AppDynamics & Breyer: Ensuring a Smooth Ride for Collectors & Creators – A Performance Story

San Francisco, CA – October 26, 2023 – AppDynamics, the observability leader, today highlighted how its platform is helping Breyer Model Horses, the iconic creators of realistic horse models, ensure a seamless online experience for its passionate community of collectors, particularly during peak sales periods. Based in Peoria, Illinois, Breyer has been crafting beautifully detailed model horses for over 70 years, evolving from a model horse manufacturer into a lifestyle brand with a huge online presence. But keeping up with demand and a growing digital audience requires more than just skilled craftsmanship – it demands rock-solid application performance. For Breyer, selling these collectible horses isn’t just about transactions; it's about fostering a community. Fans eagerly await new releases, participate in online events, and share their collections. A slow website, a failed transaction, or a glitchy experience during a limited-edition drop can quickly turn excitement into frustration. That’s where AppDynamics comes in. “We’ve seen tremendous growth online, and with that comes the need to make sure our website and applications can handle the load,” explains Sarah Miller, Head of E-commerce at Breyer. “Our collectors are really engaged, and they expect a great experience. Anything less, and we risk losing them. We needed to proactively understand what was happening under the hood, before our customers noticed a problem.” The Challenge: Keeping Up with the Herd Breyer’s e-commerce platform is the heart of its online business, handling everything from product browsing and ordering to account management and customer support. However, like many rapidly growing businesses, Breyer faced challenges in maintaining consistent performance as traffic surged, especially during new product launches and holiday seasons. Identifying the root cause of slowdowns wasn’t always easy. Was it a database issue? A network problem? A glitch in the code? Traditional monitoring tools just weren’t giving them the visibility they needed. “Before AppDynamics, we were mostly reacting to problems after they happened,” Miller says. “We’d get an alert that the website was slow, and then we’d scramble to figure out what was going on. It was a lot of guesswork and firefighting.” The manual process was time-consuming and often led to prolonged outages, impacting sales and damaging customer satisfaction. Plus, understanding the impact of performance issues on actual business transactions – like completed orders or abandoned shopping carts – was difficult. AppDynamics to the Rescue: A Real-Time View of Performance Breyer implemented AppDynamics’ full-stack observability platform to gain deep visibility into the performance of its e-commerce applications. AppDynamics automatically discovers and maps the entire application landscape, providing a clear understanding of how different components interact. “What really stood out about AppDynamics was its ability to trace transactions from end to end,” Miller explains. “We can see exactly where a slowdown is occurring, whether it’s in the front-end, the back-end, or a third-party service. It's like having a magnifying glass on every part of our application.” Here’s how AppDynamics is helping Breyer: Proactive Problem Detection: AppDynamics’ AI-powered anomaly detection identifies performance issues before they impact customers. The system learns the normal behavior of the application and alerts the team to any deviations, allowing them to address problems quickly. Fast Root Cause Analysis: When an issue does occur, AppDynamics’ transaction tracing and code-level diagnostics pinpoint the exact line of code causing the slowdown. This dramatically reduces the time it takes to identify and resolve problems. “We’ve gone from spending hours troubleshooting issues to resolving them in minutes,” Miller says. Business Transaction Monitoring: AppDynamics doesn’t just monitor technical metrics; it also tracks key business transactions, like completed orders and abandoned shopping carts. This allows Breyer to understand the business impact of performance issues and prioritize fixes accordingly. For example, if AppDynamics detects a slowdown in the checkout process that’s leading to abandoned carts, the team can immediately investigate and resolve the issue. Scalability & Performance Optimization: By understanding how the application performs under different loads, Breyer can optimize its infrastructure and code to ensure it can handle peak traffic without compromising performance. This is especially important during new product launches and holiday seasons. Third-Party Dependency Monitoring: Breyer relies on various third-party services, such as payment gateways and shipping providers. AppDynamics monitors the performance of these dependencies, allowing Breyer to identify and address any issues that could impact the customer experience. If a payment gateway is slow, for example, AppDynamics will alert the team so they can investigate and potentially switch to a different provider. A Smooth Ride for Collectors – and Breyer’s Business Since implementing AppDynamics, Breyer has seen a significant improvement in its application performance. Website response times have decreased, error rates have dropped, and customer satisfaction has increased. The team is now able to proactively address performance issues, ensuring a smooth and seamless experience for its collectors. “AppDynamics has been a game-changer for us,” Miller says. “We’re now able to focus on growing our business and serving our community, knowing that our applications are performing at their best.” The improved performance has also translated into increased sales and revenue. “We’re a company that cares deeply about our customers and the quality of our products,” Miller concludes. “AppDynamics helps us deliver on that promise by ensuring that our online experience is as flawless as our model horses.” About AppDynamics AppDynamics is the observability leader, helping businesses become more customer-centric through deep performance visibility. As part of Cisco, AppDynamics delivers full-stack observability across the entire application portfolio, helping teams proactively monitor, understand, and optimize the performance of their applications and infrastructure. Learn more at [www.appdynamics.com](www.appdynamics.com). About Breyer Model Horses For over 70 years, Breyer Model Horses has been creating beautifully detailed, realistic horse models that are loved by collectors of all ages. Based in Peoria, Illinois, Breyer is committed to quality craftsmanship and creating a vibrant community around its products. Learn more at [www.breyerhorses.com](www.breyerhorses.com).