One of the official signs that the holiday season has begun is Cyber Monday, which occurs on the Monday after Thanksgiving. On this day, retailers go out with their promotions, offering great deals for holiday shoppers seeking discounts.
2016’s Cyber Monday was once again another record, with an estimated $3.45 billion dollars spent according to Adobe Digital Insights. This year’s numbers were a 12.1% increase from the previous year and above the 9.1% increase that many industry analysts had expected. As more and more shoppers take to their tablets and mobile phones to buy gifts, it is also expected that this number will rise as we get closer to Christmas.
Cloud Makes it all Possible
As my Thanksgiving wound down, I found myself wondering about the sales that would dominate the news cycle over the next few days. Each year, the mainstream media speaks to the huge rush of shoppers every Black Friday but never mentions who I consider to be the true heroes of the time of the year: The cloud computing ecosystem.
The cloud ecosystem has undoubtedly become the most valuable piece of the technology ecosystem over the past few years as the costs of renting space, infrastructure, and equipment decline with the rise of vendors like IBM. For retail brands especially, being able to move away from pre-bought infrastructure that might be stretched several times a year during the holiday season has provided the agility, elasticity, and cost-savings benefits for the business while providing customers always-on and reliable shopping experiences, no matter what time of day they decide to shop.
The joy of the cloud however, does not end there. Continuous innovation through DevOps and the availability of APIs elevate the cloud experience one step further by providing social, financial, and customer connectivity that deepens the customer to retailer experience. Additionally, the availability of artificial intelligence and machine learning provide customers more contextual purchasing ideas.
How about You?
Are you a retailer who spent Cyber Monday wondering how you could have pushed your sales even further? With cloud solutions, you can ensure guaranteed uptime and availability, even during the most challenging of times. Reach out to us at Perficient for a conversation about our capabilities at sales@perficient.com, and we can help you prepare you for the future.
Learn more about our IBM practice here.
