Virtual retailer bows out of Linux/Apache solution

“The biggest mistake we made was thinking we needed to build everything ourselves, rather than taking advantage of the wealth of functionality and expertise already built into the Microsoft platform,” says Jalem Getz, president of BuySeasons, a major Internet retailer that switched to the Windows platform after losing an estimated $1 million in sales. BuySeasons launched its first virtual storefront after eight months of development with Linux and Apache, the most popular Open Source software for delivering Web pages to Internet browsers.

“The software was really only up to beta quality at the time,” Getz said. BuySeasons sells high-margin seasonal merchandise through branded e-commerce sites. It makes most of its money in the three months preceding Halloween. As the season progressed, the company’s systems were unable to keep up with the 62,000 customers visiting the site daily. “We were not able to scale,” Getz recalled. Customers experienced poor site performance and were unable to make purchases. The demand on customer service representatives required the firm to increase its staffing by 300 percent.

After their Linux solution failed to scale up, BuySeasons switched to the Microsoft platform. Getz said the Microsoft platform provided “all the functionality we wanted” and some additional features “we hadn’t thought of” that provided additional benefits to the business. Four months after developing functional specifications, BuySeasons deployed a new solution a month ahead of schedule. According to Getz, the company now has the agility to launch new virtual storefronts in a matter of weeks rather than months, and can easily handle additional shoppers as business grows.