Expand Menu
Performance Tracking  > 2024 Valentine's Day

WebSitePulse 2024 Valentine's Day Online Retail Performance and Uptime Report


As Valentine's Day approaches, a palpable air of romance and affection fills the atmosphere, heralding the arrival of a holiday deeply cherished by many. Celebrated annually on February 14th, Valentine's Day is a time-honored tradition where love is not just a sentiment but an experience shared and expressed in numerous ways. Across the globe, people embrace this day to celebrate romantic love, friendship, and admiration, often marking the occasion with the exchange of cards, flowers, chocolates, and special dates.

A Trustpilot study shows that despite increasing expenses and debt, many young Americans, especially millennials and Gen Z, feel they need to spend a lot on Valentine's Day. The survey found that 33% of millennials and 21% of Gen Z in relationships, or 27% in total, feel more pressure to spend this year compared to last year.

Across all ages, 21% of those in relationships feel they must spend more than they can afford, and 19% think their partner expects them to spend a lot.

With living costs going up, 30% of Americans in relationships are skipping Valentine's Day because it's too costly.

For those celebrating, the average expected spending on a Valentine's gift is about $157.52, the survey says.

However, as hearts flutter and emotions soar, there's also a heightened expectation for businesses and services to perform seamlessly, ensuring that love-filled gestures and surprises are delivered without a hitch. This Valentine's Day Performance and Uptime Report delves into the crucial role of reliable service and performance during one of the busiest and most emotionally significant times of the year, exploring how industries brace for and manage the surge in demand that comes with the season of love.

For the 17th year, WebSitePulse will monitor 6 of the most popular gift websites. This Performance Report will measure the websites' uptime and response time as the most critical metrics for any web store's availability and reliability.

Web transactions will be measured every 15 minutes simultaneously from 3 different monitoring locations.

In-depth analytical information is also collected and stored in the WebSitePulse system for future reference.

Daily Report for February 15, 2024See report for:


WebSitePulse reports the following results from web performance measurement of the websites participating in the the Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report:

The daily Average Response time from all monitored websites was 2.943 sec.

The Average Response time as measured from the US East Coast (Washington DC) was: 2.765 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US West Coast (San Francisco, CA) was:3.296 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US Central was (Chicago, IL):2.768 sec.

The Best Response time measured from US East Coast (Washington DC):1.961 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US West Coast (San Francisco, CA):2.593 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US Central was (Chicago, IL):2.204 sec.

The typical shopping transaction took the least time for harryanddavid.com visitors - 2.396 sec., while the visitors of ftd.com had to be the most patient, as the shopping transaction there took in average of 3.445 sec.
Three of the monitored websites delivered above-the-average response times for their transactions, while three of them demonstrated below-the-average daily performance.

The daily Average Uptime for the entire Group was 100%.

All websites were available with no interruptions.

Report Highlights

No events of particular importance or possible negative impact on the online visitors' interaction with the Websites included into the 2024 Valentine's report report were detected during the reported period, and according to WebSitePulse, the Group delivered the expected levels of End-User experience and Customer satisfaction.

Please, scroll down for Detailed Reports and Charts provided by WebSitePulse:

Daily Response Times
Legend:
    brookstone     ftd     vermonteddybear     harryanddavid     helzberg 
    homesick 

Average Response Times for February 15, 2024
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. resp. time
1harryanddavid.com3.0242.2041.9612.396
2brookstone.com3.1592.4492.6062.738
3helzberg.com3.6902.4942.1842.789
4vermonteddybear.com2.5933.0693.6303.097
5homesick.com3.4162.9243.2363.192
6ftd.com3.8933.4692.9723.445

Average Response Times February 01, 2024 - February 15, 2024
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. resp. time
1harryanddavid.com2.9522.1251.8522.309
2brookstone.com3.1372.3702.5042.670
3helzberg.com3.7052.5102.1732.796
4vermonteddybear.com2.3802.8943.2582.844
5homesick.com3.3882.7952.9853.056
6ftd.com3.9543.6093.0923.552



Hourly Average Response Times
Select individual website to display:


Legend:
    individual site response times     monitored group average response times 


