Has a corner been turned in terms of the technical preparations for Black Friday? While there were still some websites that crashed, Black Friday 2016 did not see the widespread chaos of previous years.
There was no doubting which was the most embarrassing website crash of the day. Dell makes excellent servers - we use them ourselves - but the ones hosting its consumer website were clearly not configured to cope with the level of demand created by cut-price deals on its PCs.
Savings of up to £180 on its Inspiron range of computers created a traffic surge that left customers reporting 404 errors and failed checkout processes.
DELL your 404 on black friday. I thought you might have known about better servers for peak demand? #dell #dellends pic.twitter.com/DQEABZzOvd
— ciaran oliver (@CiaranOliver) November 25, 2016
#blackfriday @Dell no point in a Black Friday deal if your checkout can't handle the traffic #frustrated 26 attempts pic.twitter.com/H1jz2EJ4y8
— EdgeCreatives (@EdgeCreatives) November 25, 2016
Gaming store GAME made its Black Friday deals live a few hours early, but shoppers almost immediately reported that they were having problems using the site. Offers of 40% off Xbox One and PS4 games, as well as cut price consoles, enticed customers to make purchases, but there were complaints that the basket and checkout pages of the website could not cope.
Currys PC World’s website struggled in the early hours of Black Friday after its deals became available at midnight. There was soon a stream of complaints on social media about the website crashing and orders being left incomplete. By way of explanation, the company reported a 40% increase in orders compared to last year.
@curryspcworld glad I waited up for this 🙄
— Lucille Lou (@Lucille2lou) November 25, 2016
Shoppers also reported problems with the New Look, River Island and Missguided websites.
Over in the States, there was a high profile victim in the form of department store Macy’s. Customers were greeted by an error message informing them that there was a “temporary shopping jam” and preventing them from viewing the page they were trying to access.
Still, that is far fewer high profile mishaps than in recent years, which suggests that retailers are starting to give more time and thought to Black Friday preparation and ensuring that their hosting infrastructure can cope with high traffic levels.
Remind yourself which websites crashed on Black Friday 2015.
