Paul Tepfenhart can still remember the moment he witnessed the collision of customer demand and IT performance during the holiday shopping season.
Google’s global director of retail industry was working on the brand side, and he thought e-commerce shoppers would be quick to take advantage of a “deal of the day” in the lead-up to the holidays.
It turned out he was right — maybe a little too right.
“Unintentionally — and without a lot of thought — we caused our traffic to spike astronomically at the moment that we said that the ‘deal of the day’ was going to open,” he recalls. “Everybody flooded in, because they didn’t want to be left out of this fabulous deal. It broke any kind of pattern from the past. And our systems didn’t hold up, because we hadn’t prepared.”
This is an easy area to overlook as retailers put more focus on aligning their inventory, staffing, and sales strategy during peak periods such as the holiday shopping season. The truth is, peaks can come throughout the year, and when they do, retailers risk scaling and performance challenges that could damage the customer experience they’re trying to deliver.
It’s critical to prepare now. Google Cloud and Shopify are collaborating to amplify what retailers can do with technology — including a best-in-class e-commerce platform, advanced analytics, and AI capabilities, and more. Here’s some additional advice for getting ahead of unexpected surges in demand.
Conduct a proactive, comprehensive IT assessment
Start with load testing, Tepfenhart says, where you can simulate expected peak traffic and identify where your bottlenecks are. Depending on the failure points you discover, start making adjustments to your underlying infrastructure and prevent performance from degrading.
“Make sure that you’ve got good real-time monitoring tools in place to check things like response time and server utilization — such as how often the database is queried,” Tepfenhart suggests. “I think you’ve also got to spend some time on capacity planning. Find out what your infrastructure is rated to be able to do — and ask yourself how likely it will hold up.”
Paul Fitzpatrick, head of Shopify Global Partnerships and Programs, agrees. “Have a plan in place for the peak periods you expect — and they shouldn’t look like your plans for the rest of the year,” he says.
Focusing on what’s happening now will provide greater insight than analyzing demand patterns from previous years, Tepfenhart adds. “Give yourself some leeway on historical peak periods, because growth occurs every year and those peaks will get ‘peak-ier.’”
Adapt to changing customer journey patterns
Retailers might have established their IT infrastructure in the days when customers started shopping by researching online and then visiting a store. Today, they’re going back and forth between retail websites, marketplaces, social channels, and more.
“Those nonlinear journeys are going to put a higher demand on real-time responsiveness in IT,” Tepfenhart predicts. “Overall scalability and flexibility are going to be key. It’s why a lot of the retailers I work with are moving the majority of their infrastructure to the cloud.”
Working with the right partners can provide peace of mind, Fitzpatrick says. “The fact that we’re servicing millions of merchants on our platform means we can absolutely scale to meet additional demand.”
Redefine your IT performance key performance indicators
Retailers are ultimately focused on getting shoppers to click “Buy,” but IT leaders need to look at their metrics more closely.
“The holidays should have a unique set of conversion numbers, because there’s an increased predisposition for a lot of shoppers to click through,” Tepfenhart says. “Also, get some analytics on order fulfillment and delivery to make sure you’re not falling behind and that you’re hitting your delivery windows.”
Fitzpatrick says that CIOs and their teams should not act in isolation. “The best practice is really IT working hand in hand with stakeholders throughout the business and co-designing the best-possible experience for the customer,” he says.
The earlier retailers think about their scaling and performance strategy, the better, Tepfenhart adds.
“The holidays are a time to make a step change in your business,” he says. “It’s really important in retail to win the holidays so that you can win the rest of the year.”
Shopify and Google Cloud are working together to help retailers get ahead of holiday customer demand. Learn more about Shopify’s highly performant platform and all the ways you can use it with Google Cloud Marketplace.