Business continuity when something bad happens

[IATM]

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to get some peoples views and experiences of this. I currently run an eBay business and as things get busier and eBay's tolerance for any errors tighter it makes me question if I have enough or any safe guards in place if something goes wrong.

I guess an easy example of what I mean is the fire that happens in the warehouse for ASOS. I think this affected tens of thousands of orders and the idea of something like that happeneing for an eBay business doesn't bare thinking about.

I started to juggle ideas in my head that maybe I should get a small quantity stock of my main products in a seperate location in a container which would be enough to tie me over for a week, so in a worse case scenario I would get stock in via DHL/Fedex if I needed to.

This is turn lead me to think about the problems that would occur on eBay if you didn't have the stock to send out? Would eBay really give a crap if something like that happened regarding negative feedback or not being able to fullfill orders due to an issue outside your control?

Anything can happen, your warehouse could be burnt down, transhed, stock stolen, the list is endless really. I mean even something like computer systems going down for people who process thousands of orders a day.

Does anyone on here who runs are online retail business have any sort of plan in place for a bad situation or is it just me over thinking it.

Thanks

[IATM]

MrSparks said:

My online business is probably small scale compared to most, but my main product line and my own accessories for that product line are stocked in three different locations (two fulfilment warehouses and some at home). I can buy my main products from at least two separate suppliers at the same rates so if I have issues with one warehouse I have stock in the other, and/or at home. It works very fluently. Most of my other lesser sold products are shipped directly by the suppliers.

All of my systems are web-based so can be accessed from any computer, any where. That said if my website software (Opencart) fails for any reason then I will have no orders coming through, no real back up for that.

The thing that concerns me the most, and hopefully you've thought of it too before I worry you is that if anything happens to me then orders will not be fulfilled as I'm a "one man band". No one knows my log ins, systems, nothing. Maybe I will write some processes and a "emergency" pack next week just in case anything happens to me!

All in all I think your covered however I do have a back up for the one thing you don't haha. I had the same thought process as you being a one man band myself and with that I trained up my wife and I also wrote a "procedure" document stating how to do everything including all the system I use etc. When I used to work in the finance sector (PAYE) I used to do this alot for many big corporations; it was required for audit purposes to have proper written and signed of procedures in places.