| Karine Blanc/Sandra Laberenne Agence Point Virgule 01 73 79 50 65 / 06 26 93 71 80 kblanc@pointvirgule.com |
–or– | Helen Yang Akamai Technologies, Inc. 858-404-1436 htse@akamai.com |
Paris, 25 January 2010 – Longchamp, the internationally-recognized brand in women’s luxury accessories, has chosen Akamai’s Dynamic Site Accelerator solution to accelerate the performance and availability of its worldwide online retail store. The Akamai Dynamic Site Accelerator solution has been implemented as part of a global project to expand online sales, which will continue in 2010 with the opening of more online stores in the USA, Asia and Europe.
The Longchamp company, founded in Paris in 1948 and a specialist in travel goods, women’s handbags and fashion accessories, pioneered the online sale of custom products in 2003. Today, the company offers its entire Men’s and Women’s collection on its website at www.longchamp.com. The e-commerce site benefits from a personalized search feature for fast access to the desired products and the “custom bags” line which offers exclusive online service and products.
Eager to satisfy its worldwide customer base, Longchamp chose Akamai’s Dynamic Site Accelerator to provide fast and smooth access to its online retail stores, removing the reliability issues and wait times inherent to the Internet. Indeed, the page response time has been cut in half from 1.41 seconds to 0.72 seconds since implementing the Akamai solutions. The fluidity of the user experience and the web page display speeds have had a direct impact on the sales conversion rate. Longchamp is now able to move ahead with plans to extend its online sales strategy to other countries, confident that all customers will receive the same high level of performance and reliability.
“This Web project is part of a broad international strategy. By testing access from our subsidiaries during my travels, the company was able to see that Akamai’s solution fulfills our primary objective, namely to give our customers a satisfying experience, whether they are in New York, London or Tokyo. Our aim was not merely to optimize or save Internet bandwidth,” said Corentin Violle, Director of Information Systems at Longchamp.
“After a period of testing and validating performance gains, Dynamic Site Accelerator has proved to satisfy all of the company’s requirements,” explained Henri D’Oriola, Director Southern Europe at Akamai Technologies. “Since its implementation, connection times to the site have improved by 57%, while maintaining the transaction security policy. These are essential features that provide the customers of this high-quality brand with a decisive advantage. And this excellent visibility translates into an increase in purchases.”
The opening of this online store coincides with a general overhaul of the underlying computer architecture, an additional issue for Akamai’s teams to take into account.
“Akamai’s Dynamic Site Accelerator solution has proved to be compatible with Longchamp’s computing environment because it is a non-intrusive solution, and was implemented in just two weeks. This was a big technical and economic plus for the IT department,” explained Franck Cordelois.
The Akamai solution improves the performance and reliability of dynamic, personalized websites in a secure environment (HTTPS or SSL). It uses network optimization and caching techniques to speed up display time and increase the range and performance of the richest websites. Akamai allows Longchamp to deliver fast, secure content and to ensure that its customers have a pleasant shopping experience with the peace of mind that their transactions are secure.
For Corentin Violle, this solution meets the company’s requirements in terms of accessibility and profitability, “So far, the measured impact of the Akamai solution on our bandwidth consumption is simply amazing, with a 97.8% reduction in bandwidth and an 87.9% reduction in the volume of requests. In addition, Akamai allows us to speed up page loading times for our customers around the world, which is a huge advantage in increasing our global sales. These very encouraging results give us the confidence to expand online sales to other markets with the assurance of equivalent performance.”
About Longchamp
Founded in Paris in 1948 by Jean Cassegrain, the Longchamp company is still headed by Philippe Cassegrain. Originally a manufacturer of leather-covered pipes, Longchamp has greatly expanded and enhanced its product line over the years to include travel goods, women’s handbags and fashion accessories in general. In 1993, the launch of its legendary Le Pliage® bag earned it worldwide acclaim. Since then, Longchamp has asserted its reputation with very prominent ad campaigns, the creation of iconic bags such as the “Légende’, the “Cosmos” and the “Gatsby”, and the launch of a ready-to-wear clothing collection. Combining the art of French manufacturing and affordable luxury, Longchamp has more than 100 exclusive boutiques around the world and sells its products in approximately 2,000 sales outlets.
The Akamai Difference
Akamai® provides market-leading managed services for powering video, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai’s services have been adopted by the world’s most recognized brands across diverse industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai’s global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online. Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, interact, and collaborate. To experience The Akamai Difference, visit http://www.akamai.fr and http://www.akamai.com.
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