Black Friday has become a truly global shopping phenomenon, with demand from all over the world spiking over the holiday weekend, from Thursday through to Cyber Monday. 2018 was no different and with the dust now settled, we’re happy to say that all the brands that partner with eShopWorld for their global ecommerce experienced a record-breaking event.
Overall order volumes were up 60% year on year, supported by 100% uptime on the eShopWorld platform. We pride ourselves on offering unrivalled scalability, delivering growth safely and securely. How do we do it? Read on!
Peak planning starts a long time out from November. In fact, it starts immediately after the current Peak season finishes, with a full review of performance leading to an action plan for implementation over the subsequent year. In 2017 we had 100% uptime, but there were still lessons to learn, and the right time to learn them is while there is still time to prepare.
Mid-year sees the launch of a formal peak-readiness project, with a full programme of vendor engagement and stress testing. Active involvement of all our partners (PSPs, Acquirers, Carriers etc) ensures they are fully aware of our performance expectations and demand requirements. This collaboration allows us to agree monitoring and failover mechanisms that guarantee redundancy in the system, and seamless switching if it is required.
Payment processing, order management and package management are stress tested using a combination of forecasts and pre-event hot sales that push systems to the limit and allow understand any challenges before making sure that non-vital processes are either halted or completed in advance of peak.
Internally, we assess the risk profile of shoppers in individual markets in relation to their propensity to shop on Black Friday, and course correct accordingly to accommodate the shift in shopper type that tends to come to the table on peak weekend.
Part of eShopWorld service delivery for peak is 24*7 eyes-on monitoring and proactive communication of order volumes to our clients. This ‘hyper care’ support allows us to actively understand any issues, wherever they arise and keep clear lines of communication open at all time. On this occasion (as in the past), everything performed as expected.
But it’s not just for peak. Our platform is designed to perform all year round, with built-in redundancy throughout the infrastructure. We care about the shoppers that brands are trying to sell to – customer satisfaction is not just for peak!
