Thousands of people stayed up past midnight last night in SA, fingers ready to click-up Black Friday deals and fill their virtual baskets. Yet the red eyes this morning may have been in vain as major online retailers struggled to cope with the overwhelming volumes.
Black Friday traditionally takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US. The trend has been embraced globally in recent years and is regarded as the start of the festive shopping season. This year, it is anticipated to reach an all-time high in SA, as shoppers look to save some money in the tough economic climate, while stocking up on holiday gifts and season essentials before December.
However, despite reassurances from Takealot.com earlier this week, the digital general purpose store was one of the sites most affected by South African bargain hunters.
"We have temporarily taken down the Takealot.com website and apps due to the failure of a fundamental service within our platform, which has caused site-wide problems. We seem to have found the problem and are now busy working through a backlog of orders. We hope to be back online as soon as the site has been stabilised," says Julie-Anne Walsh, CMO at Takealot.com.
"We apologise for disappointing any customers who are busy shopping this Black Friday, and we'll be back up and running as soon as possible. Customers can rest assured that thousands of Blue Dot Sale deals are still available and the sale only closes at midnight on Tuesday 28 November. Please see our social channels for regular updates," says Walsh.
On Twitter at 6:30am, Takealot cited overwhelming volumes to be the reason behind the site's downtime.
There were also reports that Takealot-owned Superbalist was experiencing problems in the early hours of this morning. The fashion site is now back up. Other major sites reported to have experienced problems include Netflorist and Loot.co.za.
Smaller niche businesses also experienced downtime today.
Nu Skin, a beauty and skincare Web site posted this on its Facebook wall: "Even though we prepared our servers to handle higher-volume traffic, we are currently experiencing some technical difficulties with our Black Friday launch platform. We are investigating the issue and will have it fixed as soon as possible. We thank you for your patience and we will inform you on this same page when the issue gets resolved."
The company has since posted that the Web site has been restored, but at the time of writing, the page was still not loading.
According to Google, SA is the top-ranking country for Google searches about Black Friday, placing interest shown by South Africans higher than the birthplace of the season sales in the US. Google looks at search query volumes and equates these with population size to find the ranking.
"As we enter this period of high online shopping demand, the importance of stress-testing and simulating peak conditions are paramount. With mobile users wanting to place their orders wherever they are, e-tailers need to ensure not only the security of their sites, but also their availability and accessibility," says Claude Schuck, regional manager for Africa at Veeam.
"Last year, many consumers were left frustrated by a few local e-tailing sites having to put up placeholder pages reflecting how high traffic volumes negatively impacted their systems. These 'bump in the road' type images, as reported by local news sites, left consumers increasingly impatient for sites that were capable of delivering on their promises.
"Ultimately, the Black Friday rush this year is going to be even more hectic and action-packed than before. There is certainly an expectation that local sites have taken last year's lessons to heart and will provide consumers with a smoother shopping experience," says Schuck.
Share