Cart.com: Redefining ecommerce with unified analytics solutions built on Google Cloud
About Cart.com
Cart.com is the leading provider of comprehensive ecommerce solutions that enable thousands of retail brands to sell and fulfill everywhere.
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About SADA
As an award-winning Google Cloud Partner, SADA helps customers boost user experiences through data, amplify their success via improved collaboration, and transform their businesses with better technology.
Cart.com helps brands of all sizes sell more across retail platforms everywhere with first-of-its-kind, integrated ecommerce analytics solutions built on Google Cloud.
Google Cloud results
- 40 million real-time events created and processed every day by Cart Pixel
- 27% to 56% average load time improvement compared to previous solution at high load
- Up to 25% average load time improvement compared to previous solution at low load
- Zero scaling errors at full load tests of 2500 virtual users thrown simultaneously at the store
Up to 20% margins increase with Cart Unified Analytics
The year 2020 brought us more than a pandemic. It brought about massive change to the way businesses operate on and offline. With increasing restrictions and case counts, people began to make more and more purchases online, forcing companies in all industries to accelerate their digital strategies. For retailers, ecommerce went from a nice-to-have to a non-negotiable for brand survival. And as customer needs shifted, so did the needs of brands themselves.
To achieve their goals and meet customers’ needs, brands needed better access to business and customer data. This necessitated streamlined systems for order management and fulfillment, and improved marketing strategies to reach their target audiences and keep up with competitors. Unable to find a platform that could do it all in one place, Cart.com decided to build its own commerce enablement engine on Google Cloud.
Launched amidst the backdrop of these uncertain times, Cart.com is a unified ecommerce platform that empowers brands not only to survive but thrive in a highly competitive retail landscape. Cart Unified Analytics offers brands a centralized interface that connects an ocean of data across marketing, storefront, fulfillment, marketplaces, and product feeds so businesses can derive actionable insights. This way, brands of all sizes can put their data assets to work to attract new customers, fulfill buyer demand, drive revenue, and simplify operations.
"Our Cart Unified Analytics platform tells you exactly what you need to do right now to improve your business operations. No one needs to manage the product or dig through all the data. We serve it to you on a silver platter, saving you time and money, and helping you grow."
—Chase Zieman, Chief Data Science Officer, Cart.comUnifying data to help brands sell more everywhere
"In the analytics space, you have one of two options: you can build the capabilities you need on your own, or you can string together existing components," says Chase Zieman, Chief Data Science Officer at Cart.com. The problem, he explains, is that only the largest players in retail can afford to build and manage an in-house data science team and tech stack. "From the middle market all the way to the enterprise markets, there is a lack of products that can holistically solve analytics needs." So, together with Google Cloud and SADA, Zieman and his team set out to build them.
SADA, a Google Cloud partner and a five-time Google Cloud Sales Partner of the Year, was engaged for the end-to-end process to list Cart.com's Unified Analytics SaaS offering on the Google Cloud Marketplace through its Marketplace Integration Services practice. Cart.com is also a member of SADA’s SaaS Alliance Program, which provides go-to-market strategy and resources for B2B SaaS ISV companies built on Google Cloud.
Cart.com relies primarily on Anthos, Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Vertex AI. Cloud SQL securely processes the significant volume of brand and shopper data generated daily, while BigQuery provides a unified data warehouse to power business decisions. GKE handles the majority of Cart.com's proprietary machine learning capabilities and supports the data mesh architecture, harmonizing data across the stack. The platform also uses out-of-the-box modeling capabilities in Vertex AI for retail solutions, such as customer segmentation and product recommendation engines. Anthos has been critical to integrations across cloud providers because of Cart.com's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategies.
"The most contributing factor to a platform company's success or failure is their data foundation and architecture," Zieman says. "We've built it the right way from the beginning, working with the best minds at Google Cloud. We had an advantage because we didn't have to deal with years and years of technical debt. We always take a technology first mindset in M&A and this enables the privilege to think blue sky and build it as we go."
The end goal is prescriptive analytics and automation: the ability to leverage data to provide brands with actionable steps to improve their operations. With Cart.com, brands don't have to spend hours figuring out if they'll see better Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS) from Facebook or TikTok. They don’t have to calculate how many units they need to transfer from the New Jersey to Phoenix fulfillment center, or if they should increase or decrease their cost-per-click on a Google Ads branded search campaign. All they have to do is log into Cart.com.
What's more: Cart Unified Analytics can be provisioned with time to value in as little as 60 minutes. "Our Cart Unified Analytics platform tells you exactly what you need to do right now to improve your business operations," says Zieman. "No one needs to manage the product or dig through all the data. We serve it to you on a silver platter, saving you time and money, and helping you grow." As a result, brands that use Cart Unified Analytics see margins increase up to 20%.
"We've built it the right way from the beginning, working with the best minds at Google Cloud. We had an advantage because we didn’t have to deal with years and years of technical debt. We always take a technology first mindset in M&A and this enables the privilege to think blue sky and build it as we go."
—Chase Zieman, Chief Data Science Officer, Cart.comCollaborating to transform the future of retail
At its core, Cart.com’s strategy is about integration. The company has made seven strategic acquisitions to date, combining products and services to build a wider, more powerful range of analytics capabilities. But even as Cart.com integrates new technologies into the mix, Zieman says it's unrealistic to expect that every brand will take advantage of the end-to-end solution. And that's okay.
"We don't need to be everything to every brand. Shopify is a great option for storefront, but we can provide you with best-in-class analytics and fulfillment capabilities you need to grow your business," he says. "We're good to be sitting at the center, as the engine syncing all of your data around your ecommerce operations and activities."
Currently, the company creates and processes approximately 40 million real-time events per day, and this rich data set provides a foundation for novel data products and R&D in Cart.com's future. The company is currently in co-development with Google Cloud on several AI projects that will be used to revolutionize retail. According to Zieman, it's a two-way relationship: Cart.com can complement its in-house solutions with exclusive access to new products, while Google Cloud can deploy those products at scale to thousands of customers through Cart.com. This collaboration supports Cart.com’s mission to democratize access to retail AI, help retailers succeed through uncertain times, and redefine how brands operate online.
"We're working on solving problems that have never been solved before," Zieman says. "It's proprietary artificial intelligence between the powerhouse of Google Cloud and Cart.com. What we're building will be digitally transformative in the retail space."
"We're working on solving problems that have never been solved before. It’s proprietary artificial intelligence between the powerhouse of Google Cloud and Cart.com. What we're building will be digitally transformative in the retail space."
—Chase Zieman, Chief Data Science Officer, Cart.comTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Cart.com
Cart.com is the leading provider of comprehensive ecommerce solutions that enable thousands of retail brands to sell and fulfill everywhere.
About SADA
As an award-winning Google Cloud Partner, SADA helps customers boost user experiences through data, amplify their success via improved collaboration, and transform their businesses with better technology.