PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to Instart, the company helping thousands of leading brands around the world deliver a faster, safer and more profitable digital experience, online retailers are entering a critical period for 2018 back-to-school shopping. Nearly $83 billion in sales is at stake, and 55 percent of consumers shopping for back-to-school items will visit online retailers. In addition, online shopping is the number one destination (49 percent) for back-to-college consumers.
As 2018’s near-majority of back-to-school shopping goes online, retailers must find ways to compete, making customer experience and website performance critical elements of business strategy and management of a global brand. For traditional retailers which are pursuing multichannel models, as well as disruptive new challengers, the difference between success and failure revolves around achieving optimal online experience, conversions and revenue.
The Digital Experience and Maximizing Online Retailing Success
Retailers must combine a “wow” user experience with fast and reliable website performance across various platforms and mobile devices. Instart’s data, gleaned from the 60 billion transactions it processes for thousands of retain brands every day, shows that customers begin to abandon web pages that don’t respond within 3.5 seconds, quickly surfing or tapping away to a competitor. Retailers that fail to deliver a high-performance customer experience will suffer in the form of lost revenue, as well as decreased market share and reduced customer loyalty.
Unfortunately, retailers face a number of additional business and IT challenges for the back-to-school months and other busy online shopping seasons. In addition to customer expectations for a fast-loading website that drives conversions and loyalty, retailers must be vigilant about maintaining purchase frequency and average order value, as well as managing images and video for both the best experience and the best performance.
It isn’t any easier for IT organizations, which must manage growing numbers of services, including costly Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and increasingly complex cloud application infrastructures that have multiple points of failure. IT must also capture metrics and report back to the business, as well as manage compliance and security, including prevention of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Today’s environment of cost and margin pressure also means that IT departments are continually asked to do more with less and frequently do not have the time to innovate because they are constantly dealing with software fixes and operational issues.
The ABCs of Online Performance Management for Back-to-School Retail Readiness
For these reasons, online retailers need a platform approach that enables them to comprehensively and proactively manage the “ABCs” of website operations for back-to-school shopping – and beyond. By leveraging a global, cloud-based platform that integrates and connects cloud, web and mobile applications with consumer end-point devices, smart retailers can almost instantly improve performance and enhance digital consumer experience and security, resulting in improved conversion and higher revenue, as well as the freedom for IT organizations to pursue higher-value tasks and innovate.
“The back-to-school season presents numerous challenges for retailers. Many are trying to keep up with the leaders in online commerce but find themselves mired in operational tasks,” commented Instart CEO Sumit Dhawan. “However, the most innovative companies are responding with a platform approach that delivers easy-to-manage technology that levels the playing field. Ultimately, this makes it easier for even small retailers to achieve performance, revenue, customer experience, and security that is on par with industry leaders, freeing them from the drudgery of day-to-day operations.”
About Instart
Instart helps thousands of leading brands around the world deliver a faster, safer and more profitable customer experience through its revolutionary digital experience cloud. Instart combines machine learning, application and device awareness, and open APIs with a broad suite of integrated and automated cloud services, including web and mobile application performance optimization, image optimization, digital advertising optimization, web application security, DDOS protection, bot management and security, and content delivery. Using Instart, enterprises can provide ultra-fast, visually immersive, amazingly engaging and highly secure experiences on any device to maximize revenue, deliver superior customer experience, and gain competitive advantage. Learn more at https://www.instart.com.
