Online sales scaled dizzy new heights over the recent holiday season, thanks to the annual pre-Christmas shopping frenzy, snow hampering high street footfall and a record number of consumers trawling the net for sale bargains as early as Christmas Eve (and even on Christmas Day). John Lewis alone announced total sales of over £500m for the five week period leading up to January 1, representing a 42% increase compared with the same period in 2009. It seems realistic to say that the most successful retailers, regardless of size, are those tapping into this ever-increasing online consumerism trend.
Yet with consumers growing ever more impatient - as highlighted by extensive research suggesting that online shoppers are only prepared to wait a few seconds for website pages to display - it is not enough to merely have an e-commerce channel. It is critical that retailers’ e-stores are able to perform optimally and deliver a positive customer experience, even when hundreds, if not thousands, of customers are using the site simultaneously. Getting it wrong can result in the loss of substantial amounts of revenue to competitor sites that are better prepared for peak traffic periods.
Management Today asked Graham Parsons of Reflective Solutions, the company behind application performance testing tool StressTester™, for his top ten tips on how e-tailers can ensure their website doesn’t leak revenue to competitors. See Graham's response here:http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1049584/
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