Pernambucanas relies on Azion to speed up its e-commerce platform and innovate customer experience through edge applications

Challenge

Pernambucanas’s e-commerce revenue increased 1.081% YoY in 2020. This was the result of its digital transformation plan, which encompassed the build of innovative products and services, as well as optimizing the performance and availability of its web and mobile e-commerce.

Many factors impact e-commerce revenue. One key finding reports that a slow-loading website can make 45.5% of customers less likely to return^[1], while improving load time by 0.1 second can increase conversion rates by 8%^[2]. Overall, customer experience helps 89% of Brazilians decide between buying options^[3].

However, enhancing website speed and customer experience is a big challenge for every retailer. To do this, Pernambucanas used a CDN solution from a global vendor, but it didn’t provide resources that are essential for modern web applications, such as:

• a global, highly distributed network to accelerate content delivery;
• automated scalability to meet peak traffic demand; and
• resources to run event-driven serverless applications closer to its customers.

In addition to increasing the performance of its e-commerce platform, Pernambucanas was looking to innovate and revolutionize the shopping experience of millions of digital customers searching for products in fashion, bed & bath, smartphones, pets, beauty & health, and many other categories.

Solution

Pernambucanas met Azion’s Edge Platform when its Information Technology team was studying ways to strengthen its cybersecurity posture through sophisticated security resources, and the IT experts instantly realized that Azion’s edge-native solutions could enable improvements that go far beyond security.

First, in order to replace its legacy CDN solution, Pernambucanas requested a performance analysis by Azion’s Trusted Advisors. The analysis included optimization tips and suggestions, which helped to measure the initial gains by delivering content from Azion’s Edge Locations in Brazil.

After seeing its impressive results and impacts in terms of load speed, Pernambucanas implemented Edge Application’s full stack of modules, including Application Acceleration, Image Processor, Load Balancer and Edge Cache, and Edge Functions, which respectively enable Pernambucanas to:

• optimize its application protocols and build advanced request and response rules for its e-commerce platform and APIs, resulting in ultra-low latency and faster throughput;
• automate image optimization and manipulation to enhance user experience by delivering lightweight, high-resolution product photographs and banners without losing their visual quality;
• balance the load on its source infrastructure, improving its application reliability and availability;
• accelerate content delivery by caching static and dynamic content at Azion’s Edge; and
• run event-driven serverless applications through Edge Locations, creating small, independent functions focused on perfectly executing specific tasks with automated scalability.

In order to ensure that its e-commerce platform is getting most out of these implementations and to enforce online presence, Pernambucanas counts on Azion’s Mission Critical Support, including best practices review and access to R&D Engineers via ticket or phone.

Results and impacts

There are many benefits achieved by Pernambucanas since its web and mobile e-commerce platforms started running on Azion’s Platform. Right after the Edge Application was implemented, Pernambucanas significantly reduced its website load time by seconds, while making its mobile e-commerce 200 milliseconds faster.

Optimizing high-resolution photographs that make the customer experience more attractive and pleasant has also contributed to streamlining Pernambucanas’s performance. In six months, more than 20 million images were processed automatically, with file sizes reduced by 78% on average.

In addition, this boost to its digital transformation led Pernambucanas to reduce data transfer volume by offloading 70% per month on average, saving costs on its cloud services and delivering requests from Edge Locations. This means that its customer experience is dramatically faster for less cost than before.

Finally, the company’s teams are sure that Pernambucanas is empowered with future-ready applications, which allow them to keep innovating and evolving, no matter where, when or how many customers access their e-commerce platform. If Pernambucanas plans to disrupt anything in the digital universe, Azion will be there to help.

“The partnership with Azion allowed us to guarantee security and performance, from an endpoint connection to the connection of our servers with high availability, and it has brought us great benefits”

Diego Romano, Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) at Pernambucanas

About Pernambucanas

Established in 1908, Pernambucanas Group offers a wide variety of products, including fashion, bed & bath, appliances and computers, for Brazilian customers around the country. For over 110 years, the company keeps growing and evolving its services through digital transformation. In 2020, Pernambucanas’s e-commerce platform grew 1,081% and advanced the Fígital: its integration between digital and physical channel experiences. Designed by teams from its Commercial and Digital Labs, the Pernambucanas innovation laboratories are composed of the largest and most talented multidisciplinary squads. Besides its more than 410 stores in Brazil, mobile and web e-commerce applications, and Fígital, Pernambucanas also has its own fintech services, Pefisa, which offers a lot of financial products and services, such as digital accounts, PIX transfers, digital wallets, credit cards, personal loans, and insurance, with everything available online.