Google continuously monitors and analyzes the needs of the retail world, pushing innovation in its products and services to help maximize results in an increasingly competitive and demanding market.
Accurately balancing investment, pricing, promotions, product assortment, technology and shopping experience at both the physical point and online is required of companies of all sizes, but keeping up is not easy.
The good news is that many have realized that cloud technology can help them, in fact with the support of a trusted partner who has technical knowledge and the necessary experience, it is possible to put the right plan in place to move forward successfully.
Google Cloud helps not only accelerate digital transformation but also reinvent business through data-driven innovation, let's take a look at the main benefits together and follow up with some use cases.
Promote retail transformation with infrastructure modernization, reduce on-premise data center costs with Google Cloud.
Built on the same flexible, reliable, and scalable infrastructure that powers YouTube, Google Search, and other Google products globally, Google's hosted eCommerce and data-scaling capabilities help you easily manage your users' peak shopping moments, giving your team the confidence and time to focus on innovation and improving the customer experience.
Change customer experience and store operations in real time to drive your business. Integrated data and analytics offerings promote immediate insights to accelerate innovation through smarter use of customer, product, and supply chain data.
Artificial intelligence is easy to use and machine learning capabilities are embedded within Google's system of solutions and products, making them accessible and easily deployed throughout the business.
Google Cloud enables you to seamlessly build, automate, and scale applications to deliver new user experiences for customers, partners, and employees.
Our technology leadership in multi-cloud and hybrid solutions enables you to quickly create applications that improve operations and meet your buyers' expectations. It releases applications that can run anywhere without vendor lock-in.
Another important aspect is related to the trust that users have towards your company.
Implements best-in-class security with features specifically designed to protect customer data and eCommerce sites, including controls and tools to help detect phishing and other cybersecurity threats.
The same technology security that supports Google's private global network helps protect your data and encryption by default. In addition, strict retail-specific compliance standards such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are met.
Connect business and customer teams with Google Workspace, the market-leading collaboration platform. You can make collaboration and communication faster and more effective with cloud applications such as Gmail, Documents, Calendar, and Meet.
Chrome Enterprise enables IT teams to ensure business continuity with a modern operating system and cloud-native devices that offer remote maintenance, sharing, and reduced cost of ownership.
With Google Cloud Google Cloud can help retailers and accelerate innovation in four key areas, become customer centric and data driven by taking care in analyzing data for better marketing, forecasting and insights. Aim for omnichannel growth by implementing eCommerce with reliability, scalability, and flexibility.Create engaging and convenient experiences for customers and improve the workforce.
Google's advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) help you optimize product assortment, improve supply chain, and build customer loyalty throughout the retail value chain.
Every day hundreds of millions of people turn to Google to help them with their shopping. Google Cloud offers seamless integration with YouTube, Google Shopping, G Pay, Google Assistant, and Google Maps to better serve your customers online and in store, increasing conversions.
Google's multi-cloud and open source solutions protect your business from vendor lock-in. You only pay for what you use, this is a huge advantage for managing business events, such as those in peak season for example.
Google Cloud enables exceptional digital experiences during peak buying times without sacrificing performance or reliability. Together we can improve your experience by working closely with engineering teams.
Don't forget that you are the owner of your data, Google will never use it for purposes other than what is necessary to meet contractual/legal obligations. The Google Cloud security model, world-scale infrastructure, and unique ability to innovate will help keep your organization secure and compliant.
Retail experts work side-by-side with your teams to solve the biggest challenges in unique ways: access to Google Cloud engineering, analytics, and security professionals help drive innovation throughout your organization.
Shopify is the market-leading eCommerce platform that helps people get started selling online, in any MarketPlace.
With more than 1 million merchants in over 175 countries and 60% growth per year, it has surpassed eBay in 2019 and has become the second largest eCommerce platform after Amazon.
Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, the company has more than 5,000 employees and revenues of $1.6 billion in 2019.
From 2016 to 2019, companies on Shopify contributed $319 billion in economic activity worldwide.
For the first 12 years, Shopify served its merchants through its on premise technology. The company's growth, along with related challenges to meet the demand associated with Black Friday or Cyber Monday and flash sales (beyond expectations), led it to explore a new cloud-based strategy to successfully scale and meet the needs of its customers.
