Looking Behind the Scenes at What Powers Gilt.com
Posted: February 4, 2010 | Amanda Fildes
I enjoy an article that gives you a “sneak peak” on what it takes to power a site like Gilt.com. Most people never think about things like that (naturally I do). We just expect the site to work when we want it to work.
To those of you unfamiliar with Gilt.com, it is a membership only site that offers short term sales (usually 24 hours) on a limited amount of discounted luxury merchandise. Recently it has expanded to include a site geared to men’s apparel, a travel discount site, and a site offering emerging designer brands of apparel. Members are notified about the sales via email each day where they can log on to the site, view the merchandise, and make a purchase.
That is where the challenge lies. Each day Gilt.com accommodates large spikes of traffic activity as their customers receive their emails and logon for deals. The article explains how they have leveraged JRuby to power the seamless experience that the customers have come to expect and their business depends on. The success of their operating model depends on their customers being able to access the merchandise quickly and complete a purchase. If navigating the site and the checkout process was slow customers would quickly miss out on the fast selling merchandise and not return in the future. The fact that Gilt.com has been able to create a visually appealing and stable user interface is beneficial for getting the customers what they want immediately and keeping them coming back for more.
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