Take a load off for the holidays

An e-commerce Christmas Carol

It’s snowing like the Dickens as Bob Cratchit puts the final touches on Marley & Sons’ new e-commerce system. The practical Cratchit wants to load test before going live and facing the holiday onslaught, but Scrooge has other ideas. See this animated holiday classic updated for website developers around the world.

It’s no surprise that thousands of companies are facing the same situation as Scrooge and Cratchit. Recent studies show that holiday shopping accounts for a much greater percentage of sales for e-commerce companies than it does for traditional storefront retailers. While this creates tremendous opportunities, it also increases risk if e-commerce sites do not perform up to consumers' expectations.

Over the past three years, the holiday shopping season has boosted e-commerce sales by an average of 30 percent over the previous quarter (US Census Bureau E-Statistics, http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/current.html). Online holiday shopping in the U.S. will benefit from a holiday season that is two days longer than usual, and consumers will be getting an earlier start: 53 percent of online shoppers said they would begin in early October, according to a study by Shop.org (2004 Shop.org/BizRate.com, Online Holiday Mood Study,
(http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=30686).

Earlier shopping, spending more, and buying a greater diversity of products – all good news for e-commerce companies. On the reverse side, however, is how damaging it could be for a site that can't handle the volume of traffic. Fickle as they are, consumers are likely to go away and never return.

Red Gate Software offers ANTS Load, a tool that helps ensure that an e-commerce site is going to perform optimally during rush times. Don’t get Scrooged over the holidays – find out how to test your site with the increased load/stress of the upcoming holidays.