E-commerce is a $220 billion industry in the US, growing nearly 17 percent a year, according to AmeriCommerce. As the consumer landscape rapidly evolves alongside the rise of e-commerce, retailers are being prompted to reevaluate their business models.
As the holidays are often the most profitable time of the year for retailers, Clustrix conducted the 2014 Holiday Shopping Season Trends Survey in January 2015 to identify the emerging consumer trends specific to the holiday season. Here’s what mattered to online shoppers:
■ Site performance – poor performance caused site abandonment
■ Convenience of online shopping
■ Bargains
■ Free shipping
■ Buying on the go – mobile shopping
Per our survey, convenience, bargains and free shipping get consumers to load up their shopping carts, but the most interesting finding was the importance of site performance.
Poor Site Performance - The Cost to E-Commerce Merchants
43 percent of consumers surveyed reported experiencing “website performance” issues e.g., slowly loading pages and images, failed pages, etc. So what did they do when the e-commerce site was slow?
■ 42 percent left the site
■ 19 percent sought another vendor
■ 8 percent reacted via social media
E-commerce vendors can lose thousands of dollars in revenue, especially during peak seasons, if their sites slow down or go down. While not every business is Amazon, who lost $60,000 per minute when they went down a few years ago, small to medium sized e-commerce merchants have also reported losing $10,000 to $30,000 per minute of downtime.
A common culprit causing site performance issues is the database (e.g., MySQL) that runs under the e-commerce application (e.g., Magento). To avoid website slow downs (and crashes), e-tailers should assess whether their database is up to the job. While MySQL is a widely popular database, it also has scaling issues that can cause website performance problems. Consider adopting a more scalable database. A scale-out solution has the ability to grow with the ever-increasing demands your online business faces. After all, no merchant can afford lost customers, lost sales and most importantly, lost revenue.
Here are some additional findings:
■ Consumers prefer to shop online, even on Black Friday: On Cyber Monday, almost two-thirds (62 percent) of consumers reported shopping online. In fact, Cyber Monday is now the largest shopping day of the year. Additionally, nearly half (48 percent) of respondents shopped online on Black Friday whereas only 26 percent shopped in store on Black Friday. Traditionally an in-store shopping day, Black Friday drew in more traffic online.
■ Bargains and free shipping matter: A whopping 87 percent of those surveyed said they’d buy an item because it was on sale (11 percent “always”, and 76 percent “yes, depending on the item”). Additionally, three-fourths (74 percent) of consumers claim that better shipping rates and options would influence their purchase decisions on Cyber Monday.
■ Mobile devices reign supreme: Mobile devices and tablets are beginning to play a large role in e-commerce, from researching prices and products in advance of a purchase and for the purchase itself. Survey findings revealed that nearly half of consumers (47 percent) reported shopping on their mobile device this holiday season.
Mike Azevedo is CEO of Clustrix.
The Latest
From the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) to the ongoing challenges of cost optimization and security, these IT leaders are navigating a complex and rapidly evolving landscape. Here's what you should know about the top priorities shaping the year ahead ...
In the heat of the holiday online shopping rush, retailers face persistent challenges such as increased web traffic or cyber threats that can lead to high-impact outages. With profit margins under high pressure, retailers are prioritizing strategic investments to help drive business value while improving the customer experience ...
In a fast-paced industry where customer service is a priority, the opportunity to use AI to personalize products and services, revolutionize delivery channels, and effectively manage peaks in demand such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are vast. By leveraging AI to streamline demand forecasting, optimize inventory, personalize customer interactions, and adjust pricing, retailers can have a better handle on these stress points, and deliver a seamless digital experience ...
Broad proliferation of cloud infrastructure combined with continued support for remote workers is driving increased complexity and visibility challenges for network operations teams, according to new research conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by Broadcom ...
New research from ServiceNow and ThoughtLab reveals that less than 30% of banks feel their transformation efforts are meeting evolving customer digital needs. Additionally, 52% say they must revamp their strategy to counter competition from outside the sector. Adapting to these challenges isn't just about staying competitive — it's about staying in business ...
Leaders in the financial services sector are bullish on AI, with 95% of business and IT decision makers saying that AI is a top C-Suite priority, and 96% of respondents believing it provides their business a competitive advantage, according to Riverbed's Global AI and Digital Experience Survey ...
SLOs have long been a staple for DevOps teams to monitor the health of their applications and infrastructure ... Now, as digital trends have shifted, more and more teams are looking to adapt this model for the mobile environment. This, however, is not without its challenges ...
Modernizing IT infrastructure has become essential for organizations striving to remain competitive. This modernization extends beyond merely upgrading hardware or software; it involves strategically leveraging new technologies like AI and cloud computing to enhance operational efficiency, increase data accessibility, and improve the end-user experience ...
AI sure grew fast in popularity, but are AI apps any good? ... If companies are going to keep integrating AI applications into their tech stack at the rate they are, then they need to be aware of AI's limitations. More importantly, they need to evolve their testing regiment ...
If you were lucky, you found out about the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage last July by reading about it over coffee. Those less fortunate were awoken hours earlier by frantic calls from work ... Whether you were directly affected or not, there's an important lesson: all organizations should be conducting in-depth reviews of testing and change management ...