The leading athletic apparel retailer, ranked number 54 on the Internet Retailer 2012 Top 500 Guide, needed an infrastructure to support growth of 10-30% per year with zero down-time, with an architecture to rapidly release new branded stores.
Foot Locker also needed to establish a mobile delivery platform sharing the core components of the website to minimize development costs, time to market, and the functional gap between both the mobile and web channels.
They also needed to establish a platform that would withstand the demands of flash traffic associated with promotional events, such as shoe launches; reduce delivery costs by verifying the shipping address via UPS during checkout; and, allow customers to evaluate and purchase in-store inventory.
Guidance designed and developed the website on ColdFusion 9 (presentation layer), Java/J2EE application layer (Apache/Jrun), Sybase 15 Database, and a Network Appliance shared code and content repository.
The site features a customized, user-friendly admin module to enable marketing administrators to support daily site updates and promotions.
To accommodate flash sales traffic, Guidance created queuing systems, took advantage of load balancers, and developed a predefined set of inventory and capacity requirements to meet demand, to ensure stability and business continuity.
Guidance integrated the site with Core Metrics Reporting System, Sigma Micro (OMS) fulfillment system, F5BIP, Akamai (content delivery), Monetate Multivariate Testing, MyBuys (product recommendations and cross-selling), Dotomi (re-marketing), Google Maps (store locator), and Endeca (advanced search).
Guidance successfully optimized the website to appear first in search engine results for keyword “basketball shoes”.
