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8 Essential Database Performance Metrics You Need to Track
In general, databases play a vital role in any information system. It can store, update, and query essential business data. That’s why a database system’s availability, performance, and security are critical concerns for any database administrator.

To facilitate this, you need to ensure that you’re using different database monitoring tools.

Why Do You Need to Monitor?

When you monitor databases, you’re doing it just like you would monitor every other component of your IT system. It keeps you well informed. That way, you can make better decision-making in the future.

Databases are the dynamic indicator of the health and behavior of a system. Its impressive performance directs you to particular problem areas. Once you identify these issues, you can then use these metrics to help you with the debugging process.

But databases have a sea of metrics that can overwhelm anyone. So, it all comes down to the metrics you need to monitor. One of the most straightforward approaches is starting with the basics.

In this post, we’ll talk about the essential database performance metrics that you need to track:

1. Response time

Data response is vital to your business’ performance metrics. This is the average response time for every query on your database server. There are several ways that you can approach response time. First, you need to assess the live database response as a solo number on a dashboard which you can share with other developers in your system.

You can use a column graph or a line chart to measure the average response time for the query that your database server gets.

But what if your database shows a more significant average response time? Then, the best solution for this is to optimize your queries and enhance concurrency via program analysis.

As a developer, it’s part of your job to prepare yourself to handle concurrency problems regarding data democratization for users. This approach is practical for people that go through data within their dashboards using various business tools and mechanisms.

2. Availability and resource consumption

This is where you must regularly keep up with databases, ensuring that they’re online and function regularly.

These tests should be done in both peak and non-peak hours. It would be best if you didn’t have to scan since your monitoring will catch any changes manually.

3. Database throughput

Data throughput is one of the most critical database performance metrics out there. It is the volume of work that’s done by your database server over a unit of time. Or it could be per second or hour. However, you can usually measure this as the number of queries executed per second.

It lets you monitor how quickly your server processes any incoming queries. If it’s less than the number of incoming queries, then this could cause your server to overload. As a result, you’ll have longer waiting times for each query, which in turn, slows down your website or application.

If this is the case, then you might need to upgrade your server infrastructure, or you can optimize your queries. That’s why having good database management support is essential.

4. Number of errors

Your database will return an error response code if a query doesn’t run successfully. You need to track the number of queries you get for every error code.

That way, you can easily find out which errors frequently happen and how to fix them.

5. Query performance

What’s the reason for a substandard query performance? Well, the answer lies in the query. You can look for issues in queries that often take too long. You can find necessary data and retrieve time and other important information. The objective here is to track slow queries that tend to hurt performance.

Let’s say you’re running an enterprise app with a MySQL server. Your database queries when a user logs in, assessing the login credentials.

Slower queries hurt how your database performs. This specific query also significantly impacts an enterprise app’s overall performance if users refer to it frequently.

But what if your resources aren’t overwhelmed, and you still get poor database performance? Well, more often than not, there are several reasons behind this. It could be because of inefficient query plans, unmanaged database statistics, and schema modifications.

If you want to troubleshoot such issues, you have to be equipped with knowledge related to database internals. It means you’re referring to filters, query plans, and other things your database query optimizer uses.

6. Scheduled tasks

A database often runs repetitive tasks scheduled as “jobs.” Systems like Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server have these built-in scheduling facilities. Meanwhile, others have third-party schedulers.

Some examples of these scheduled jobs include:
- A full and incremental database backup
- Applications-specific tasks such as nightly data loads, archiving, and exports.
- Database maintenance like analyzing, updating stats, database integrity checks, compaction, log rotation, reindexing, and more
No matter the function, the outcomes should be monitored, whether they succeed or fail.

7. Buffer pool usage

Usually, a buffer pool or cache uses as much memory you need to allocate to it so that it will accommodate maximum pages of data.

When the pool fills up, it will eliminate older or less used data, making room for newer information. It’s also possible for you to access information related to the buffer pool. It lets you know everything about the data the SQL servers store in the memory.

With a dynamic management view, you can identify every row for each buffer descriptor. This looks for and gives you relevant information about every memory page.

However, this may take time to query this on a server with extensive databases.

