IoT 3 mins read

Peak usage = peak holiday sales?

Top goals for IT experts this holiday season: Host a reliable, responsive site and ensure a reliable, responsive fulfillment and delivery service.

Oliver Guy Oliver Guy

The holiday shopping season is fast approaching. While back-to-school shopping was flat this year, online sales of higher-end electronics grew by 28% thanks to more people working and learning from home. Analysts say this is going to be similar for this Covid-19 holiday season.

Retailers must be prepared – focusing on conveying value AND being hyper-available to the consumer at a literal click. More than half of buyers will abandon a website if it takes more than 6-10 seconds to load a page, and 60% of consumers are unlikely to return to a retailer that does not provide a satisfactory customer experience. The experience goes further than the actual website, fulfillment is also very important. If your product is out of stock or delayed in delivery you are also unlikely to return.

Hence, the goals for IT experts this holiday season: Host a reliable, responsive site and ensure a reliable, responsive fulfillment and delivery service.

Season-proof your site

The season’s peak online traffic and transaction volumes have a way of exposing weaknesses in the best of retail sites. For companies that see a surge in usage during the holiday season, such as online retailers and logistics companies, it’s imperative to give your retail e-commerce sites and back-end systems a “health check” for current and projected volumes of visitors, goods and shipments.

The right combination of current performance assessment, continual monitoring and proactive crisis management readies you to grow your business during the holidays. You may need help; with the right experts at your side, you can undertake informed capacity planning, anticipate potential bottlenecks in your processes and run simulations by volume and scenario to ensure your systems are ready for your busiest season.

Based on the outcome, you may find that performance-tuning is in order to avoid any downtime from anticipated usage spikes. Actively managing your performance today – achieving SLAs, ensuring performance levels, assessing usage – can give you insights for future capacity planning and load testing for tomorrow’s rush.

Monitor your systems

As an additional layer of proactive insurance, consider getting managed services coverage to keep watch over your critical applications. Experts continually monitor your systems – working around the clock to ensure continuity in all time zones – to provide rapid response should an application slow or malfunction. Crisis support, prearranged during the holidays, is key to limiting or even avoiding service disruptions.

Now is the time to take action for 2020’s likely record-setting online holiday shopping season. Be prepared by understanding the current performance of your platform and applications and how projected peak volumes will impact uptime and responsiveness.

All systems must be “go” by Black Friday – you can’t afford the alternative!

Click below to see Software AG’s special holiday-readiness service, ensuring you’re at your best for your customers this season…

Related articles

  • Image representing IoT in Retail
    IoT

    Why retail is more uncertain than ever 

    Just as you thought things were going to get better after the Covid-19 pandemic, it appears that they’re about to get a whole lot worse.   Inflation, skyrocketing energy prices, the cost-of-living crisis, global supply chain issues, food shortages and the…
    Andrew Busby Andrew Busby
  • News

    conXion 2021: Geoffrey Moore speaks

    The biggest mistake you can make in a truly connected world is to be disconnected. But transforming your organization to compete in an increasingly digital-born marketplace is a daunting task. At conXion 2021 (October 5-7), Geoffrey Moore, the world-famous organizational theorist and author, will…
    Bart Schouw Bart Schouw
  • IoT

    Re-inventing the store

    As retailers rush to compete in the online sales and delivery game, the solution could be right under their noses – their stores could be turned into fulfillment centers. The number of empty stores in malls and shopping streets has…
    Oliver Guy Oliver Guy