FootSmart testimonial

FootSmart.com®, a division of Benchmark Brands, Inc. is unique among online retailers in that it offers merchandise geared toward mature consumers, many of whom are over 55. This age group has a variety of specific healthcare-related needs that Footsmart has consistently delivered against, generating impressive customer loyalty and enjoying very low rates of abandoned transactions (<40%). However, strong year-to-year growth made it difficult for FootSmart.com to maintain adequate site availability and performance levels, particularly for dialup customers who represent a large percentage of FootSmart.com’s customer base, and the company’s executive team saw an opportunity to increase performance for these customers to lower abandonment rates even further.

The company initially looked at the option of caching and compressing files and images in order to improve site availability and download times. But launching a new Web site with increased functionality made it clear they’d need a different solution. After running head-to-head tests with several competitors, Akamai came out significantly ahead on last mile delivery improvements—where FootSmart.com’s biggest pain point lay. With Akamai, FootSmart.com now serves content from the edges of the Internet—closest to their users. This has meant download times 50% faster with Akamai. A side benefit of this performance improvement is a drop of 15% in calls to FootSmart.com’s call center related to Internet orders. By eliminating failures during checkout and providing 100% uptime, Akamai has helped FootSmart.com put its best foot forward—grow revenue by 5-6%.

"We implemented Akamai in late September, Three weeks later, we noticed a substantial downtick in our shopping cart abandonment rate."
—Gavin Galtere, Director Network Operations at FootSmart.com