The Challenge

For any ecommerce company, a broken or malfunctioning website is a major problem.  When this happens at the height of your busiest season, it’s potentially catastrophic.  Such was the case for a national retail ecommerce chocolatier just at the start of the holiday season.

Like many ecommerce companies, this retailer relied on a WordPress website with WooCommerce technology that was built several years prior. Over time, regular WordPress maintenance updates were ignored and not completed.

During the last week of November, the very beginning of their primary sales season, they lost significant functionality of their website including the ability to accept online payments. Because their website had been ignored and left outdated for a long enough period of time, no patches or updates could bring the website current.

Their entire ecommerce website had to be rebuilt using current WordPress and WooCommerce software and functionality, requiring a major investment in emergency consultant services. This process can cost tens of thousands of dollars in consultant fees and lost sales.

As if this weren’t enough, the company had recently been approached with new corporate business partnership opportunities. Unfortunately, these opportunities were at risk until website features and functionality were fully restored. 

So, what went wrong here?

  • With no brick-and-mortar presence, this ecommerce company relied exclusively on its website for business, which is a normal online business model.
  • Company efforts focused on creating an attractive, engaging website, but did not perform regular maintenance updates to the WordPress & WooCommerce platforms.
  • When outdated software failed, the business was unable to continue to operate its online business.
  • New products could not be added.
  • Their payment gateway stopped working, causing an immediate loss of revenue.
  • Website reconstruction came at a significant cost along with other opportunity costs.
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The Solution

While this was a painful experience, this ecommerce company will avoid similar issues in the future by subscribing to WP Site Protection’s ECOMM maintenance & protection plan. These plans mean that a regular review and update of the vital components of their WordPress website will be conducted. 

The Results

This WP Site Protection subscription will ensure that outdated website components never again create a risk to sales revenue or customer acquisition. Running an ecommerce company comes with too many moving parts and daily challenges as it is.  This ounce of prevention is truly worth much more than a pound of cure!

WP Site Protection’s ECOMM plan, starting at just $199 per month, delivers ongoing peace of mind that the website is maintained and up to date.

About WP Site Protection

WP Site Protection is a USA-based WordPress maintenance and security service provider with a mission to protect ecommerce WordPress websites from the two most prevalent threats: obsolete technology and security vulnerabilities. With over 15 years of WordPress & WooCommerce experience, WP Site Protection helps to secure its client’s online sales operations, revenue, customer data, and overall online reputation.