In the afterglow of Valentine’s Day, many of us are thinking back on romantic dinners successfully booked, beautiful flower deliveries received and stunning diamond earnings gifted. Holidays like Valentine’s Day are some of the most crucial online traffic days for retailers and specialty stores. And it’s not just the big ones like Cyber Monday and…
David Jones
Every year the back-to-school (BTS) season means something different for incoming students. One year it might mean multiplication tables, the next it could be long division, U.S. history or organizational chemistry. However, one thing that students expect every year — regardless of the actual course work — is that their work load will increase and…
Patience is a virtue, but unfortunately it’s not one that that e-tailers can count on from their customers, especially when it comes to peak digital shopping events like Mother’s Day. Consumer impatience and demand for consistently high performance and speed is a well-documented fact in today’s digital economy. The so called "Google effect" has drained…
Nothing reveals strengths and weaknesses of a website or app better than peak demand events. It's a story as old as the internet: a site operates fine under normal pressures but cracks under the strain of peak events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. The 2014 holiday kickoff events produced a unique set of challenges, leaving the e-commerce industry with a number of lessons to ponder and learn from.
As the summer winds down, students head back to school and there's a predictable upward trend in e-commerce activity in a number of categories. Scholars and their families are flocking to university websites to select courses, register and make tuition payments, and they're heading in droves to retailers like Ikea, Best Buy and Target to buy important supplies, furniture, electronics, clothing and more for the coming academic year. The National Retail Federation's 2014 Back-to-School Survey predicts the average family with children in grades K-12 will spend $669.28 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics this back-to-school season, up 5 percent from 2013.
