Takealot.com, launched in June 2011, is the leading e-commerce retailer in South Africa and a prominent player in the South African market. The company has rapidly expanded its operations, establishing warehouses in Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town and diversifying its product range across 21 departments, including electronics, lifestyle, media & gaming, and fashion. Takealot.com focuses on delivering exceptional customer experiences from the first interaction to the final delivery. The company's dedication to customer satisfaction and innovation has made it a trusted and popular choice for online shopping in the region.

Challenge

Takealot.com required a robust system to handle its complex logistics operations due to prioritizing minimizing lead times to customers and the high costs associated with third-party logistics providers. Based on a Postgres database with a graph database plugin, the existing system was inadequate, especially as the company scaled. To overcome these issues, it migrated to Cassandra. However, as years passed, it became evident that a more scalable, flexible, and reliable database solution was necessary to support its expanding logistics network. This move was essential to manage the increasing volumes and the complexity of routing deliveries through multiple hubs with varied capabilities.

Solution

Takealot.com’s use of Apache Cassandra influenced its migration to DataStax Astra DB on Google Cloud. Astra DB appealed to the Takealot.com team due to its compatibility, managed services, and scalability features, which directly addressed the growing complexity and volume of the company’s operational data. It enabled them to focus more on application development and less on database management.

Astra DB on Google Cloud enables seamless integration with other Google Cloud services that Takealot uses. These services include Google Pub/Sub for event streaming, Cloud SQL for additional databases, BigQuery for data analytics and reporting, and Cloud Storage for file storage. By combining Astra DB with these services, Takealot has created a scalable, integrated data platform to drive logistics operations. This approach has improved performance, reduced costs compared to prior self-hosted solutions, and provided the flexibility to customize and expand their solution as needed.

"With Astra DB on Google Cloud, we've scaled our logistics management operations to meet growing business demands without increasing our cloud costs,” said Filipe Teixeira, Senior Director of Software Engineering at Takealot.com. “Astra DB as a managed service removes the operational overhead of self-managing Cassandra, while Google Cloud's integration and ease of use have simplified our data platform development. This has accelerated our ability to optimize customer delivery experiences through data-driven insights."

Impact

The scalability of Astra DB has empowered Takealot.com to manage the growing data volume from their expanding e-commerce activities without sacrificing performance. This capability has been crucial for handling the complexities of their logistics and delivery systems, ensuring timely and accurate service delivery to customers.

Astra DB’s managed service model has significantly alleviated the burden of database management from Takealot.com’s IT team. This shift has enabled the team to focus on innovation and enhancing user functionalities, directly impacting customer satisfaction and operational agility. The swift deployment of Astra DB, with a proof of concept set up in under a week and full migration executed in less than a month, demonstrates its ease of integration and compatibility with existing systems. These factors have streamlined backend processes and bolstered Takealot.com’s growth trajectory, enabling more efficient management of an increasingly complex data environment—essential for staying competitive in the fast-paced e-commerce sector. Takealot.com estimates saving thousands annually by switching to Astra DB from self-hosted Cassandra.

What’s next

Takealot plans to advance its use of AI to improve customer experience and streamline operations. The company is exploring Astra DB’s vector search capabilities. Implementing an AI chatbot for support and intelligent query routing is a key priority.

Takealot.com's adoption of Astra DB has significantly enhanced its ability to manage complex logistics operations across its e-commerce platforms. Astra DB has streamlined the company’s backend processes and supported its growth trajectory by enabling efficient management of a large and increasingly complex data environment.