Image-caching system increases sales conversion rate 15% at Altrec.com

Altrec.com, a pureplay online retailer of outdoor sports gear and apparel, is seeing increased sales activity from using a content delivery system to speed downloads for shoppers on low-bandwidth Internet connections, president, CEO and co-founder Mike Morford tells InternetRetailer.com. "Because we can serve up more pages more quickly, people are more likely to come back and buy something," he says. The system from Mirror Image Internet also cuts infrastructure costs by letting Altrec operate with fewer servers, he adds.

Altrec has been using the Mirror Image system for over a year. With a global network of web servers that operate as local content access points for shoppers, Mirror Image makes it possible for Altrec customers to download pages from a server closer to their computer than from Altrec’s servers in its home base of Seattle. "We get a lot of positive feedback from customers that our site is easier to surf, but I’m sure many customers are not even thinking about download times when they’re not waiting 60 seconds each time," Morford says.

The system also offers other advantages, he adds. "One of the biggest advantages is that we’ve not had to use as many computer servers," he says. "We host our site at a service provider who charges us by the amount of space we take up in their server room, but because our information is cached on Mirror Image servers, we don’t require as much space or bandwidth usage for our site. That reduces our hosting cost."

In addition, Altrec is better able to handle spikes in traffic whether the surges are nationwide or in isolated regions. "If something happens that causes our site to get a lot of extra attention, we can handle it," he says.

The caching system also helps Altrec provide a more consistent service to consumers who may access the web on a dial-up service at home after having surfed through a high-bandwidth line at work.