A recent survey by Barclays revealed that 51 per cent of retailers admit that their main fear during the
Christmas season is the possibility of their websites going down.
This is no surprise, as retailers cannot afford to lose out on
potential sales during the busiest time of year because of a website
malfunction or a transaction failure. Average downtime of the UK top 50
e-commerce websites in 2013 was higher during the Christmas season than at any
other time during the year. In addition to the actual cost to the retailer in
lost sales, loss of reputation and consumer confidence are also huge
consequences.
In response to this, and as some advice as to how retailers can
prevent site down-time, Paul Heywood, EMEA director atDyn, says:
“With £4.7 billion expected to
be spent online this December, it’s no surprise that over half of
retailers are worrying about the performance of
their website and whether it will hold up over this busy period. The stakes are
high during the holiday season and retailers cannot afford
to have their sites ‘crash and burn’. The issue here is that many
retailers only look to their performance during the holiday season. Providing
a reliable online experience should
be part of a long term, proactive approach. Retailers
are faced with the year-round challenge of fickle customer loyalty—if
your website experience doesn’t match their expectations or is too slow your customers will quickly turn to a rival
brand. Internet Performance solutions help organisations monitor, control and
optimise their online infrastructure. Retailers need to assess the performance
and scalability of their website throughout the year in order to better
understand their ability to deliver and remove the guessing from the equation.”
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