peak holiday season

magento logo feature

Is Your Magento Site Ready for High Traffic?

| Roman Davydov

Given that one extra second of load time may reduce conversions by more than 4%, such problems can be critical to your success. Therefore, if you’re running a Magento store, make sure you’re able to withstand the load and deliver a quality customer experience even when traffic spikes occur.

holiday shopping box

Holiday Ecommerce Spending Up 8.6%, Adobe Says

| Mike O'Brien

Despite massive out of stock levels due to supply chain and inventory issues, U.S. holiday ecommerce spending hit a record $204.5 billion over the 2021 holidays, up 8.6%, according to Adobe’s Digital Economy Index, with 38 days where over $3 billion exchanged hands, vs. 25 such days in 2020.

UPS van in snow holiday peak season feature

Carriers Come Through for Christmas

| Mike O'Brien

After a hairy 2020 peak season, with capacity at a premium and late parcel orders piling up, on-time performance by the big three carriers was strong, helped by a lot of early shopping from consumers based on earlier promotions, as well as improved levels of in-store activity.

holiday retail sales mall

Holiday Retail Sales +8.5%, Ecommerce +11%, Gladdening Hearts

| Mike O'Brien

There was good news at the bottom of all those seasonal carts, both physical and digital, as holiday retail sales jumped a healthy 8.5% vs. 2020, while ecommerce sales gained 11% off a monster year, according to data from MasterCard SpendingPulse. Ecommerce represented 21% of sales, up from 20.6% in 2020 and 14.6% in 2019.

AWS Outage Plays Havoc, Delays Peak Deliveries

| Mike O'Brien

An hours-long outage from Amazon Web Services (AWS) caused all manner of global havoc on Tuesday, shutting down government and private websites, robotic vacuums and popular streaming services as well as idling Amazon facilities as networks and apps went dark and operations ground to a halt.

cyber monday letters

Cyber Monday Online Sales Dip 1.4%

| Mike O'Brien

Like its holiday twin Black Friday, Cyber Monday in the U.S. saw ecommerce sales reverse course for the first time in memory, according to Adobe Digital Insights, dropping 1.4% from 2020. Consumers en masse have heeded warnings about stock-outs on digital shelves amid supply chain-fueled inventory shortages by shopping earlier.

Black Friday mobile feature

Black Friday Online Sales Dip Slightly, Still Strong

| Mike O'Brien

Ecommerce sales on Black Friday dipped slightly this year, to $8.9 billion from $9 billion in 2020, reversing years of growth, according to data from Adobe Analytics, with larger retailers seeing 22% higher growth than small businesses while the latter saw higher average order value.

holiday shopping online

Holiday Shopping Uncertainty Leads to Ecommerce Innovation

| Jamie Saucedo

With the anticipation of lower foot traffic in stores coupled with inventory concerns, prioritizing your ecommerce channel from a planning perspective, even at the intentional detriment of having lower stock levels in stores, may save sales during this peak holiday shopping period. And omnichannel is no longer an option.

cyber weekend

Ahead of Cyber Weekend, Some Thoughts and Numbers

| Mike O'Brien

Like lots of things, Cyber Weekend ain’t what it used to be, with a lot of air let out of the balloon. Major retailers vie to outdo each other by launching Black Friday deals ahead of the starting gun. Black Friday deals at Target, Best Buy and Amazon all launched last week, with Walmart joining today. Here’s an outlook and some thoughts.

walmart fulfillment center

Walmart Q3 Ecommerce Sales Up 8%, Says Holiday Prep in Good Place

| Mike O'Brien

Walmart reported its ecommerce sales in the U.S. increased 8% in the third quarter, and have gained a total of 87% since the same period in 2019, an incredible jump since pre-pandemic days as the retail giant continues to expand digitally, while declaring itself ready for the holidays.

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