Retail Finds Its Way In The Cloud

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Thousands of businesses have closed their doors since the spring as shopping and consumer habits abruptly shift to mostly online. A welcome lifeline, cloud computing solutions have helped businesses large and small adapt to new shopping demands and a crowded online marketplace.

By Poornima Apte, Contributor

Retailers like One Girl Cookies in New York took a beating during the COVID-19-induced shutdown. More than 70,000 U.S. small businesses have closed since March, according to a Yelp economic impact report, but a Brooklyn-based initiative is providing a welcome lifeline: CinchMarket.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData’s retail division, finds this adaptation how to get vietnam number for whatsapp the COVID-19 pandemic particularly impressive. “For some of these retailers it may have been difficult [to execute a response on their own], but coming together creates advantages of scale and a strong online presence,” says Saunders.

Saunders believes the pandemic is accelerating these digital solutions for retail. Whether it’s ideas like Cinch or simply the movement of smaller retailers online, more small stores are embracing e-commerce and, by extension, the cloud.

The growing opportunities of the Cloud
Cloud computing is the use of computing power on demand without the need for direct maintenance. Cloud computing customers can simply rent the resources from providers rather than owning them.

Any type of e-commerce needs computing power. Traditionally, retailers purchased and serviced servers in a data center they owned. On-prem servers offer many advantages, including tighter control of resources. But they also require in-house expertise. Cloud computing, on the other hand, frees the retailer from the hassle of maintaining and upkeep of computing resources.

This approach is especially attractive to small retailers who lack the in-house know-how to perform high-capacity IT calisthenics, who are on a tight deadline, or who are building an online channel because they realize they can’t stay strictly on the ground floor if they want to survive. Shopify, a company that helps small retailers set up online stores, hosts its solutions in the cloud. In just over a month, between March 13 and April 24, new stores grew on the platform by 62 percent.

“E-commerce has become a much more important tool for retailers to use during the pandemic to try to keep business going. So those who were on the edge have suddenly been pushed to the edge and the decision has been made for them,” says Saunders of the pandemic-driven shift in online commerce and cloud computing.

The global retail cloud computing market was on track to grow even before the pandemic, and is expected to reach $28.53 billion by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate of 20.9 percent.

Advantages of the cloud in Retail
Cloud computing has many advantages for all retailers, including small and medium-sized retailers in many industries. For one, the solutions are easily scalable.

Imagine small retailers preparing for holiday shopping. They would first have to forecast traffic based on past analysis and expected behavior, which will likely be especially challenging during COVID-19 times. Retailers then invest in extra IT capacity if needed to accommodate that shopping traffic. For the rest of the year, these servers are at risk of going down. If retailers use the cloud, they can scale IT capacity up or down depending on the traffic their e-commerce sites see. They pay for what they need. Retailer Etsy, for example, saw a surge in consumers searching for masks during the pandemic. In its second quarter, the online artisan marketplace sold 29 million masks. The company credits the cloud for its ability to handle and benefit from the increased traffic.

An added benefit of the cloud: disaster preparedness. The brightest promise of online shopping — 24/7 availability — is worthless if your website is down. By manipulating the cloud in a premeditated way, retailers are at the mercy of power outages, hurricanes or other disasters. Cloud computing, meanwhile, stores backups in multiple redundant locations, so that even if one data center is affected, business is not interrupted. The cloud makes disaster recovery easier for smaller retailers, since they can rely on IT experts who understand backup services.

Cloud computing is also made for the way business is done today. Since we never know when the next black swan event like a pandemic will strike, retailers need flexible digital solutions. Cloud computing is made to take on as much or as little of retailers’ digital needs as they choose. Merchants can do the bare minimum or use the cloud’s endless computing resources to increase the scope of their ambitions.

Without Limitations
The big players in retail have already been realising their ambitions, such as high-octane data analytics, for some time now. No longer constrained by the limits of computing capabilities, mega online retailers collect the digital crumbs left behind by customers and slice and dice that data to offer personalised recommendations and drive even more sales.

Even during the pandemic, the cloud has helped big retailers boost their online presence. Saunders notes that Best Buy quickly added curbside pickup and online appointment consultations to its list of services. Williams Sonoma also offered online design consultations and ways for customers to evaluate design plans virtually. These services helped these retailers quickly pivot to a new approach to selling. The digital resources these retailers leaned on… Cloud computing.

Digital jiu-jitsu doesn’t have to be the purview of big-name heavyweights. Smaller retailers can also use AI-based algorithms to personalize offers to customers and potentially boost revenue, especially if they’re part of larger marketplaces like those offered by Amazon or Walmart, Saunders says.

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Above all, moving to cloud-powered e-commerce has democratized retail, Saunders says. “What we’re seeing now is a leveling of the playing field. Because online gives everyone the opportunity to market themselves.” “E-commerce is not a replacement for a physical store. It’s an additive,” Saunders says. “Customers shop across both channels seamlessly. That’s a very important lesson coming out of this pandemic.” And the cloud helps retailers keep track of it all.

The e-commerce and cloud pivot is here to stay, Saunders believes, and is allowing more fish to swim in the lucrative waters of e-commerce. “The pandemic has made retail more competitive, but it’s also making it much more democratic.”