Black Friday & Cyber Monday were a huge online success….but, some websites Crashed the party

December 4, 2013 By BJ Cook,

Black Friday and Cyber Monday was insane this year - The shopping season started a little bit earlier with stores opening on Thanksgiving. I am a serious Black Friday shopper, all the women in my family start planning our strategy of execution on Thanksgiving. We start shopping the deals once they are available. Meaning, I started my shopping on Wednesday night at 9pm PST. So between myself and many of my family members we contributed to the 17% increase in online sales for Black Friday. And I personally contributed to the Cyber Monday record breaking sales. Although I did have a relatively successful shopping weekend, not all consumers can agree. Some websites did not hold up to the challenge of the increase in traffic and influx in sales that were estimated. Here are a few that were a buzz kill:

Urban Outfitters

By far the biggest tragedy of Cyber Monday. Site was completely down for most of the day - so much that they had to have a Cyber Tuesday to hopefully generate some sales. I will say the Marketing behind it was genius - they owned it and even created a microsite that mocked themselves and admitted the "Broken Internet."

Amazon

During the last hour of Cyber Monday many people were complaining of their website going down. Those are some last minute sales that Amazon might have lost.

Sephora

Well, it wasn't down technically...but, they sure did have a waiting room - you had to wait in line to get to shop. You had to wait for up to 15 minutes to shop the Black Friday deals. Some may say this isn't a big deal - but, who wants to wait in a waiting line to shop on the internet?! Isn't that one of the perks to doing your shopping online - no lines and no hassles?!

Wal-Mart

Enough Said. I am sure many of us heard about the issues Wal-Mart was having. They had a new deal guaranteed in stock for that hour. You want it, you've got it......well kind of. Many people were complaining of not getting the deals promised because the site was so flooded with traffic that they couldn't check out, or they couldn't access the site at all the deals being promised you would think the site would have been prepared for all the traffic. But, don't worry they apologized via twitter

Motorola

Had a big snafu on Cyber Monday. Their site went down and not only had to reschedule one make up shopping day, but TWO! So, they extended their sale through Tuesday and even added Monday, December 9. They acknowledged via Twitter that they had encountered a problem:

The sales were up for mobile ecommerce sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday - But, I don't feel the "unexpected amount of traffic" excuse is a valid one. We all know that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are going to be some of the busiest shopping days of the year. Yes, sometimes things happen and there is an unexpected error....but, I'm hoping that these websites learn and don't become repeat offenders next year! I love shopping and love a seamless shopping experience. With record breaking numbers coming in this year for Cyber Monday, $2.2 billion in revenue - let's hope these retailers can pull it together for the "unexpected influx in traffic" next year! Round up: