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Oddbins, the well-known brand of UK high-street wine shops, has upgraded its eCommerce infrastructure to a Rackspace dedicated solution, which is, according to Oddbins, five times faster than the one its previous vendor provided. The new solution offers a managed web application stack, enhanced security and the unmatched performance of a bare metal server to support the firm's ambitious growth plans for 2015, by the end of which it aims to have doubled website sales.

The technology comes with access to Rackspace 24/7/365 expertise from a team of specialists which has given the internal team peace of mind that the website will perform to a high standard so they can focus on business goals such as expanding from the 45 stores currently occupied, to over 100 by the end of next year.

Oddbins decided to change its eCommerce strategy so that these targets could be achieved, which involved looking for a new hosting provider after facing a number of challenges when working with the previous vendor. One of these problems occurred when a bottle of wine from the Oddbins range was featured on television. As several hundred viewers visited the Oddbins website to buy the product, they were unable to add it to the online shopping cart due to a problem with the infrastructure and many sales were lost as a result.

Tony Duffy, E-Commerce Manager of Oddbins says: “We had lost confidence in the website’s performance reaching the standards we expect, especially when dealing with spikes of traffic around the holiday period. This created two significant problems. One is that we lost revenue due to customers being unable to make purchases and the other is reputational damage caused by these negative experiences.”

The top three requirements that Oddbins looked for from a new hosting provider were; strong support, the capability to roll out a solution quickly and enhanced security. The support and fast provisioning were important so that the eCommerce team could start preparing for upcoming traffic spikes straight away knowing that implementation issues could be fixed without taking up much resource. Using a robust, secure solution was the other top priority because when working with the previous hosting provider, an attack on the website caused it to go down. Each of these requirements is closely identified with a Rackspace bare metal solution, so it represented an ideal solution for Oddbins.

Duffy adds: “Almost immediately, the enthusiasm and efficiency shown by the Rackspace team restored my confidence in the website being something we could be proud of while supporting our plans for growth. In the past, it was down to us to think of ideas on how to improve the site, but now we regularly receive useful insight from Rackspace, which is incredibly valuable to us. Above all, using the Rackspace solution means that we don’t have to worry about website infrastructure maintenance anymore and can instead concentrate on what we do best – selling our products.”

Jeff Cotten, MD Rackspace International comments: “We are proud to support a renowned brand like Oddbins through the holiday season into next year which will be a crucial stage of its development. Our Managed Cloud Services are making retailers feel more at ease during busy sales periods, by offering access to a team of experts who can field enquiries and monitor the website to maintain ongoing high performance. Specialist shops have huge competition from the big supermarket chains, which only increases the need for a reliable infrastructure so it can focus on new revenue opportunities. Looking forward, we are in discussions about progressing to a Hybrid Cloud next year which will continue to improve the shopping experience for the growing number of website visitors.”
www.rackspace.co.uk