J.Crew scales e-commerce operations for seasonal rush

J. Crew has deployed a solution that enables it to better manage major seasonal spikes in online demand.

In time for the 2019 holiday season, the apparel retailer launched a “headless” e-commerce experience based on a Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform. By separating the front and back ends of its e-commerce infrastructure and linking them via API-based communication, the retailer enabled faster updates to its e-commerce front end. 

With APIs for shopping cart, checkout and promotions, the retailer could more easily enable customer-facing activities such as quickly adding items to a shopping cart, streamlining checkout, and adding any relevant promotions to a shopper’s order. J.Crew’s digital and technology teams utilized Commerce Cloud developer tools to build the APIs.

As a result, the retailer was able to withstand demand spikes more than four times what its prior legacy e-commerce infrastructure could have handled for its flagship J.Crew and Factory brand e-commerce sites.  

“J.Crew is renowned for delivering timeless classics with a look-forward twist, and we take that same approach to our technology framework. We want to leverage the elements of our infrastructure that work well for us, while integrating innovative technologies that enable much more friendly and progressive experiences,” said Michelle Garvey, CIO, J.Crew. “Integrating the state-of-the-art, API-based e-commerce platform enabled us to manage the incredible uptick in peak demand of global transactions that was crucial this holiday season.”