IT that handles the peak
In e-commerce the revenue lands in a handful of days a year. A fault on an ordinary Tuesday costs money; the same fault on the Friday of a promotion week costs a quarter. We set up IT so the peak is not a surprise: the warehouse keeps scanning, stock adds up across channels, and what can go wrong has been thought through in advance.
Everything hangs on stock, and stock hangs on integrations
One number has to be the same in four places, and those four places talk through integrations nobody maintains.
A webshop, a marketplace, a store and a warehouse all look at the same stock, and none of the four owns it. In between sits a stock system, and between them sit integrations built at the moment each channel was added. As long as everything works, nobody notices them. The moment one stalls, you sell something you do not have or fail to sell something you do, and both cost money in a way that only becomes visible afterwards.
So we treat those integrations as part of the environment and not as something belonging to the supplier. That means knowing which ones exist, knowing what happens when one fails, and putting monitoring on them that reports a stalled integration rather than you noticing it in the complaints.
The peak is a planning question, not a technical one
Buying capacity is the easy part. The question that actually matters is which action in the warehouse becomes the bottleneck at three times the normal volume, and whether there are then enough scanners, chargers and workstations. That is a count and not an estimate, and it belongs weeks before the peak rather than on the morning itself.
What we do around that is walk the environment in advance: what equipment is there, what state are the batteries in, how many spares are ready, where does the Wi-Fi come under pressure when twice as many people are walking around, and who is reachable when it goes wrong on a Saturday. None of those questions is exciting, and together they decide whether the peak is a good week or an expensive one.
Returns are the second peak
After every promotion week comes the returns flow, and it hits the same systems in a different way: booking in, assessing, back into stock or out for disposal, and the money back. An organisation that only planned for the sales peak still grinds to a halt two weeks later. We take that second wave into the same planning.
What we take on in an e-commerce environment
You choose what you need. It all falls under one contract, one report and one point of contact.
- Monitoring on the integrationsNot only on servers and links but on the integrations between channel, stock and warehouse, with an alert when one stalls instead of a complaint.
- Warehouse equipment that survives the peakScanners, printers and chargers counted against peak volumes and not an ordinary week, with spares configured and ready.
- Wi-Fi measured on the busiest dayA measurement under load in the places that get busy, because a coverage plan from a quiet week says nothing about a Saturday in November.
- Cover for the hours you actually runEvenings, weekends and promotion weeks. The response time should sit on the moments revenue passes through, not on office hours.
- Workplaces for customer serviceA peak grows customer service too, often with temporary staff. Accounts, telephony and workplaces should then take a day and not a week.
- Recovery that has been rehearsedA restored copy of the stock system is the difference between an hour and a day. We rehearse that before the season starts rather than during it.
How we take over an e-commerce environment
In this order, and preferably out of season, because during a peak every change is a risk you do not need.
Walk the warehouse
On an ordinary day and if possible on a busy one. An hour of walking shows where people wait, and that is almost never where the technology points.
Map the integrations
Which channels, which stock system, which integrations between them and what happens when one fails. That picture is almost never complete and almost always the starting point.
Work it through against the peak
Equipment, network and staffing against three times normal volume, with the bottlenecks named and the orders placed in time.
Adjust on what we see
The reporting shows faults, waiting times and recurring causes per process. After the season we lay those alongside that season’s plan.
The services that come up most here
These building blocks come up most in an e-commerce environment.
Looking further
Recognise the picture but work in another industry? Then look at the other sectors.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most, answered briefly.
Can you scale up in time for a peak week?
If we are involved in time, yes. The question is not whether capacity can be added but which action in the warehouse becomes the bottleneck at three times the volume, and whether there are then enough scanners, chargers and workstations. That is a count that belongs weeks in advance.
Do you monitor the integrations with marketplaces too?
Yes. The integrations between channel, stock system and warehouse sit in the same monitoring as the rest. A stalled integration should raise an alert and not become visible because you sold something you do not have.
Do you build the webshop itself?
No. We manage the IT around it: network, warehouse equipment, workplaces, backup and the monitoring on the integrations. Building and running the webshop stays with your agency or platform partner, and we make sure the agreements about that are recorded.
Tell us when your peak lands
Name the weeks when volume goes up tenfold, the channels hanging off the stock and the warehouse that has to process it. We build the capacity, the monitoring and the cover around that.