8. Most frequent queries

It’s also vital for you to track the 5-10 most frequent queries from your database server, along with the average latency and frequency.

You can experience a significant performance boost in your database by optimizing these queries.

Over to You

So, there you have it. Database performance metrics are there because it helps you with database performance monitoring. You also need it if you want to optimize your business.

Hopefully, the following database performance metrics we’ve mentioned will enhance the performance of your database.
August 17, 2022
Tips on Cost-Effective International Shipping For Any Business

Shipping is one of the main expenses for any online business. You can have great products at the lowest price out there, but it’s shipping that enables customers to try the products you offer.

Inaccurate shipping rates, high real-time rates, lack of delivery options are some of the key factors shaping why your customers might abandon their shopping carts instead of proceeding to checkout. To achieve cost-effective shipping, retailers might want to consider matching products dimensions with the dimensions of the package, use dimensional weight shipping, apply landed cost when needed, and more.

To find out about all tips on cost-effective shipping, have a look at these steps and factors influencing shipping costs directly.

Package characteristics

The more precise package parameters you send to the carriers, the more accurate real-time rates you will receive. In some cases, this means saving extra money on shipping. Carriers charge more for bigger packages even if they are lightweight because they take extra space in the transportation vehicles. Retailers ship packages wrapped in filling and packaging materials that take 70% of the whole package. Not only is this unprofitable for all parties, but it is also harmful to the environment.

As a retailer, it is important to match the dimensions of the product with the dimensions of the package. This is called Smart Packaging. Smart Packaging is a shipping feature that automatically pre-packs each order into the optimal package and requests real-time rates directly from the carriers based on these specific parameters. Smart Packaging feature is very similar to what many might know as Dimensional Weight Shipping.

Unlike Smart Packaging, when using Dimensional Weight Shipping there are only the product’s dimensions taken into consideration which are length, width, and height of the product. Both methods are cost-effective, however, the accuracy of real-time rates is higher when using Smart Packaging.

Landed cost

Landed cost is a sum of all costs it takes to ship a package abroad. These costs include value-added taxes, insurance fees, shipping costs, import licenses, customs duties, and similar. Some of the costs like import license or insurance fees are not obligatory and depend on the nature of the product or the country the package is going to be shipped to.

It is crucial to keep in mind that accounting for shipping and manufacturing is not enough. The formula for calculating landed cost should include profit margin as well. Profit might be completely wiped out altogether by the landed cost if the retailer miscalculates how much it will cost to ship a package abroad.

Additionally, surprising your customers with unexpected shipping costs after receiving packages from abroad is not professional and might lead to dissatisfied customers.

Rate shopping

Rate shopping is a comparison between carriers’ service and their corresponding real-time shipping rates. This comparison serves to find the cheapest or the fastest real-time rates. The process of rate shopping can be fully automated, saving a lot of time. Overall, the automated rate shopping process creates a better and simpler checkout experience, as only the best shipping rates are visible for your customers.

Limit return shipping policy

Offering a return policy is nothing new and unique these days. The majority of retailers use quick and free returns as a competitive advantage. However, what will be the influence on your business if you offer a zero return policy?

The point of limiting the return policy is to make your customers aware of what they shop for. The drawback of the return policy is that any product can be returned quickly and easily.

Customers do not pause about the necessity of the product and online shopping becomes very impulsive. It became easier and cheaper for retailers to dispose of faulty products rather than repair them. Limiting return policies might save you as much shipping cost as any other factor mentioned above.

Shipping destination

The destination is another factor influencing the cost-effectiveness of your shipping. The farther away the destination is, the more expensive and slower it is to deliver the products. The problem with international shipping is that often carriers delegate shipments to one another once they reach the international borders. For example, for some ground shipping services UPS delegates shipping to Canada Post as soon as it reaches the Canadian border. This process is slow and requires one unified shipping rate from both carriers.

If you are shipping from the United States, check out the list of the countries which are in a free trade agreement with the US. Free trade agreement allows you to ship with lower shipping rates, but it does not guarantee lower tariffs for each type of product shipped. Still, it makes moving goods around the world more cost-effective and easier.

