Website Crash Threatens lululemon’s Online Reputation
lululemon athletica's website suffered a lengthy outage on Monday and Tuesday, dealing a blow to the yoga brand’s efforts to draw more online shoppers and improve its digital performance. The company’s North American site crashed after a power failure and other problems at a server farm, according to a person familiar with the situation. The site went back online after being down for less than 24 hours, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the details aren’t being shared publicly.
Total Retail’s Take: The website outage couldn't have come at a worse time for lululemon, as it works to grow its digital business. The yoga brand has expanded its e-commerce product selection, and is taking “aggressive actions” to improve its site. In addition to lost trust from consumers, lululemon's website outage also is sure to have a significant impact on sales — both online and in-store. In fact, it's been reported that every day a retailer's website is down, their total same-store sales for that day is likely down double-digits.
