Teraco powers up Loot.co.za online retail growth

Teraco Data Environments http://www.teraco.co.za has become the new home for Loot.co.za`s server infrastructure, giving the pioneering online retailer a better place to implement its core online retail systems.

Co-locating at Teraco`s world-class data centre facility frees Loot from the many headaches of managing the hardware environment, and gives it the unique ability to freely choose its connectivity provider to drive down operating costs, critical for this business.

Loot.co.za is an independent retailer of books and entertainment products.

It offers over 1.5 million different book, DVD and CD titles. The company has co-located with a number of traditional hosting providers before, and each time experienced unacceptable downtime, inflexible pricing and complete lack of choice in connectivity alternatives. Each time it moved, Loot incurred massive costs and service interruptions.

“Placing our servers at Teraco gives us guaranteed power and a safe, secure environment for our servers that usually only large corporations can afford.

It also gives us the game-changing advantages of being able to pick the best carrier option, and change service providers when we want, without moving equipment. We now have the bargaining power to ensure that our connectivity costs remain competitive as we prepare to rapidly scale our business as online shopping becomes accepted by SA consumers,” says Michael van Rooyen, managing director at Loot.

“Loot`s switch to the Teraco facility is a sign of the sea-change in the local hosting space. Many small and mid-size businesses are looking for better, more flexible, more affordable alternatives to the current ISP-centric hosting facilities,” says Lex van Wyk, managing director of Teraco. “There are more than enough obstacles to getting a new venture off the ground, especially for entrepreneurial e-businesses. We see a huge amount of potential in helping small, innovative South African businesses by giving them a secure and cost-effective home and at the same time give them the flexibility to connect as they want, with whom they want.”

Now that Loot co-locates at Teraco, it can always benefit from the best rates and service levels available in the market by joining the open market that exists within Teraco to connect freely with partners or other value-added service providers.