Cloud Insight

Companies Should Begin Testing Technologies Now Before Holiday Rush

29 Aug

While it may only be the end of August, the holiday season is fast approaching. Not to mention a major holiday, Labor Day, coming up in just a few short days. Of course, mistletoe is not yet hanging from the doorway, eggnog is not being passed around the fire, and presents are not sitting under a tree. At least not quite yet. Speaking of gifts, we’re all familiar that the holiday season is the prime gift giving time of the year. This means e-retailers must be prepared to handle the rise in web traffic.

While people used to flock to stores in droves looking for that perfect gift for a family member or special someone, these days most grab that warm cup of coffee and simply browse the Internet for that gift. The “droves” of people are now all shopping online, making it tough on e-retailers trying to handle the influx of traffic. If the retailer is not prepared for the increase in traffic to their website or online store it could mean lost customers, and of course lost revenues.

Internet users can be a fickle bunch. If a page takes too long to load, or doesn’t load at all, it often means moving on to the next website to find the product they’re looking for. This is why it’s important that e-retailers begin testing their sites now to make sure they can handle the load when the time comes. It never hurts to be over prepared, and testing several months ahead of time before a major traffic influx can give e-commerce businesses time to make the proper changes or provision the right technologies.

Of course, e-retailers that use the cloud will have an advantage over most others as they’ll be able to provision more computing power at the proper times when the traffic becomes higher than normal. They’ll also be able to scale back when the traffic dies down, say at certain times of day or after the major shopping period. This not only allows e-retailers to be flexible, but it will help them save on costs as well, making the holiday season even more successful.

Some may say, “It’s way too early to test these things now, we can wait a while”. That may be OK for some, but that probably isn’t the right attitude. Why wouldn’t you want to know as early as possible about the potential issues that could arise? What will you do if don’t test this early and run into a problem at the worst time? These are some of the things e-retailers should think about when they consider testing their technologies, applications, and stores. The retailers that test early, fix issues, and prepare the best will be the ones that are happiest and most successful during the holiday season.