Blossom Books webshop moved to hosting built for traffic peaks
Thousands of clicks in minutes, and the shop keeps running
The challenge
Blossom Books, the young adult imprint of publishing group WPG Uitgevers, sells its books through its own webshop: over 28,000 orders, pre-orders of new titles and a 25-gigabyte library of covers and campaign material. When a popular author announces a new book on social media, thousands of readers arrive in the shop within minutes. That is exactly when the shop went down at the previous hosting provider: the busiest minutes of the year became the minutes in which nobody could order.
Our solution
WPG already had a dedicated server at LJPc. For Blossom Books and the group's next sites we added a second one: 32 cores, 128 GB of memory and NVMe storage, running LiteSpeed Enterprise. Pages are served straight from the LiteSpeed cache and the database is backed by an object cache, so a product page renders in milliseconds and a peak of thousands of visitors a minute is absorbed while cart, checkout and account keep running live. Every order is right, even at the busiest moment.
The move
A webshop moves while the shop stays open. We first placed a complete copy on the new server and tested it thoroughly: all 2,525 pages from the sitemap compared with the original, the full ordering flow up to the payment step and the editorial team's admin environment. The actual switch then took 74 seconds: files and database synchronised again, DNS switched, and a follow-up check that collects every order from the final minutes on the old server. Within one working day of the go-ahead the shop was running on the new server, with every order on board.
The impact
The Blossom Books team works in the same shop and the same admin environment as before, only faster. Visitors notice pages that appear instantly, and the next author announcement is something to look forward to.
Why this project stands out
Moved with the shop open: every order kept, including those from the minutes around the DNS switch.
Tested first, switched second: 2,525 pages, the complete ordering flow and the admin compared with the original.
A 74-second switch, rehearsed in full the day before.
Dedicated hosting with LiteSpeed Enterprise, page cache and object cache, built for peaks of thousands of visitors a minute.
Ready for your busiest day?
We move webshops while they stay open, to hosting built for busy days, keeping every order.