Key Impacts
- Enables revenue growth via most profitable channel
- Increased average order size
- Improved checkout rates among dial-up users
- Reduces complaints and promotes customer loyalty
- 20% page load time improvement enables enhanced shopping experience
- Supports >50% traffic increase without additional infrastructure
- Removes need to add OC-3 line
- Supports global expansion
Since 1986, Sierra Trading Post has offered name-brand overstocks and closeouts at savings of 35 to 70 percent. In its 20-year history, it has opened three retail stores and an e-commerce Web site to complement the 60 million catalogs it distributes annually throughout the U.S. Of the 7,000-8,000 orders filled each day, more than 50% are generated through online sales, with online orders averaging 5% higher than traditional channels. However, as site traffic grew, Sierra Trading Post received complaints from visitors on dial-up connections (25-30% of the company’s customer base) about slow performance.
Clearly, addressing the issue of site performance quickly became a top priority. In seeking a solution, Sierra Trading Post identified three key parameters. First, reducing abandoned transactions and eliminating performance-related complaints was asolutely business-critical. Second, infrastructure buildout and the associated costs and complexity had to be minimized. Finally, the client sought to improve availability and performance for customers outside the U.S. to support additional revenue growth. Implementing Akamai Online Commerce has resulted in a site that loads a minimum of 20% faster—even for dialup customers—with greatly enhanced product imagery. This performance improvement was critical to Sierra Trading Post’s success in the 2004 holiday season, when site traffic was almost 60% higher than in summer months. Customer complaints about site performance have been virtually eliminated, resulting in more repeat business and greater revenue—in the U.S. and beyond.
"Because the site performs better, our customers’ shopping experience is more enjoyable, and that translates into increased sales
—Mark Richardson, Creative Services Director, Sierra Trading Post"
