Copyright © Emerce 2023

Sporting goods manufacturer PUMA is transferring several parts of its e-commerce system, including its website, to Google Cloud.

Pancho Ortuzar, director of Global E-Commerce Engineering at says in a press release, "The migration of our e-commerce infrastructure to Google Cloud accelerates efforts to make our direct-to-consumer channels a key driver of overall business growth."

As ringing as that sounds, there is a wry truth hidden beneath Ortuzar's words. E-commerce grew less than all sales through owned stores in the year 2023, 15 percent versus 17.5 percent. And that's even though leadership says consumers are starting to noticeably prefer digital buying. PUMA is lagging behind changing customer behavior.

Direct sales amounted to 2.1 billion euros last year
and are a slightly declining portion of group sales:

With Google, PUMA is now looking for the way up. The results of the transition sound encouraging. "This includes a nineteen percent increase in average order value, thanks to the use of Google Analytics and BigQuery to better tailor content to customers. In addition, with Apigee and BigQuery, PUMA can access real-time inventory levels up to four times faster, so customers can find exactly the products they want to buy in the nearest stores."

Infrastructure digitization is now one of the sports manufacturer's six strategic pillars.

Otherwise, the annual report does not sound much prominent in terms of e-commerce. In terms of digitalization, the leadership refers mainly to the HR branch, where many processes have been automated. Furthermore, digital supplier payments are now widely implemented.

Photo: Andy Wright (cc)

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