E-Commerce through data stream analytics in real-time

Březen 1, 2024

Founded sixteen years ago in Czechia, Famico is an e-commerce company that has since developed into one of the biggest local e-commerce Toy Store platforms. Famico administers websites like 4Kids.cz and maxikovy-hracky.cz. Famico (a part of WORMELEN Group) has received several local awards and is on track to become one of the dominant leaders in the industry. Despite their impressive success, Famico still strives to improve the way they market and distribute their products, and in their recent cooperation with LibertyAces, Famico sets the benchmark for efficiency and time-and-cost-savings in the way they do business.

“We knew we were doing a great job, but we also knew there was a lot of room for refinement”: (Roman Pecko - Famico’s Operations director)

Situation

When we first approached Famico about a year ago, we found a company that had never moved beyond the Excel sheets system. Although Excel is a powerful tool, it has frustrating limitations. With Excel, it took days to prepare data for visualisation, and calculating more complex metrics, such as individual KPI’s, was practically impossible. Through their cooperation with LibertyAces, Famico quickly realised the benefits of seeing their company through data.

Our approach

Over the last year, we have made several changes to Famico's infrastructure. First of all, we upgraded their Excel sheets system with our BitSwan environment.

We immediately started collecting all data produced and ran them through BitSwan, unifying and enriching them in the process before storing them together in ElasticSearch for further use. This vastly improved their data processing. All analyses now take a fraction of the time they used to. Thanks to these analyses we made major improvements to Famico's operations.

“We were watching stars from the Earth. Now we have a telescope and we can see details”: (Roman Pecko)

Below are example charts of real-time dashboards showing the total number of items processed in real-time. It also monitors individual employee performance, the “most-sold” goods of the day and the “most-frequented” locations in the warehouse. The warehouse manager can see all product traffic in real-time and react immediately to productivity issues—from potentially major disruptions to even minor problems. The dashboard provides the manager with actual information, much like a speedometer in your car.

Among many other critical applications, Real-time event processing determines which product is currently trending. Through careful and detailed monitoring based on these metrics, we helped restructure Famico’s warehouse itself. For example, we were able to detect the “most-visited” sections in the warehouse, and specifically identify the “hottest-trending” items. Based on this information, Famico optimised distribution of goods and prevented delays in shipment. Thanks to these metrics, Famico also made more deliberate changes to item purchasing.

Purchasing products based solely on intuition inevitably leads to the costly over-storage of stock—or even worse, the under-storage of trending items.  Over-storage of slower moving items occupies space that could be utilised for trending items. Not storing enough popular items selling results in “sold-outs” and unsatisfied customers. Real-time processing enables Famico to make hourly adjustments to their shipments, helping them to better utilise their capital.

Moreover, thanks to the flexible architecture of BitSwan, Famico’s management can add any other metrics and dashboards as they please.

“Our systems were the best in the world, their biggest problem was employees cutting corners.”: (Roman Pecko)

Another major benefit is enhancing the productivity of employees. With every seasonal event, such as Christmas, Famico hires a number of seasonal workers. The trick is in how many are exactly needed. Redundant employee time is costly; therefore, it is vital to get the ideal amount of temporary employees necessary without weighing down the payroll.

“Any employee thinking: I’ll get lost in the crowd, will be found out”: (Roman Pecko)

Real-time monitoring not only clearly identifies inefficiencies, but also benefits employees by recognising higher productivity and rewards them with bonuses accordingly. It goes without saying that being rewarded for one's productivity can be a great morale boost.

The biggest benefit of our solution is its timelessness. With BitSwan, Famico's future is settled once and for all. They are ready for the deployment of artificial intelligence and full warehouse automation.

Lastly, it is a pleasure to cooperate with Famico’s management. They have always been eager to improve in any situation.