Bally, the luxury leather goods brand synonymous with quality and elegance, was founded in Switzerland in 1851. Bally was one of the first luxury brands to capitalise on the opportunities offered by the Chinese market. The country’s high-income earners now spend more on luxury products than affluent consumers in any other market. The website, featuring high-resolution images and videos of Bally’s high-end shoes, handbags and accessories, brings the company’s trademark products to the fingertips of China’s growing population of high-income earners. Despite the opportunities offered by the Chinese market, ecommerce in the country poses a few challenges too. Read the case study to find out: How they overcame performance issues with the “great firewall” and other legal hurdles in China How they decreased page load times by 81% How they increased capacity and boosted the reliability and uptime of the website How they saved money spent with their local ISP The China Acceleration service from CDNetworks has been designed for the country’s specific network requirements, routes content and applications for optimal delivery with minimal latency across the public Internet to Chinese end users. If you would like further information regarding our China Acceleration service please go here or contact us today.

1. CASE STUDY
Swiss luxury retail brand Bally boosts online presence in
China with CDNetworks
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“Bally has reduced page download times for Chinese end users by a
At a Glance
COMPANY: Bally
FOUNDED: 1851
HEADQUARTERS: Switzerland
INDUSTRY: Retail
CDNETWORKS SERVICES: China Acceleration,
Content Acceleration
Key Results
Reduced page download
times by 81%
Reduced the total data transferred by
97% on origin boosting the reliability
and uptime of the website
Content acceleration has enabled Bally
to quickly scale up the site’s capacity
during busy periods such as Chinese
New Year
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staggering 81% and reduced the total data transferred by 97% on origin”
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Bally, the luxury leather goods brand synonymous with quality and elegance, was
founded in Switzerland in 1851. Known for its shoes and accessories, Bally’s collections
combine sophisticated style with the highest quality craftsmanship and finest materials.
Today Bally has emerged as the longest running global luxury brand in the world, over
160 years, with business continuing to go from strength to strength every year.
Bally was one of the first luxury brands to capitalise on the opportunities offered by the
Chinese market. The country’s high-income earners now spend more on luxury products
than affluent consumers in any other market. Some 27% of all luxury shoes, handbags,
jewellery and other goods are today bought by the Chinese. In 2015, Chinese shoppers
will account for 34% of all luxury items.
Despite the global economic slowdown, the Chinese feel confident about their future
financial prospects, with around three quarters of affluent households believing that
their income will continue to increase significantly in the next five years.
These figures by McKinsey highlight the huge potential that the Chinese markets
represent for luxury brands in and outside of China. And, as the global online retail
market continues to grow, now is the time for forward thinking luxury brands to make
the move to Chinese ecommerce.
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2. The Challenge
Bally, the Swiss luxury leather goods brand, was amongst the first high-end brands to
realise the potential of the increasingly affluent Chinese market. Since launching the
first shop in Hong Kong in 1978 and Beijing in 1986, Bally has expanded its presence in
the country to 60, with 51 boutiques in mainland China and 9 in Hong Kong. To further
capitalise on the business opportunities in the country, Bally introduced a dedicated
Chinese website, www.bally.cn , in 2011. The website, featuring high-resolution images
and videos of Bally’s high-end shoes, handbags and accessories, brings the company’s
trademark products to the fingertips of China’s growing population of high-income
earners.
Despite the opportunities offered by the Chinese market, ecommerce in the country
poses a few challenges too.
Due to the ‘Great Firewall’ implemented by the Chinese government, companies such as
Bally need to be aware of its restrictions and localise their content, not only regarding
language, but also photography and site layout.
Chinese geography can also prove problematic. Despite a high level of Internet
penetration in the biggest cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, there are areas
where telecommunications infrastructure is in need of an upgrade to meet the demands
of the growing digital economy. China’s Internet infrastructure has limited peering
points and fragmented network topology, which can result in patchy connectivity and
slow page download speeds for web users.
To break down these barriers and to ensure that the user experience delivered by
www.bally.cn would meet the expectations of discerning Chinese shoppers, Bally
turned to CDNetworks to boost the performance of the brand website.
The Solution: delivering a luxurious online experience with CDNetworks
Bally uses CDNetworks’ content acceleration service to optimise www.bally.cn and
improve web performance for its customers. The company has also tapped into
CDNetworks’ China Acceleration service, a state-of-the-art content distribution
infrastructure across 25 points of presence (PoPs) in mainland China. The China
Acceleration service has been designed for the country’s specific network requirements,
routes content and applications for optimal delivery with minimal latency across the
public Internet to Chinese end users. It has reduced page download times by a
staggering 81% and reduced the total data transferred by 97% on origin. This has
boosted the reliability and uptime of the website because CDNetworks will keep the site
running even if the origin goes down.
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3. CDNetworks
Global Offices
US
441 W. Trimble Road
San Jose, CA 95131
+1 408 228 3700
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Juxon House
100 St Paul’s Churchyard
London, EC4M 8BU
+44 203 514 7501
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Handong Bldg. 2F,828-7
Yeoksam-Dong, Gangnam-Gu
135-935 Seoul
+82 2 3441 0400
Japan
Nittochi Nishi-shinjuku Building
8th Floor, 6-10-1, Nishishinjuku,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023
+81 3 5909 3369
China
Room No.A-1502,
Keijidalou, 900 Yi shan Road, Shanghai
+ 021-54234802
info@cdnetworks.com
www.cdnetworks.com
© CDNetworks.
All rights reserved.
Features and specifications
subject to change without
notice.
CDNetworks | 3
Total traffic: data transferred
Data transferred has been reduced by 97% on origin leading to savings on Bally’s local
ISP and increasing reliability and website uptime.
Content acceleration has enabled Bally to quickly scale up the site’s capacity during busy
periods such as Chinese New Year, and to prevent transactional delays caused by
unreliable, transient network conditions, which could have a serious impact on the
company’s e-sales.
The use of CDNetworks’ technologies guarantees not only faster site navigation, but also
that high-bandwidth content such as product images or catwalk videos on www.bally.cn
can be accessed without delay or jitter at all times, ensuring customer satisfaction.
About Bally
Innovation. Functionality. Elegance. Since 1851, these three principals have
symbolised the enduring pioneer spirit of founder Carl Franz Bally – an ethos that
continues to imbue this uniquely Swiss brand with its visionary commitment to
cutting-edge techniques and world-class craftsmanship. For more than 160 years,
leather has remained Bally’s medium and inspiration; a fine natural material that
serves both functionality and creativity. In 1976, Bally extended its shoe collections to
include handbags, leather accessories and outstanding ready-to-wear pieces, with
every product testament to Bally’s passion for perfection: the punctuation of a
brogue; the soft touch of a bag’s leather; the classic silhouette of a sartorial jacket;
the elegant contour of a Bally heel. Today, as part of the LABELUX Group, a leading
player in the international luxury market, Bally Switzerland
About CDNetworks
CDNetworks enables Global Cloud Acceleration. Our mission is to transform the
Internet into a secure, reliable, scalable and high performing Application Delivery
Network. CDNetworks’ unique position as the only multinational CDN with expertise
and infrastructure in China, Russia and other emerging markets, enables us to be
trusted partners in local markets, while serving as foremost experts on extending into
global markets. Accelerating more than 40,000 global websites and cloud services
over our 140 PoPs, CDNetworks serves our e-business customers across industries
like finance, travel, eCommerce, learning management, high tech, manufacturing and
media. CDNetworks has been serving our enterprise customers for more than 13
years, and has offices in the U.S., Korea, China, Japan, and the UK.
www.cdnetworks.com
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