Lojas Renner uses edge applications to deliver a large volume of requests on Black Friday

Challenge

Lojas Renner ended 2021 with net revenue of R$9.5 billion^[1], a 41% jump compared to 2020. One of the main factors for Renner to reach this result was the good performance on Black Friday, where digital sales have been gaining relevance.

For this, Lojas Renner considered two important objectives: to exceed expectations for millions of unique monthly visitors and to meet high peaks in access, preparing the technology for future demands, considering that:

• Latin America will have 520 million people using mobile devices by 2023, 38 million more (about 8%) than in 2018^[2];
• approximately 2.1 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2023^[3] (700 million more than in 2018); and
• 83% of consumers value experience as much as products and services^[4].

Latency and load times are common challenges for applications, especially on Black Friday, which mobilizes eight out of ten consumers^[5] and introduces hundreds of thousands of people to online shopping.

However, preparing applications to meet the demands not only in Brazil, but also in Argentina and Uruguay, countries where Lojas Renner is present, requires content delivery from a decentralized network, closer to the end user.

Solution

Like 44% of companies, Lojas Renner uses edge computing, leveraging Azion’s Edge Platform to enable the delivery of serverless applications faster than applications hosted in the cloud^[6].

Using Azion Edge Application modules, such as Application Acceleration, Image Processor and Edge Caching, as well as Edge Functions, Renner is able to:

• perform A / B tests using functions built on the network’s edge;
• provide a personalized shopping experience for each user; and
• use visual computing algorithms to optimize images.

To accelerate innovation and get the best performance that the edge has to offer, Renner’s experts rely on Azion engineers to build custom edge applications, according to their needs.

Results and Impacts

On Black Friday 2021, Renner’s edge applications received a peak of 18,200 requests per second, with only a small percentage of them accessing applications hosted on Renner’s infrastructure.

In addition, Renner optimized a large number of high resolution photographs – essential for the customer’s purchase journey – without harming their characteristics and visual quality, which helped to:

• decrease the load time of online applications;
• enable access for customers who have limited bandwidth resources, especially mobile users;
• improve the performance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization);
• reduce online advertising costs by increasing organic traffic; and
• drive sales conversions.

Since the beginning of the partnership, Azion’s support has always been available to enable projects on the edge. These projects included converting the Lojas Renner website so that both desktop and mobile devices can access responsive pages and the use of advanced Edge Application features to support the load generated by large events without impacting the source infrastructure.

About Lojas Renner

Founded in 1965, Lojas Renner SA was the first Brazilian corporation with 100% of the shares traded on the stock exchange and is listed on the Novo Mercado, the highest level among B3’s corporate governance levels. Its fashion and lifestyle ecosystem is formed by the brands: Renner, which has clothes and accessories in different styles; Camicado, a company in the home and decoration segment; Youcom, which specializes in youth fashion; and ASHUA Curve & Plus Size, which offers clothes in sizes 46 to 54. Currently, there are more than 600 stores in operation. Considering all businesses, the company also operates with Realize CFI, which supports retail activity by offering and managing financial products. In addition to being present in Brazil with all its brands, Lojas Renner SA started the internationalization process by opening Renner units in Uruguay, in 2017, and in Argentina, in 2019.