The Organization

Kelkoo is a European product comparison website, which was founded in France in 1999. This comprehensive e-commerce site offers a one-stop shopping service to help customers locate, research and buy a wide variety of products. As Europe's third largest e-commerce website and one of the largest e-commerce advertising platforms in Europe, Kelkoo lists 56 million offers from 9,000 online merchants, attracting over 10 million unique users per month. Kelkoo operates in twelve countries including: UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Canada and the USA, making it the most respected comparison site in Europe.

The requirement

Traffic to Kelkoo’s online shopping site ebbs and flows with consumer demand, resulting in peaks around key shopping times such as Christmas. With a tumultuous flow of users to the Kelkoo site across the year, especially around sales periods, the hosting company needed to have the capacity and scalability to be able to support these sudden increases in traffic. This would ensure virtually no downtime on the site and an optimum page download to provide the best customer experience. “We needed a company that could rapidly meet our hosting requirements, whatever our future plans and audience growth,” said Michael Trommsdorff, CTO of Kelkoo. “The increasing number of offers and merchants Kelkoo manages, together with a growing need for more frequent product data updates, means we require a fast and scalable infrastructure. Capacity growth must be cost-effective and seemless to ensure full uptime.

The technology

Kelkoo has developed its own cutting-edge technology to reliably collect and process content from online merchants, thereby providing a unique user experience to its customers. The technology allows Kelkoo’s sites to provide accurate information on all products listed, with up to ten updates per day. The technology relies heavily on open source standards in web server, operating system and database systems. Due to its flexible approach LeaseWeb adapted its support model to fit with the organisations needs - Kelkoo functions 24/7 at the operating system and application level. LeaseWeb also handles network support, a service which was put in place during the setup phase. Now both teams work efficiently on day to day operations with robust procedures and efficient communication.

The selection process

Kelkoo was impressed with LeaseWeb’s company values and sought to match its own ambitious and efficient company mindset with LeaseWeb’s professionalism and direct approach to business. “We wanted a hosting provider that could grow our business in a professional and cost effective manner,” commented Michael Trommsdorff. “It was also essential to partner with an organisation that shares the same entrepreneurial culture as ours and that perfectly understands the requirements of a major European internet company. Leaseweb delivered a well-thought solution that met our company objectives.” “When Kelkoo requires to expand on capacity, LeaseWeb will be able to provide a solution very rapidly. With plenty of spare capacity available we were confident that growth would not be an issue for us. For our customers, an exceptional internet service is a prerequisite to a good experience on the site, which is vital to our success and growth.”

The Benefits

LeaseWeb gives Kelkoo peace of mind by providing a reliable and scalable hosting environment that allows it to focus on the number one priority - growing the business. With a network capacity of 1 terabits per second (Tbps) LeaseWeb ensures there is ample room for growth. LeaseWeb also allows for expansion on demand as there is always a substantial amount of equipment available to meet customer growth requirements. This means there is the opportunity for companies like Kelkoo to move fast and expand their current offerings. “The LeaseWeb team understands enterprise requirements and listens to our needs. LeaseWeb always provides premium services to Kelkoo, which are perfectly suited to meet our demanding requirements,” added Laurent.