CASE STUDY

At a Glance

COMPANY: Bally

FOUNDED: 1851

HEADQUARTERS: Switzerland

INDUSTRY: Retail

CDNETWORKS SERVICES: China Acceleration, Content Acceleration

Key Results

Reduced page download times by 81%

Reduced the total data transferred by 97% on origin boosting the reliability

and uptime of the website

Content acceleration has enabled Bally to quickly scale up the site’s capacity during busy periods such as Chinese

New Year

Swiss luxury retail brand Bally boosts online presence in China with CDNetworks ____ “Bally has reduced page download times for Chinese end users by a

staggering 81% and reduced the total data transferred by 97% on origin”

____ Bally, the luxury leather goods brand synonymous with quality and elegance, was founded in Switzerland in 1851. Known for its shoes and accessories, Bally’s collections combine sophisticated style with the highest quality craftsmanship and finest materials.

Today Bally has emerged as the longest running global luxury brand in the world, over 160 years, with business continuing to go from strength to strength every year.

Bally was one of the first luxury brands to capitalise on the opportunities offered by the Chinese market. The country’s high-income earners now spend more on luxury products than affluent consumers in any other market. Some 27% of all luxury shoes, handbags, jewellery and other goods are today bought by the Chinese. In 2015, Chinese shoppers will account for 34% of all luxury items.

Despite the global economic slowdown, the Chinese feel confident about their future financial prospects, with around three quarters of affluent households believing that their income will continue to increase significantly in the next five years.

These figures by McKinsey highlight the huge potential that the Chinese markets represent for luxury brands in and outside of China. And, as the global online retail market continues to grow, now is the time for forward thinking luxury brands to make the move to Chinese ecommerce.

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The Challenge

Bally, the Swiss luxury leather goods brand, was amongst the first high-end brands to realise the potential of the increasingly affluent Chinese market. Since launching the first shop in Hong Kong in 1978 and Beijing in 1986, Bally has expanded its presence in the country to 60, with 51 boutiques in mainland China and 9 in Hong Kong. To further capitalise on the business opportunities in the country, Bally introduced a dedicated Chinese website, www.bally.cn , in 2011. The website, featuring high-resolution images and videos of Bally’s high-end shoes, handbags and accessories, brings the company’s trademark products to the fingertips of China’s growing population of high-income earners.

Despite the opportunities offered by the Chinese market, ecommerce in the country poses a few challenges too.

Due to the ‘Great Firewall’ implemented by the Chinese government, companies such as Bally need to be aware of its restrictions and localise their content, not only regarding language, but also photography and site layout.

Chinese geography can also prove problematic. Despite a high level of Internet penetration in the biggest cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, there are areas where telecommunications infrastructure is in need of an upgrade to meet the demands of the growing digital economy. China’s Internet infrastructure has limited peering points and fragmented network topology, which can result in patchy connectivity and slow page download speeds for web users.

To break down these barriers and to ensure that the user experience delivered by www.bally.cn would meet the expectations of discerning Chinese shoppers, Bally turned to CDNetworks to boost the performance of the brand website.

The Solution: delivering a luxurious online experience with CDNetworks Bally uses CDNetworks’ content acceleration service to optimise www.bally.cn and improve web performance for its customers. The company has also tapped into CDNetworks’ China Acceleration service, a state-of-the-art content distribution infrastructure across 25 points of presence (PoPs) in mainland China. The China Acceleration service has been designed for the country’s specific network requirements, routes content and applications for optimal delivery with minimal latency across the public Internet to Chinese end users. It has reduced page download times by a staggering 81% and reduced the total data transferred by 97% on origin. This has boosted the reliability and uptime of the website because CDNetworks will keep the site running even if the origin goes down.

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Features and specifications subject to change without

notice.

Total traffic: data transferred

Data transferred has been reduced by 97% on origin leading to savings on Bally’s local ISP and increasing reliability and website uptime.

Content acceleration has enabled Bally to quickly scale up the site’s capacity during busy periods such as Chinese New Year, and to prevent transactional delays caused by unreliable, transient network conditions, which could have a serious impact on the company’s e-sales.

The use of CDNetworks’ technologies guarantees not only faster site navigation, but also that high-bandwidth content such as product images or catwalk videos on www.bally.cn can be accessed without delay or jitter at all times, ensuring customer satisfaction.

About Bally Innovation. Functionality. Elegance. Since 1851, these three principals have symbolised the enduring pioneer spirit of founder Carl Franz Bally – an ethos that continues to imbue this uniquely Swiss brand with its visionary commitment to cutting-edge techniques and world-class craftsmanship. For more than 160 years, leather has remained Bally’s medium and inspiration; a fine natural material that serves both functionality and creativity. In 1976, Bally extended its shoe collections to include handbags, leather accessories and outstanding ready-to-wear pieces, with every product testament to Bally’s passion for perfection: the punctuation of a brogue; the soft touch of a bag’s leather; the classic silhouette of a sartorial jacket; the elegant contour of a Bally heel. Today, as part of the LABELUX Group, a leading player in the international luxury market, Bally Switzerland

About CDNetworks CDNetworks enables Global Cloud Acceleration. Our mission is to transform the Internet into a secure, reliable, scalable and high performing Application Delivery Network. CDNetworks’ unique position as the only multinational CDN with expertise and infrastructure in China, Russia and other emerging markets, enables us to be trusted partners in local markets, while serving as foremost experts on extending into global markets. Accelerating more than 40,000 global websites and cloud services over our 140 PoPs, CDNetworks serves our e-business customers across industries like finance, travel, eCommerce, learning management, high tech, manufacturing and media. CDNetworks has been serving our enterprise customers for more than 13 years, and has offices in the U.S., Korea, China, Japan, and the UK. www.cdnetworks.com

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