Website crashes during Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday, hitting many retailers

For e-commerce retailers, website problems during the busiest shopping season of the year are a nightmare, and many retailers unfortunately suffered during this year's Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday.

The worst-hit company so far is Office Depot, which was down from 11:20 a.m. ET on Monday and lasted until 2:08 p.m. , according to a LinkedIn post by Catchpoint, a website that monitors user experience.

In response, a spokesperson for Office Depot said that some of their customers experienced intermittent website outages when placing orders, which affected their shopping experience, and they decided to extend the Cyber ​​Monday sales time to Tuesday.

Office Depot is n't the only retailer to experience technical glitches. According to web optimization company Yottaa, more than 40 brands and retailers have experienced website crashes, freezes, or slowdowns since Thanksgiving. This year is slightly better than 2020, when 50 e-commerce sites crashed.

According to Yottaa data, Walmart and Boohoo's fashion brand PrettyLittleThing experienced website crashes, slow loading times and other performance issues during this year's Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday.

The cost of a website crash

Problems like website crashes and slow loading times can force consumers to make purchases elsewhere, leading to lost revenue for retailers.

It is reported that the surge in shopping holiday traffic this year started earlier than in previous years. The online traffic of 1,500 e-commerce websites on the Yottaa platform increased significantly in mid-October, and the traffic during Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday increased by 20% year-on-year.

According to Yottaa, the peak of online traffic for Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday this year occurred at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, rather than 9 p.m. on Black Friday last year. And, even though traffic dropped from that peak, performance issues persisted across the site.

Of course, in addition to lost revenue, retailers can also suffer reputational damage when their sites fail to meet consumers’ expectations of online shopping. During this year’s Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, many consumers expressed their dissatisfaction on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

Earlier, Walmart was also angered by consumers on social media due to restocking issues for the PlayStation 5 and X Box Series X game consoles, as well as website crashes that affected consumers' rush to buy them .

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