The November 22 wrap-up: Here's what you missed

Black Week, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday have come and gone. We hope you can take a few moments to catch your breath before the holiday shopping season begins for real.?

We wrap up the month with some news and opinions. First, our CEO Kristian Tysander speaks about hard lessons learned. It's an interesting story about how Brink Commerce came to be and how to create something that doesn't crash during Black Week.

Enjoy!

Sorry you crashed during Black Week! We did too once (or twice). And we fixed it.

Black Friday, or rather Black Week, is obviously eCommerce's most important event of the year. I hope you made it through ok!?

Unfortunately, for most eCommerce managers and CTOs, it's as far as you can come from a stress-free week. Why? Because a weak technical setup will cause crashes. Some brands try to play it off as proof of their popularity, but crashes mean downtime and, in turn, lost revenue and customers. It's never a good thing. And being in the middle of it, frantically trying to get systems up and running again, is eCommerce's version of hell.

I know. I've been there, more than once.?

In an earlier life, I was the CTO at Daniel Wellington, a hyper-growth company selling to all corners of the world. So naturally, the tech stack was my responsibility. My team and I had to work with what was available back then, and we prepared the best we could for various campaigns. We tinkered and tailored, allocating massive infrastructure capacity and monitoring (which generated increased cost) in preparation. But, sometimes, even that wasn't enough.?

Singles Day is, without a doubt, the most critical eCommerce event in China. For our first one, we thought we were prepared. We were not.?

When thousands of consumers simultaneously hit the buy button, no tech stack available at the time could withstand the pressure. As a result, every monitoring system we had active went blank. For a second, we thought Europe had lost its connection to Asia. A bit self-centered and maybe ignorant to think the global internet backbone would fail before our systems would. But it turned out the monolithic eCommerce platform we were using had crashed. It managed to register 291 orders in the database during 30 seconds before it crashed.

The campaign failed. Miserably.?

We realized we had to take a step back and figure out what to do since we already had evaluated every relevant platform. We had to find new technology to help us build something that didn’t exist yet. We didn't know it, but it was there and then my co-founders and I started planning and building what was to become Brink Commerce API.?

We built it based on lessons we learned the hard way:

Lesson 1: Understand your customers

This is key; you must know what drives and motivates them to anticipate their actions. For example, are they willing to stand in line for something (please don't add a queueing system!), or does exclusivity trigger them? Where are they? When do they shop? And so on. Based on this, you can optimize your capacity.??

Lesson 2: Build to scale. Not just in theory but in practice.?

It goes without saying; if your infrastructure can scale automatically, you will feel less stress. So we built Brink Commerce API on serverless infrastructure, which enables us to scale up within milliseconds. For example, one of our customers previously experienced crashes every time they did a major product drop. Now, they sell thousands of products within the first seconds and minutes. Yet, they haven't crashed once since they switched to us (knock on wood!). This is just one real-world example.?

Lesson 3: Leverage multiple composable providers instead of relying on just one

But no chain is stronger than its weakest link. Brink Commerce API is just one of the vital components in an eCommerce operation. To avoid crashing, you need all the players on the field to be world-class. So, my advice is to stay away from do-it-all platforms. They have all the functions available, but no individual part is optimized or cutting-edge. It's too expensive or difficult to achieve. They're also often built using legacy technology.?

Instead, create your own ecosystem with best-of-breed options. There's a reason why something is seen as the best. It's usually built to handle one thing only - and do it exceptionally well. So while building Brink Commerce API, we realized we wanted to avoid creating a monolith that would handle everything. Instead, we wanted to enable our customers to use whatever components that were best for them, together with Brink Commerce API.?

Since no chain is stronger than its weakest link is true, our philosophy is to enable customers to switch the weakest link to something stronger continuously.

Lesson 4: Be close to customers

Geographical distance matters more than you think. If your customers are in the USA, set up a presence there, and make sure your PSP does too. When the volume is high, small increases in load times will compound over time, causing increased wait times and, eventually, a crash. So we ensured that Brink Commerce API could run in parallel in several data centers across the globe.?

Lesson 5: Build sustainable?

Sustainability, as in good for the planet, was obviously essential to us when we started building. It still is. But we also wanted to create something sustainable for the wallet AND your business' future. Future-proofing the eCommerce operation is crucial to handle coming campaigns, not to mention constantly changing consumer behavior and upcoming trends. With a Composable Commerce approach, you will be ready for the following Black Friday. And the next ones after that.

Having built it this way, I'm happy to report that we haven't had even a second of downtime since we first launched Brink Commerce API (again, knock on wood!). Take a look at our status page to see for yourself. And get in touch if you want to know more.?

Now, on to the holiday shopping season. Best of luck!

/Kristian Tysander

A stress-free Black Week - 0 milliseconds of downtime ????

We are happy to report that our merchants were able to give their customers an outstanding, crash-free Black Week experience across the board. Brink Commerce API ran like (a modern version of) clockwork all week, with 0 milliseconds of downtime.

For example, we reached out to one of our customers during the most hectic hours to check in. The reply says it all.

Customers are going global

Earlier this month, we had a look at the last 90 days to see how many countries some of our customers are reaching. You can see the original post via the link below, but here are some quick stats:

• Total countries with orders: 49
• Continents with orders: 6 out of 7
• Largest continent by number of orders: Europe
• Largest country by number of orders: Germany

New customers

We welcome some new great brands to the Brink Commerce family, namely Y/ELM+, Cavour, and Axel Arigato.

The Y/ELM+ project is a collaboration with our partner World-360 and they are already live with their new composable commerce ecosystem. Take a look at the new site at https://www.yelmprotection.com/

CAVOUR just joined the Brink Commerce family and will launch their new site in the near future. Want to start your new journey in style right away? Take a look at their current site at https://cavour.co/.

Lastly, at the beginning of November, global lifestyle brand Axel Arigato launched their new composable commerce ecosystem with Brink Commerce API as the foundation. Take a look at this awesome brand at https://axelarigato.com/

Brink Commerce is working on a whole new set of features to increase flexibility and let our merchants stay at the helm of their growth journey.

Store Management

Creating and configuring your stores or sell-to markets is key to selling online. While our merchants aim to be global, localizing the customer journey at every touch point becomes crucial to success. Brink Commerce API is therefore adding a set of new features within the store concept to enable further global-local (so to speak) growth:

• StoreGroup?- By adding the concept of StoreGroup to store management, we allow for multiple sales channels independent of Product, Price, Country, Warehousing (or inventory), and Customer. You are in charge of customizing your commercial conditions at any given point in time.
• StoreMarket?- Create and manage your markets and ensure you offer the localized experience your customers require. Set up taxes, prices, and inventory on a per-country level. Offer local payment methods, shipping, and communications.

While Brink is busy building a world-class product for your global growth, we depend on customer feedback. Greatness is achieved by working together! So if you have a request, feedback on a feature, or want to drop some kudos, feel free to send us an email at [email protected].

Interested in B2B? We've got your back (soon)!

We are also adding a whole new set of capabilities for our B2B offering. During Q1 2023, we will release the world’s best B2B commerce solution (according to us). Coupled with our B2C solutions, our customers will have all the tools they need for hyper-growth.

A teaser selection of capabilities:

• Create and manage pricing dependent on B2B Sales
• Specific payment methods for B2B
• B2B tax capabilities
• B2B-specific storefronts, ability to handle complex franchise setups
• Flexible tiering, customer segmentation
• Bespoke pricing
• Bulk ordering
• Logged-in mode or direct integration
• Multiple warehouse sourcing

Have a great rest of the week!

/The Brink Commerce Team