Conclusion

Here are summarized the main factors that are necessary to achieve cost-effective international shipping. Some additional factors might be the inclusion of delivery dates at the checkout to avoid paying for re-routing or rescheduling of the package. Some of these factors are not only helping you to achieve cost-effective shipping but also increasing the accuracy of real-time rates as in the case of Smart Packaging and Dimensional Weight Shipping.

Author’s Bio

Lucia Liskova is Marketing Manager at Calcurates by Amasty shipping SaaS for e-commerce.

January 27, 2022
How To Write Blogs That Increase Ecommerce Sales
Your ecommerce blog is a great way of increasing sales for your business. It can build your brand, increase trust in your company, and give you access to new audiences of potential customers.

There are many ways you can write blogs that drive up revenue for your business.

Rather than providing you with ecommerce blog outlines that might not fit exactly with your company, this article gives you solid ideas and tips that you can use to create valuable content.

From writing SEO optimised posts to incorporating UGC, this is how you can write content that helps bring more business to your ecommerce company.

Create ecommerce blog content that’s SEO optimised

Creating SEO optimised content for your ecommerce blog is a great way to increase your sales. This is because it puts your ecommerce products in front of people that are interested in buying the things you’re selling.

SEO stands for search engine optimization.

It’s a tactic that’s used to increase your rankings in search engines, putting your web pages in front of people that are conducting searches that are relevant to your business.

However, creating this content only works as a sales aid if your rank for the right terms.

Credit: Seobility

To increase your revenue you need to rank for your money words. These are the keywords that will help you drive traffic to pages that will lead people to buy your products.

You need to find the right terms for your business and this means conducting keyword research, then incorporating these keywords into your blog.

There are many great resources available to help you carry out your keyword research and Moz is one of the best places to find them.

The One-Hour Guide To SEO is a great guide for beginners. It features a number of easy-to-digest videos that will give you the tools you need to create SEO optimised content for your ecommerce blog.

Include clear CTAs in your ecommerce blog posts

Using CTAs in your content is an excellent way of writing content that turns your ecommerce blog into a sales tool. The reason for this is that CTAs direct your audience to complete actions that ultimately lead to them buying your products.

CTA is short for call to action. You’ll have seen these used in various types of content already, but you may not have realised that you were being eased towards doing something the site wanted you to do.

There are two vital details with CTAs that you need to get right if you’re going to use them in your ecommerce blog to boost your sales.
- They need to go to the right web pages for your business
- You need your audience to interact with them positively
Credit: Seobility

The first point is the simple one. You can address it by establishing what pages you want your customers to get to. These will generally be product pages, but they could be category pages.

The second point requires more thought. However, there are some best practices you can follow with CTAs to make them more enticing.

The video below gives you some that you can use in your ecommerce blog posts right now. It’s also a good idea to review your previous posts and make sure they’re primed for conversion.

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Explain the benefits of your products in your ecommerce blog

Using your ecommerce blog posts to talk about the benefits of your products is a great idea. You can do this by establishing what the benefits are for your products, then writing a blog post pr series of blog posts that are about these.

For instance, it may be that you sell trainers. One benefit of these is that it makes people fitter. So you could write a blog post about how being healthier has a far-reaching impact on your life, helping you to feel happier at work and home.

In this example, you can show that one of the benefits of your products is that they can help people to get fitter and healthier by providing their feet with the support needed to perform rigorous exercises with confidence. After explaining these benefits in detail, you can include a link to a product or category page to help boost sales for your chosen target page.

Credit: PXFuel

One thing to keep in mind is that you must talk about benefits and not features.

It’s simple to make the mistake over talking about product features over benefits. Features are easier to discuss because it’s more about something looks than how it feels.

Unfortunately, in the case of many products, people don’t make the same connection with how something looks as how it makes them feel. This is because ecommerce is a huge industry and many products look very similar.

And the problem is that if you make this mistake then your ecommerce blog posts are less likely to have a positive impact on your sales.

Use your ecommerce blog to tackle audience pain points

Audience pain points are the questions your audience needs answers to.

They drive them to search for solutions and you can use your ecommerce blog to make your products the thing that eases their pain. Do this successfully and you can increase sales for your business.

