Fastly Case Studies Optimizing Customer Experience: Trade Me's Transition to Cloud with Fastly

	Optimizing Customer Experience: Trade Me's Transition to Cloud with Fastly Fastly

Optimizing Customer Experience: Trade Me's Transition to Cloud with Fastly

Fastly

Technology Category	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Public Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries	Retail Transportation
Applicable Functions	Logistics & Transportation
Use Cases	Cybersecurity Last Mile Delivery
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	Trade Me, New Zealand’s largest auction and classifieds site, faced a significant challenge during its digital transformation. The company, which has been in eCommerce since 1999, initially relied on New Zealand-based data centres in Auckland and Wellington. However, these centres required manual processes for configuration and maintenance, which were cumbersome and inefficient. The company decided to transition to the public cloud for scalability and automation benefits. However, this move presented its own set of challenges. The majority of Trade Me's customers are based in New Zealand, but the nearest Google Cloud servers were in Sydney, Australia, over 2,000km away. This distance posed potential issues for content delivery speed and customer experience. Additionally, the cloud migration raised new security and reliability challenges. For instance, if international connectivity was impacted by network failure or cyberattacks, the company could still serve domestic customer traffic with their New Zealand servers. However, this would not be possible with the cloud servers located in Australia. Read More
About Customer	Trade Me is New Zealand's largest and busiest auction and classifieds site, with more than 2 million active monthly users, 650,000 daily visitors, and 7 million live listings. The company has been in eCommerce since 1999 and is the first place Kiwis go online to buy and sell everything from cars to houses. With more onsite listings than people in the nation, Trade Me is New Zealand’s favourite online marketplace. The success of such a large, busy, and image-heavy eCommerce site relies on optimising customer journeys at a fast pace. Read More
Solution	Trade Me approached Fastly for a Content Delivery Network (CDN) solution to keep content close to customers during its transition from data centres to the cloud. Fastly offered more than just a CDN solution; it provided a holistic platform on the edge with numerous benefits. Fastly's integration with VCL enhanced functionality by removing points of concentration and unnecessary appliances, which improved the customer experience. It also provided robust cybersecurity. Fastly's Next-Gen WAF, powered by Signal Sciences, guards against DDoS attacks and uses automation to distinguish between false positives and genuine attacks. The easy integration with Google Cloud allowed assets to be spread horizontally at a large scale. Fastly also offered greater visibility to securing applications, making it easier to pinpoint and neutralize threats. Trade Me is also testing Fastly Compute@Edge to accelerate their journey to high-scale, serverless computing. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Public Cloud

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Retail

Transportation

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation

Use Cases

Cybersecurity

Last Mile Delivery

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

Trade Me, New Zealand’s largest auction and classifieds site, faced a significant challenge during its digital transformation. The company, which has been in eCommerce since 1999, initially relied on New Zealand-based data centres in Auckland and Wellington. However, these centres required manual processes for configuration and maintenance, which were cumbersome and inefficient. The company decided to transition to the public cloud for scalability and automation benefits. However, this move presented its own set of challenges. The majority of Trade Me's customers are based in New Zealand, but the nearest Google Cloud servers were in Sydney, Australia, over 2,000km away. This distance posed potential issues for content delivery speed and customer experience. Additionally, the cloud migration raised new security and reliability challenges. For instance, if international connectivity was impacted by network failure or cyberattacks, the company could still serve domestic customer traffic with their New Zealand servers. However, this would not be possible with the cloud servers located in Australia.

About Customer

Trade Me is New Zealand's largest and busiest auction and classifieds site, with more than 2 million active monthly users, 650,000 daily visitors, and 7 million live listings. The company has been in eCommerce since 1999 and is the first place Kiwis go online to buy and sell everything from cars to houses. With more onsite listings than people in the nation, Trade Me is New Zealand’s favourite online marketplace. The success of such a large, busy, and image-heavy eCommerce site relies on optimising customer journeys at a fast pace.

Solution

Trade Me approached Fastly for a Content Delivery Network (CDN) solution to keep content close to customers during its transition from data centres to the cloud. Fastly offered more than just a CDN solution; it provided a holistic platform on the edge with numerous benefits. Fastly's integration with VCL enhanced functionality by removing points of concentration and unnecessary appliances, which improved the customer experience. It also provided robust cybersecurity. Fastly's Next-Gen WAF, powered by Signal Sciences, guards against DDoS attacks and uses automation to distinguish between false positives and genuine attacks. The easy integration with Google Cloud allowed assets to be spread horizontally at a large scale. Fastly also offered greater visibility to securing applications, making it easier to pinpoint and neutralize threats. Trade Me is also testing Fastly Compute@Edge to accelerate their journey to high-scale, serverless computing.

Impact #1	Fastly's solution brought several operational benefits to Trade Me. It provided a balance between independent working and better centralised visibility, which was crucial for detecting cascading failure, pulling back control, and mitigating systemic risk. Fastly's personalised support also made Trade Me confident to develop creative solutions. The company appreciated Fastly's ability to keep up with their innovative ideas and meet them where they were, rather than where Fastly thought they should be. The integration with Fastly also improved the customer experience by speeding up the journey from landing on the site to reaching the desired destination. Additionally, Fastly's robust cybersecurity measures provided reassurance against potential threats.

Impact #1

Fastly's solution brought several operational benefits to Trade Me. It provided a balance between independent working and better centralised visibility, which was crucial for detecting cascading failure, pulling back control, and mitigating systemic risk. Fastly's personalised support also made Trade Me confident to develop creative solutions. The company appreciated Fastly's ability to keep up with their innovative ideas and meet them where they were, rather than where Fastly thought they should be. The integration with Fastly also improved the customer experience by speeding up the journey from landing on the site to reaching the desired destination. Additionally, Fastly's robust cybersecurity measures provided reassurance against potential threats.

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Overview

Optimizing Customer Experience: Trade Me's Transition to Cloud with Fastly

Operational Impact