Internet Access Redundancy for Retailers

We wanted to share our thoughts on the importance of having a redundancy procedure in place for internet downtime.  We know that for retailers it is essential to have a fail-safe internet connection but what is the best way to ensure this is the case?

Firstly it’s important to look at exactly what redundancy is and why it’s important for retailers to consider implementing a procedure. Redundancy is quite simply “the duplication of components in electronic or mechanical equipment so that operations can continue following failure of a part”.

Why do retailers need internet access redundancy? One of the main reasons for retailers to adopt an internet fail over procedure is to ensure that they are constantly able to take Chip and PIN payments.  EPoS terminals need an internet connection for the approval of credit card transactions. If the internet was to go down without a redundancy procedure then how long could your business cope without being able to take credit card payments. What would happen if you had an outage for a long period such as a whole working day?

Additionally no internet connectivity means emails, Voice over Internet Phone (VoIP) calls, cloud-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) can no longer be accessed – productivity is lost and revenue is consequently impacted. Therefore it is crucial to avoid downtime to ensure business continuity.

Retail businesses, like most businesses, have become reliant on having access to the internet and a few hours of downtime could mean thousands of pounds worth of missed opportunities and customers. Single-Wide Area Network (WAN) routers continue to be a point-of-failure for retailers. Even the most reliable WAN connection can be disrupted for short durations due to scheduled ISP maintenance, line faults or cable damage.

So how do you avoid internet outages?

Just like what we have at our office there is a way to avoid being affected by internet downtime. Having a redundancy connectivity plan means creating a fail-safe line to the internet.

Using routers with two separate internet providers aims to ensure greater resilience by creating a fail over solution.

WAN Failover works in conjunction with multiple ISPs to maintain internet connectivity if a loss of connectivity occurs on one of your WAN connections. Draytek’s Multi-WAN routers are the perfect solution providing both Fail-over and Load-Balancing.

Broadband users that are concerned about the reliability of their internet connections can connect two separate lines to such a router. The router automatically switches to the working ADSL connection if the other connection fails (for example, due to a line fault or a failure in part of the ISP’s network).

Could your organisation continue to operate for long without the internet? If downtime is something you just don’t wish to consider, you need to protect against outages and dependency on your Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

Many retail businesses rely on the internet to assist with running their business. With an internet access redundancy procedure in place, retailers can ensure network availability in the case of a network device or path failure and unavailability.

Using two internet connections as opposed to one provides a redundant solution that facilitates nearly 100% up time.  This aims to create guaranteed connectivity and business continuity.

Because checkout speed is critical in order to maintain a high level of customer service and satisfaction it has to be considered that having a constant internet connection will aid with increasing customer loyalty and sales.

If you have any queries about how an internet access redundancy procedure can improve your return in investment then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Call us on 01750 700527 or email RMS at enquiries@rmspos.co.uk.