Using audience pain points to inspire your blog content is a similar strategy to focusing on benefits, as it addresses questions your customers have and makes your products the answer.

But it goes further than focussing on your product benefits. How? By working backwards from the things that drive your audience and finding ways of linking it to your products – whereas writing content that focuses on benefits operates in the opposite way.

Credit: PXHere

There are many ways you can establish what your audience’s pain points are. One of the best is to create buyer personas for your ecommerce business.

Buyer personas are a market research tool that creates an image of your ideal customers. This takes into account things such as your customers’ behaviour, demographics, goals, and motivations.

Once you’ve got your personas you can create content that addresses their pain points.

You can then use this to increase your ecommerce sales by adding in links to your business’ product and category pages.

Incorporate UGC into your ecommerce blog

UGC stands for user-generated content. As the name suggests, it’s content that’s created by your audience. Not only is it a great source of free material for your ecommerce blog, but it’s also a great way to increase sales for your business.

The reason UGC is so good is that people trust the opinions of their peers as much as recommendations from friends and family.

The point is that they trust them more than your views because they don’t think there’s a vested interest, so including UGC on your blog makes your brand more trustworthy.

Credit: Free Stock Photos

You can leverage this on your blog by including testimonials from your customers.

Returning to the trainer example used earlier in this article, you could add a quote from one of your customers to a post on your ecommerce blog.

It might say something like “I was able to run for longer because these shoes were more comfortable. This means that I’m exercising five hours more every week and I feel much healthier because of this.”

This then helps increase sales for your ecommerce business because it validates your products — if a customer sees that one of their peers is benefiting from their products, then they’ll see it as an unbiased recommendation and will be more likely to buy from your company.

That’s just one way of leveraging user-generated content to build trust in your brand. You can find some more great ideas by watching the video below:

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Think about adding guest posts to your ecommerce blog

Guest blogs are what they sound like — they’re when you publish an article from another site to your own blog. This is a great source of free content for your business, but it also helps to increase sales. How? By giving your business access to new audiences.

Any external site that you publish on your ecommerce blog will have a vested interest in sharing the content on their social media channels. This puts your business in front of new followers and provides a potential new source of customers.

However, you should go further than this. Instead of just adding guest posts to your ecommerce blog, you should enter into a partnership with other sites by also writing content for their blog.

This will improve the chances of you reaching a new audience further still and increase the likelihood of you making more sales.

Great ecommerce blogs your business can learn from

We’ve given you some great tips to help you write and create ecommerce blog posts that will help to increase sales for your business.

To finish things off, we’ve picked out two great examples of ecommerce blogs that you can use as inspiration for your own content.

Shopify: ecommerce blog with lots of informational content

Credit: Shopify

We spoke earlier about audience pain points and how it can help you to increase sales for your business.

Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform and it’s the expert when it comes to creating ecommerce blog posts that tackle the problems its audience (and customers) encounter.

It splits its blog into the following categories:
- Latest Articles
- Business Ideas
- Grow Your Sales
- Product Updates
- Founder Stories
- Shopify Compass
These are focussed on topics that are relevant to both current and aspiring ecommerce business owners – it gives them the tools to start a business and to address any issues they encounter once they’ve launched their company.

BigCommerce: an ecommerce blog that knows how to use CTAs

Credit: BigCommerce

We explained earlier how using good CTAs in your ecommerce blog can help increase sales for your business.

BigCommerce is a popular ecommerce platform and it has a great understanding of how to use CTAs to help drive its audience to its money pages.

Some of the CTAs BigCommerce uses include:
- Linking to free trials of its platform
- Directing them to product pages
- Asking people to sign up to its email list
The last point is an interesting one because it may seem like it offers little scope to boost your sales.

However, by collecting the email addresses of your customers you can engage in audience segmentation. This allows you to learn more about your customers and create targeted blog posts that address their pain points.

There’s no one size fits all approach to writing ecommerce blogs that increase sales for your business – one tactic may work for a rival company but fall short when you apply it to your own.

However, what does fit for all companies is having a set of ideas you can work with.

We’ve given you plenty of great tips for how to write ecommerce blog posts that will increase sales for your business. All that’s left now for you is to start putting these ideas into practice.
November 20, 2020