Сalls clarification

Call is a request from website to an OT service platform to obtain any data (for example, product information) or to perform an action (for example, adding a product to a shopping cart).

Paid calls are only those successful requests that give information from providers about goods, categories, sellers, brands without any errors.

All work with the shopping cart, customer’s profile, the entire admin panel are also built on such requests (calls), but they are not paid. However, if a website pulls information about the product, for example, to change configuration, then this is 1 paid call.

Home page

Paid calls on the home page: 1 call to catalog menu + 1 call for each collection * number of updates.

Category menu is cached for 24 hours. Collections are cached for 1 hour. Resetting cache in the admin panel refreshes all data.

Examples:

1. Cache in the admin panel was not manually cleared. There are 6 selections on the home page

1+6*24=145 calls per 24 hours.

2. Cache in the admin panel was cleared 39 times per hour, it was not cleared for 23 hours.

1+6*(39+23)=373 calls per 24 hours.

!These calls are independent of user actions.

Catalog. Categories

Paid calls on the category page are charged for switching product subcategories:

New calls are calculated for the following actions:

Change sorting — 1 call.

Apply filter value — 1 call per request.

User navigation through pages — 1 call per page.

A similar principle applies on brands page, vendor’s products and when searching from the search bar.

Example:

• User entered dresses category — 1 call.
• He selected display of 100 products per page — 1 call.
• He set sorting by price — 1 call.
• He used filter 17 times — 17 calls.
• He viewed 145 pages — 145 calls.

Total: user made 165 calls while searching for one dress.

Search by phrase

Paid calls are charged for searching by phrase for each product provider:

Similarly, calls are charged when searching for products from 1688.com, Alibaba and other product providers.

Catalog without goods

Paid calls one at a time per category and subcategory selection:

Example:

User clicked Clothing category and got to virtual categories page (catalog menu), another 2 columns of subcategories opened along with Clothing category:

• Clothing — 1 call.
• Women’s clothing — 1 call.
• Dresses — 1 call.

Total: 3 calls.

Product card

Paid calls in the product card:

1 call for all information about the product, including photos, configurations, specifications, discounts, vendor information and his products, product characteristics (if open by default) + 1 call for product photo and description (+1 call if the button is pressed to translate description manually).

Also, one call is charged for viewing product description and its translation.

Example:

• User entered a product card (characteristics are open by default) and got product information, photos, vendor’s information and goods — 1 call.
• User decided to view product photo and description — 1 call.
• Translation of description — 1 call.

User made total 3 calls for viewing one product card.

Let’s sum up results:

One user who purposefully searched and viewed 1 product

• User entered the page of catalog categories — 3 calls.
• He made 165 calls (explanation was given above) when searching for 1 dress.
• He viewed 1 product card — 1 call.

 

Total: user made 169 calls for these operations.

One user who searched for many products in different categories

Let’s take previous example as a basis.

Login to catalog page 58 times * 3 calls = 174 calls

Exits to search pages = 174 calls

Theoretical transition through pages of each category up to the 5th: 174 * 4 calls for additional pages except the first one = 696 calls

In addition to above, user performed operations with filters 7 * 100 calls on average = 700 calls.

During all this time user opened 543 cards * 5 calls = 543 calls.

Total: this very active user made 2287 calls.

One user who made only a few actions

• User came to the category from the social network link — 1 call.
• He flipped 3 pages — 3 calls.
• He opened 1 product card and closed website — 1 call.

Total: This lazy user made 5 calls.

Let’s summarize general approximate result:

According to metrica, website traffic was 24 visitors per day (note that such systems give only approximate information).

9 active users made by 2287 calls = 20583 calls.

6 users made search and by 169 calls = 1014 calls.

9 lazy users made by 5 calls = 45 calls.

+ 145 calls per 24 hours spent on the home page, taking into account the fact that 6 selections are used and cache was not manually cleared.

Total: 24 users made 21787 calls (including 145).

Admin panel

Paid calls may apply when:

• working with collections, since this is a request to goods;
• changing product configuration in the admin panel.

How custom influences calls

Number of calls can increase as much as there are many additional requests if the above structure is changed on website using custom.

Example:

Everyone knows that information about product price and vendor’s rating in search is updated after opening the product card, if this product has not been opened anywhere else. Many people use a custom plugin that helps to get relevant information directly into search by hidden access to the product card before displaying search results. If page displays 100 products, while characteristics are open by default in the product information, user will immediately make 1 + 100  instead of 1 call when opening a category = 101 calls instead of 1.