Shoppers today expect a smooth experience, whether browsing online or in store. And as commerce becomes increasingly digital, Lindex, one of Europe’s largest fashion retailers, wanted to create an innovative, integrated experience across its website and stores.
The Swedish retailer sells inspiring, affordable women’s and children’s fashion created from more sustainable sources in 490 stores across 18 countries. Its online business is growing but the e-commerce platform had limitations.
“It was not really built for today’s e-commerce environment,” Lindex CTO Florian Westerdahl explains. “Our online business is developing strongly and we sometimes had challenges managing peak periods.”
“We want to give our customer a seamless brand experience and a consistent customer journey,” he says “Not a scenario with an inaccessible site.”
Westerdahl worked with Gold Citrix Solution Advisor and Citrix Service Provider Xenit to develop an innovative queuing solution using Citrix ADC. The solution improved the online shopping experience while handling the growth.
Customer experience: from challenging to award-winning
Today, people expect a smooth service. That’s their baseline,” Westerdahl says. “Nobody will stay around if the experience is poor. They will just move along to the next site.”
Now with ADC, when web traffic approaches the limits of the Lindex e-commerce platform, customers are held in a short queue with a message telling them the site is busy. This way, customers understand and appreciate the communication.
“You may wait longer in line,” Westerdahl explains, “and you get a more positive experience. Citrix ADC has given us the ability to keep the e-commerce system handling a new-world workload. The site would not function without Citrix ADC.”
Lindex recently won two prestigious awards for OmniChannel Retailer of the Year. The first, awarded by Scandinavian e-Business Camp, noted the retailer’s early recognition of the value of an omnichannel approach and its focus on customer expectations. The second award, from Habit Modegalan, cited the company’s “seamless, inspiring and user-friendly top-class shopping experience regardless of channel.”
Toward a more connected, insightful future
When Westerdahl and his team selected Citrix ADC, they were looking beyond the immediate need. With the urgent customer experience problems resolved, the team has had more time to design a powerful, next-generation e-commerce platform to replace the old system.
Citrix ADC is an important component in future-proofing the Lindex infrastructure.
“When we first looked at ADC, we saw it had a really good toolset that would enable us to do some very advanced problem-solving,” Westerdahl says. “Citrix ADC gives us good data for customer segmentation, by location for example.”
Improving customer service and winning omni-channel awards is about more than web traffic. With Citrix ADC, the 490 stores are all connected to the e-commerce site, enabling customers to collect web orders from their local store.
Citrix ADC also manages secure remote access for Lindex staff, helping them work more flexibly and while on the move.
“Fashion retail is going through a huge transformation,” Westerdahl says. “It is changing the way we do business and means the whole company must be more agile. Citrix ADC has helped us extend our existing investment in e-commerce and allowed us to plan better for the future. We will be replacing a lot of technology as we move into the new world, but Citrix ADC will remain as the spider at the centre of our web.”
