Team meeting on whiteboard

It’s that time of year again. The country is covered in a blanket of excitement combined with sweaty palms and heart palpitations. Not Christmas… Black Friday and Cyber Monday are nearly upon us. Everyone has their laptops plugged into power, clicking finger poised, the refresh button ready, to begin the chaos of the sales period.  As for online sales, Adobe reported that Black Friday 2017 surpassed the £5 billion mark for the first time, setting a new sales record. The mayhem that is this November weekend is familiar to us all in the modern-day, indeed, in 2017 & 2018 multiple websites of large retailers went down as they struggled to handle the volume of traffic heading to the websites over the weekend.

J. Crew

J. Crew is a multi-brand, multi-channel, speciality retailer in New York and offered an impressive 50% off all online orders on Black Friday 2018. Many shoppers were left in turmoil after the screen showed ‘hang on a sec’ for over an hour whilst people tried to shop and checkout. The brand repeatedly apologised for the inconvenience and claimed there was just too much traffic.

Twitter Posted Image | Big Gun Digital

We hear you Lindsay.

John Lewis & Partners

One of Britain’s best-loved department stores also couldn’t handle the traffic on their site during Black Friday 2018. “Sorry about the wait, please try again soon,” a message on the site read.

Twitter Posted Image | Big Gun Digital

Debenhams

In 2017, Debenhams fell casualty to Black Friday when it was forced to implement an online ‘queue’ system that gave a 30-second countdown and ‘we’re very popular right now!’

Posted Image | Big Gun Digital

Game

Similarly, during Black Friday sales of 2018 caught out the tech retailer, which crashed soon after it launched its deals.

How to prevent a website overload

⚡️ Web Hosting: If you have had your website for some time check your server is able to handle high traffic volumes and measures are in place to prevent the site from going down.

⚡️ Making sure your SSL doesn’t run out over the sales period and Christmas

⚡️ Making sure your website is up to date and protected with a security system.

⚡️ If you’re unlucky enough to lose your website to speedy shoppers consider a fun/entertaining message or game as opposed to an ‘error’ page which will most likely infuriate your beloved customer

How to stay safe as a customer

Whilst shopping online certainly eliminates the physical exhaustion of Black Friday; cybercriminals are poised to successfully con you out of harsh earned cash. Scams are everywhere during the Black Friday weekend and Christmas. ⚡️ Don’t click on ads or links or purchase deals from a ‘retailer’ that is not on their genuine website.

PING US A MESSAGE 💬

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Services of Interest