Web Hosts Are Awesome Ghostbusters

One of the most terrifying online horror stories in recent years didn’t happen on Halloween. It happened on the day after Thanksgiving in 2006 when one of the nation’s largest retailers couldn’t handle the traffic on their site, which subsequently went down, taking all of the Black Friday online customers with it. (A very frightening ghost of Christmas past, indeed!) What are you and your web host doing to keep this ghost out of your site’s holiday shopping season?

In 2006 Walmart’s marketing department did a stellar job of promoting their website in their ads (including television ads) to inform shoppers that their Black Friday sale prices were also available online. If it is possible for a marketing plan to be too successful then that is clearly what happened here.

The advertising sent millions of people to the site and for most of Black Friday morning, attempts to open Walmart.com resulted in blank pages, delays or other problems. By early afternoon, visitors were simply told to come back later. At first Walmart displayed a message saying the site was down for “scheduled maintenance.” (Ever heard of “scheduled maintenance” occurring on the busiest shopping day of the year?) Later in the morning they replaced the “scheduled maintenance” message with one that acknowledged the problems were caused by a higher than anticipated number of visitors.   

So what can you and your web host do to make sure this doesn’t happen to your site on one of the busiest shopping days of the year?

Here are some things to consider:

Plan Ahead: Get with your technology folks well in advance to make sure your site is working properly. Do some test runs. Make sure your server is working at its peak and can handle higher-than anticipated amounts of internet traffic.

Make Sure Marketing And IT Are In Sync: Be absolutely certain that your IT folks are talking to your marketing people so that the technical experts understand the scope of your holiday marketing plan. If those two groups are not communicating regularly, you could be setting yourself up for big trouble.

Stay Aware Of What’s Circulating On The Web. Last year, Walmart’s Black Friday sales ad was leaked onto the internet as early as November 9 and was widely circulated on bargain hunter and technology news sites. This early look at the super-low sales prices drew even more attention to the specials so Walmart should have anticipated the demand.

Unfortunately, the leaks also allowed competitors to adjust their prices to compete with Walmart. This year, the company has threatened litigation against any site that leaks Walmart’s Black Friday sales information before November 19. The letter that is being widely distributed to popular bargain-hunter sites says, in part: “It has recently come to our attention that you and/or your company may potentially obtain possession of and may participate in the untimely release of Walmart’s sale circulars, advertisements or other information prior to the authorized release dates.” The letter goes on to say that Walmart’s online ads are protected by copyright laws and that the methods of acquisition or use may indicate criminal activity so that criminal penalties may also apply. Needless to say, large bargain hunter sites like Gottadeal.com are less than thrilled with this move from the retail giant.     

Be Transparent: One of the mistakes Walmart made was not being transparent early on when high traffic shut down the site. The error messages and “scheduled maintenance” messages undoubtedly hurt their credibility and cost them millions of dollars in sales. It wasn’t until late in the morning that Walmart admitted to its customers that unexpected volumes in traffic had triggered the problem.

Despite a plunging housing market and economic uncertainty, Forrester Research has concluded that U.S. consumers will spend 21% more online between Thanksgiving and Christmas than they did during the same holiday period last year. While that is down slightly from the 23% increase in online shipping in 2006, it is considerably more than brick and mortar stores can expect. The National Retail Federation predicts overall holiday spending in brick and mortar stores will grow only 4% this year.

That being the case, you need to get with your web host early and often to make sure the Walmart ghost of Christmas past does not pay you a visit. A little planning can help ensure that you and your customers have a delightful holiday season.   

 

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