In recent years, Google Cloud has fueled Shopify's rapid growth from 600,000 to more than 1.5 million merchants, with a desire to create new experiences ready to scale. The partnership has focused on three key areas:
Google Cloud has helped Shopify since 2018 to scale successfully on very important shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as well as during flash sales.
The platform's operation on Google Cloud helped ensure Shopify's success with unexpected, and unprecedented, growth during the pandemic, when the number of new stores on Shopify increased by 71 percent over the previous quarter.
Shopify leverages Google Cloud's Big Data technologies to empower your business
on an intelligence platform, to ensure access to information throughout the organization and better serve its customers.
Working together, Shopify and Google Cloud engineers extended the functionality of some Google products. The have collaborated for example on feature improvements for the Anthos application modernization platform to help meet the specific needs of the Shopify team. The implementation of these improvements benefited Shopify, but they also improved performance for the entire retail ecosystem.
Shopify and Google Cloud have shared values with respect to open source, security, performance and scalability, thus being ideal partners for a truly global cloud platform. By leveraging Google's deep knowledge of large-scale IT infrastructure, Shopify ensures that every engineer can focus on deployments and shape the future of commerce at a global scale.
Shopify has grown from 600,000 to 1.5 million merchants since its partnership with Google Cloud, resulting in 150% growth in merchant sales.
The company processed nearly 2x more orders during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2018 as in 2017, with 11,000 orders per minute and 100,000 requests per second for long periods.
Etsy is the world's largest marketplace for unique and creative goods. It provides a platform on which 3.1 million creators sell more than 50 million items to 60.3 million customers.
Founded in 2005, Etsy's motto is "keeping commerce humane."
While many retailers are currently focused on creating a personalized experience, Etsy has always been inherently personalized.
The company's biggest advantage over other retail platforms has been its ability to offer customers something special that they cannot find on other retail sites.
The rise of online shopping and the company's unique offerings have steadily propelled its growth. As the business scaled, the Etsy team needed to ensure that their IT infrastructure was able to grow with the business and support growing customer needs. Etsy's product catalog grew along with the number of customers, and they were able to provide personalized experiences that include relevant recommendations and search results without latency issues.
The Etsy team conducted a thorough search for the right cloud provider and found Google Cloud as the best partner for them.
Google Cloud offered the technology services and capabilities they needed to support their business. It also had a similar culture of innovation and shared their values on sustainability and clean energy. All this made the strategic choice for the cloud venture easier and fairer. The partnership focused on three key areas:
The Etsy team leveraged cost data to identify inefficiencies in the system. By calculating units of cost usage, developers began to analyze detailed data on unforeseen computational costs, enabling Etsy to improve the efficiency of its platform and meet its sustainability and spending goals.
Migrating to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) was the first step in a partnership based on how to drive innovation, support their business, and optimize core values such as sustainability. Etsy is looking forward to leveraging GCP ML and recommendations
capability, continuing to reduce overhead and TCO, improving analytics with BigQuery, and maintaining a clean cloud environment.
Migrating to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) was the first step in a partnership based on how to drive innovation, support their business, and optimize core values such as sustainability. Etsy is looking forward to leveraging GCP ML and recommendations
capability, continuing to reduce overhead and TCO, improving analytics with BigQuery, and maintaining a clean cloud environment.
Etsy selected Google Cloud as its cloud partner for migration because of the values on sustainability and innovation, as well as the technical capability that GCP offered. Their strong collaboration allowed the Etsy team to recognize the results immediately after implementation and co-development plans to improve business and technology KPIs through future development.
Etsy in-depth cloud assessment process by providing a clear understanding of which systems should be part of the initial migration and which could be migrated
successively, allowing Etsy to migrate 5.5 petabytes of data up for a scalable cloud environment in just 8 months.
After the migration, Etsy was able to recognize a 42% reduction in computing costs. Along with cost data analysis to improve efficiency, Etsy also adopted
Google Cloud managed services, which helps reduce infrastructure overhead and can lead to additional optimization costs.
With the computing flexibility that GCP offers, Etsy can honor its commitment to sustainable growth. By migrating to Google Cloud, Etsy has been able to save more than 50 percent in computing power while still supporting its needs during peak periods.