Average response times by hour for February 15, 2024
TargetHours
000102030405060708091011121314151617181920212223
brookstone2.282.532.342.383.092.623.093.023.313.142.792.572.473.012.672.462.463.072.702.682.872.932.772.49
ftd3.703.033.133.393.213.223.033.083.233.773.253.433.293.403.403.293.903.513.553.483.534.493.613.76
harryanddavid2.362.112.302.202.632.452.511.952.332.052.762.102.602.292.812.892.202.192.732.662.392.722.182.08
helzberg2.792.792.762.832.983.092.822.882.922.732.732.722.802.822.772.722.732.722.812.652.712.682.762.73
homesick3.083.353.203.002.683.253.073.423.233.373.363.223.013.403.183.153.383.023.403.062.983.583.023.19
vermonteddybear3.652.993.072.943.013.002.993.533.063.122.922.993.093.102.874.542.942.942.883.022.852.892.943.01


Average response times by hour February 01, 2024 - February 15, 2024
TargetHours
000102030405060708091011121314151617181920212223
brookstone2.662.542.422.472.702.572.492.432.672.902.742.732.742.712.812.722.792.822.692.712.812.682.712.59
ftd3.773.523.353.603.453.463.353.383.413.383.553.503.533.413.523.573.603.533.623.533.693.823.973.71
harryanddavid2.202.222.252.262.332.292.352.212.282.242.282.242.522.462.402.372.352.322.342.372.322.252.302.28
helzberg2.772.772.802.872.933.062.922.892.862.832.752.752.732.902.702.752.762.712.722.772.702.722.702.75
homesick2.992.962.912.812.752.902.762.872.913.133.203.143.243.293.233.203.183.133.143.093.173.173.133.02
vermonteddybear2.872.832.902.872.952.952.923.012.762.782.792.782.792.842.792.912.762.862.792.842.762.782.902.83


Uptime

Uptime February 15, 2024
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. uptime
1brookstone.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
2ftd.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
3vermonteddybear.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
4harryanddavid.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
5helzberg.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
6homesick.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%

Uptime February 01, 2024 - February 15, 2024
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. uptime
1harryanddavid.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
2helzberg.com100.000%100.000%99.986%99.995%
3homesick.com100.000%100.000%99.985%99.995%
4brookstone.com100.000%99.983%100.000%99.994%
5ftd.com98.257%98.200%98.237%98.231%
6vermonteddybear.com97.257%97.276%97.325%97.286%

Methodology:
The 2024 Valentine's Day Reports reflect a complete fullpage web transaction, representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. The reporting period covers the dates between February 1st and February 15th, 2024. Performance and availability measurements are made for a typical multi-step web transaction at 15 minute monitoring interval, every day 24/7. The WebSitePulse application monitoring service is used to collect data and to create the reports.
The steps in each transaction are comparable for all websites, and reflect the real online shopper experience. The simultaneous monitoring is performed from 3 US-based locations of the WebSitePulse monitoring network: San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Washington, DC. In case of a detected malfunction or unavailability, the system performs automated error verification from 3 independent resources and only after the above procedure is performed and has returned consistent results, the detected error is confirmed, recorded, and included in the daily performance reports. In these cases, an advanced WebSitePulse exclusive feature comes into play - Forced Monitoring -, which automatically switches to a 3 minute monitoring interval for increased accuracy.

About WebSitePulse:
WebSitePulse is a leading provider of global, independent, and objective availability and performance monitoring of web sites, servers, network components, web applications, e-business- and email round-trip transactions.

Contact:
For more information about this report please contact:
George T., CTO
phone: 1-407-380-1600
email:


Reproduction:
WebSitePulse launched the Performance and Uptime Reports program to keep the general public and the Internet community informed about the performance of specific websites and the challenges their webmasters, owners and operators are facing on a daily basis, especially when the web traffic intensifies due to some special events through the year. Some of the most popular web destinations, related to each particular event, are selected for the purpose of the Reports, and data from their performance measurements is made available on the WebSitePulse public website.

With the intention to broadly disseminate this information for the benefit of the Internet community, we encourage the use of this information without prior approval and under the following Terms and Conditions:

The Data from the performance measurements cannot be changed or manipulated and should be used "as is".