Halfway through November

November 15th, 2011 by Kenric

Not really that much to write about this month.  After the great October that I had, November is just looking so-so, even though it really is doing well.

I guess there is new news.  I finally decided to switch to a dedicated server for my stores.  I was going to order up one monster server and run 10 stores on it for about $400/mo.  But I decided to go with 2 small servers at about $200/mo each.  This will give me a level of redundancy in case a server fails.  That way I don’t lose all my stores at once.

The migration has been very time consuming.  I have only migrated one store over and it should have gone smoothly, but I really don’t know what I’m doing so I’m learning as I go.  Luckily I migrated a store that doesn’t make that much and it was only down 1 day due to DNS propagation.

I don’t know if I want to migrate one of my major stores over yet.  If I do, it will have to be done before next week.  I started running Black Friday sales already.

BTW, in case you are wondering about maintenance Ferrari.  Oil changes recommended every 12,500 miles or 12 months are $450.  Annual service for fluids including an oil change is $1100.  Bi-annual service is $2000 and a timing belt change every 3 years is $2500.  New clutch is $3500.  So if I keep the car for 3 years, I’d spend $6,100 on maintenance on it, assuming I don’t need a new clutch.  So it’s not too bad.

 

 

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  1. 13 Comments to “Halfway through November”

  2. Oil changes every 12,500 miles?? Is that changing the oil four times, every 3,000 miles; or is that one time, every 12,500 miles?? Just out of curiosity.

    By KW on Nov 15, 2011

  3. I wouldn’t swap over your main stores until after the first of the year. This is your major selling time frame.

    By Shawn on Nov 15, 2011

  4. The whole point of swapping them over is to be able to handle the Xmas rush. If I don’t do it now, I really don’t need the server until next fall.

    By Kenric on Nov 15, 2011

  5. Oh I see. I guess you’ll have to find a good quiet time(maint window) as the DNS propagates over.

    By Shawn on Nov 15, 2011

  6. What type of hosting are you using at the moment?

    How many visitors does each website get approximately?

    I would suggest to bite the bullet and change your hosting now before Xmas hits. The increase in conversions due to faster loading websites should make up for 1 day of lost sales due to DNS propogation etc

    By Peter on Nov 15, 2011

  7. I am going through the same discussions with my business partner, my site seems to be slowing down and I can only put it down to the level of hosting..vpln

    By Adam on Nov 16, 2011

  8. I think your Ferrari numbers are a bit off.. In 3 years, you’d have 3 annual fluids services (which includes oil changes), one bi-annual service, plus one new timing belt. That’s $7,800. Assuming no new clutch and no extra oils changes.

    By Shaun on Nov 18, 2011

  9. Shaun, The bi-annual should include the annual stuff also.

    KW, yes that is one oil change every 12,500 miles. So it’s actually not that bad.

    Peter, I am using shared hosting at the moment. It works fine except for some occassional slowness. On busy months I will get 1000 visitors a day. The slowdown I think is that the db portion of the site and too many connections.

    So far, migration has not been going smoothly so I’m afraid to migrate any big $$$ making site over.

    I guess I should have done this months ago!

    By Kenric on Nov 18, 2011

  10. Try using Pair.com for shared hosting, 1000 visitors a day is actually not stressful at all for a shared hosting plan.

    Maybe you need to edit/review your Database code? You might be having memory leak issues or other simple tech issues which need to be solved.

    By Peter on Nov 21, 2011

  11. Hi Peter,

    The issue with the database is that 1&1 only allows 18 connections at a time to the database. So the site can get the too many connections error. It’s not because the db is slow.

    I will take a look at Pair.com.

    By Kenric on Nov 21, 2011

  12. Hmm,

    I’m sure you can manually configure the DB so it has more then 18 connections at a time or is this a cap that 1&1 put into place which cant be lifted.

    My suggestion is to move away from 1&1. With your store’s sales revenue, it doesnt make sense to continue on shared hosting. You want to be on a VPS at least.

    You can use LiquidWeb as well, the reason you want a VPS = customer support is a LOT more responsive if you are on a VPS/Dedicated Server plan

    By Peter on Nov 22, 2011

  13. Waiting for the post-Black Friday/Cyber Monday/end of November report. It’s helpful to have year over year same store sales for your older stores plus numbers on the new ones.

    You are smart to migrate the slower stores first and work out the problems before taking a high volume store down for migration.

    I used to think many niche products could not be sold successfully on-line. People want to see, touch, and play with the specialized stuff. Maybe your niche customers are looking at the products locally or are seeing their friends use them and buy based on that.

    Anyway, it will be interesting to see how close you are to meeting your goal.

    By Another Investor on Nov 28, 2011

  14. I hope your dedicated servers now will be working fine.Keep in mind that vehicle maintenance required on time.

    By ladders on Dec 2, 2011

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