5 Lessons Learned with Black Friday (according to an API expert)

*this post is a summary of Sensedia´s CEO, Kleber Bacili, during APIDays Paris 2018

Black Friday is a VERY busy day for Sensedia.

I would like to share here some lessons we learned during the operation of our API platform and supporting the digital strategies of our clients during this key day in their business.

To start, some interesting facts about Black Friday:

1) Black Friday is getting bigger and bigger.

Forbes has mentioned an increase of 25% in 2018 in relation to 2017. We can also see in the Google Trends graph that interest continues to rise (only in November, of course).

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2) Digital channels are playing a huge role in global online sales.

Especially if we consider not only the shopping time, but also research, comparing and decision times and, sometimes, even the time for buying and choosing the product inside the physical store.

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It is important to mention that cell phones are also playing an important role in sales performance. According to Salesforce, 49% of total orders during Black Week were made by means of mobile devices.

3) It is a Black Week, not only a Black Friday.

Most of our clients started the promotions at the beginning of the week. And they last at least until Monday – The Cyber Monday – namely the ultimate day for sales in the US this year (according to Adobe Analytics). Therefore, be aware that everything you plan for Black Friday ought to be planned for a longer period, also considering the previous week and the Cyber Monday.

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Let’s check out the Lessons Learned on Black Friday!

Lesson 1. Define your APIs

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What are its main APIs and operations? We talked with our clients and discussed the most important APIs for them. But how can we possibly figure it out?

We can take into consideration technical aspects, such as the volume of API calls or the size of the payloads. This is easy to discover. But, obviously, business aspects must also be taken into consideration. We have also asked our clients about their objectives in terms of users, volume and sales – which helped a lot to understand the operations or the sequence of API calls that affect the business most, in case something goes wrong.

Lesson 2. Simulate and optimize

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Together with our customers, we simulate traffic like Black Week, we help identify bottlenecks and optimize the user experience. E-commerce specialists are already very good at caching. However, the API layer is another very good point in which the caching strategy can help.

Lesson 3. Setting the team in the right mood

Don’t forget the coffee!

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Lesson 4. Monitoring and firefighting

With the main APIs identified, we can define specific panels and alarms for a faster and more accurate performance.

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Lesson 5. Celebrate results

Show up results. Now is the time to commemorate! \o/

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Do you want to know more? Talk to one of our specialists, just fill the form below and soon we will get in touch ;)