Akamai Provides a One-Stop Shop of Seamless Delivery and Security for The Very Group

The Very Group is a family of digital retail brands, including Very UK and Littlewoods UK, across fashion, electrical, home, and more. The company is always looking to improve the online ways their customers shop and pay for the products they love. We’re delighted that this innovative UK brand has been working with Akamai for more than 10 years as a one-stop shop for their delivery and security needs.

Fast and engaging online shopping

With an increasing number of retail sales made online, the internet has become a highly competitive digital High Street. But with this great number of digital retail opportunities comes great competitiveness for brands to create experiences that keep their customers happy and engaged. Today’s customers expect website delivery to be seamless and for their online shopping experience to be optimized on all devices, networks, and locations. To make the most sales, brands also need to be able to deliver rich and personalized content.

The Very Group selected Akamai more than 10 years ago to provide exactly this kind of first-class service to its customers. The relationship has been going from strength to strength and Akamai has contributed to the brand’s continued retail success. Through our bespoke delivery solutions, we have been able to continuously optimize the performance of their website properties through machine learning analysis of real-user data. We have also been able to accelerate the serving of dynamic content on any device and to keep the brand’s content fresh and engaging with web-based developer tools and APIs.

Bot protection as part of integrated security

Online shopping growth has also resulted in a greater level of security threats for consumers. For The Very Group, as well as for any other respected online retailers, it is essential to keep customers secure while they enjoy first-class shopping experiences. And this is another key aspect of the partnership with Akamai. We make it possible for the brand to stay safe without slowing down. Through our integrated end-to-end security solutions, we surround their entire online ecosystem and provide intelligent end-to-end protection.

One of the most common threats these days is bots. During a flash sale, a website may receive 50 times more traffic during a 15-minute interval than they do at other times. The majority of these visitors may be bots that purchase all the stock with their controllers, then list it for resale on secondary marketplaces. This can result in a 500% mark-up or more. In a world in which the customer is king, this can backfire on the retailers. Such an inflation in price might make their customers turn away from them, not to mention give them a feeling of frustration at missing out. Akamai is helping The Very Group protect themselves against unknown bots using artificial intelligence models for user behavior analysis, browser fingerprinting, and more. We trick bots with fake content, which slows them down and protects the brand’s popularity with its customers.

Speaking about the collaboration with Akamai, Alan Stubbs, Information Security Operations Manager at The Very Group, said, “Our relationship with Akamai has been extremely fruitful over the past 10 years. We see the Akamai team as an extension of our own as they provide excellent, around-the-clock support that makes it possible for our own operations to run as smoothly as our customers expect them to. In fact, one of the largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products praised our site for its reliability and bot-proof operations in selling their goods. None of this would be possible without Akamai, and we look forward to continuing to deliver the best shopping experiences for our customers together over the next decade.”