a backseat, while the eCommerce is seeing upticks. While retail sales in the US is likely to decline by 10.5 percent this year, eCommerce seems to brave the storm with a projected growth of 18 percent in 2020. This year, eCommerce also saw a 12.2 percent growth in terms of first-time shoppers!

eCommerce Giants: Leveraging Cloud Computing to the Fullest

If we look at some of the recent advancements in the cloud computing world, the idea of ‘Intelligent Cloud’ deserves a special mention. The fusion of cloud computing and artificial intelligence is helping eCommerce businesses drive faster innovation.

AI and cloud computing together have ensured higher access to improved (Machine Learning) algorithms for analyzing customer interaction across different touchpoints.

eCommerce companies can now have a 360-degree view of their customers in terms of behavioral analysis. The AI-centric vision further helps eCommerce businesses to adopt customer-centric approaches.

Let’s delve deep into the significance of cloud computing and AI amalgamation in eCommerce.

• Cloud Scalability to Support Shifting Market Scenario

Cloud computing in eCommerce helps businesses power up their IT infrastructure in a way that nothing falls through the cracks when there are seasonal spikes in the traffic. 

“To be one of the best e-commerce destinations in the US, we will have to handle millions of customers, placing tens of thousands of orders a day. That requires a top-class e-commerce system built on a flexible, open cloud platform. This is exactly what we got with Microsoft Azure.” Mike Hanrahan, CTO, Jet.com

Jet.com is catering to the seasonal spikes in their business and are handling more transactions automatically. Cloud computing technology helps them predict when the demand for their products will take off. Thus, they can maintain the cloud economics and pay for only those services they are using on the cloud.

• Fastened Website Performance with Cloud Support

Walmart achieved a 2 percent increase in conversion with every 1 second of reduction in the website’s load time. The importance of responsive and speedy product pages, checkout pages, etc. can further be affirmed with this example from Amazon. A few years back, Amazon’s revenue dropped by 1 percent with the change of just 100ms in the website’s load time.

Along with ensuring the scalability and flexibility of services, cloud computing further helps speed up your website. With every information stored securely on the cloud, your website can become fast enough to catch up with the expectations of your customers.

• Optimized IT Expenditure with the OpEx Approach

One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is the optimized IT spending. If you compare the CapEx (Capital Expenditure) vs OpEx (Operational Expenditure) of eCommerce companies, the second option would look more exciting with its flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

The ‘pay as you go’ plan under the OpEx model allows even small-scale eCommerce businesses to find their feet amidst the soaring market competition. With experts maintaining your eCommerce data on the cloud, you can cut down on the expenses of having an in-house IT team and deploy your resources in formulating growth strategies.

Suggested read: What is Cloud Computing (with Examples)

• Achieving Data Redundancy to Prevent Catastrophic Losses

For an eCommerce business, the data is its gateway to unraveling the psyche of customers. However, catastrophic data losses and cyber threats from malicious agents can play spoilsport. Common names in the cloud computing world, such as AWS, Microsoft, IBM and VMware are making the whole data loss & security concerns look trivial with the built-in data redundancy.

AWS is ensuring the high availability of data for EC2 instances by adopting the technologies for elastic load balancing, auto scaling and availability zones. You can go global in minutes with the reduced TTM (time to market) by deploying your eCommerce app in any part of the world.

One of the leading fashion e-commerce venture in India has adopted Amazon S3 to create a webstore of videos and images to make their website content accessible to users globally without any fear of data loss at any stage.

• Effective Data Visualization and Predictive Analytics

“Partnering with Google Cloud and the impressive capabilities its platform offers will help make improved customer experiences a reality.” Brian Tilzer, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Best Buy.

Unified data sources on Google Cloud platform (GCP) is further utilized by the strategy makers at Best Buy to devise digital strategies for growth. Cloud computing ensures better data visualization to help eCommerce companies predict the demand curve and align their marketing and promotional activities accordingly.

• The Right Provisioning of Resources with Cloud Elasticity

One of the best examples here is of Azure Elasticity as a Service, which ensures the auto scale of cloud infrastructure and resources as per the need. With cloud elasticity, eCommerce businesses can always ensure that they have the right amount of cloud resources to run and manage their workflows.

Summing Up

‘An eCommerce business without cloud computing is like a vehicle on the road with no fuel’

It’s time to be more agile and innovative in your approach towards serving the customers online. Those businesses, which are still adopting the ‘No Cloud’ strategy, are losing out a major share of their potential customers! To get personalized cloud computing suggestions as per your specific business requirements, you can connect with the product experts at Techjockey.com. Let’s be disruptive together!