Local e-commerce site OneDayOnly is running Black Friday discount deals again today, after the shopping site was down for a few hours last Friday.
Last Friday, some OneDayOnly customers were left frustrated when trying to process their online orders, due to site instability and temporary downtime.
After losing out on an opportunity to offer customers discounts last week, the online shopping site says its technical team has been investigating these issues to ensure no repeats happen today.
The Black Friday surge in customers often puts pressure on online retailers’ infrastructure, with big brands such as Amazon and Makro having suffered reputational damage when their Web sites had technical glitches in the past.
In the days leading up to Black Friday, local retailers Bidorbuy, Loot, Game, Makro and Puma told ITWeb that in anticipation of a larger than usual Black Friday, they had been conducting intensive stress test simulation processes on their infrastructure to avoid any unforeseen disasters on the day.
Responding to questions about the shopping site’s technical glitches last week, Matthew Leighton, spokesperson for OneDayOnly, confirmed to ITWeb that the site was down until noon.
“We did run into site issues, which our dev team has been working on to ensure we are back and operational. We're pleased to report that our Web site is up at this point and operating as it should,” he says.
On its Twitter page last Friday, OneDayOnly informed shoppers of the downtime and encouraged them to use its app – which was operating well − for a smoother shopping experience. The company also noted it adjusted its deals to the mobile app as the primary platform to score discounts.
South Africa’s e-commerce sector reported a record uptick in sales during the Black Friday weekend, while brick-and-mortar sales plummeted, as shoppers avoided malls due to COVID-19 fears.
Nedbank, First National Bank, online payment gateway PayFast and global payments platform PayU told ITWeb this week that they had seen a significant increase in e-commerce sales during the 2020 Black Friday weekend, compared to last year.
However, transactions from a rand value perspective reportedly declined, due to the financial impact of COVID-19 and a tough economic environment.
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