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Performance Tracking  > 2012 Valentine's Day

WebSitePulse 2012 Valentine's Day Online Retail Performance and Uptime Report


February is knocking on the door and with it comes the most romantic holiday of the year - Valentine's Day. And while you may be looking for a gift for your beloved ones, retailers are looking at yet another rise in sales - both online and offline. It is true that the recession might still have some lingering effects on the shopping behaviour of the consumers, but the last Holiday season proved that things are getting better and the future for retailers is bright indeed. After a better-than-expected start of the year, this Valentine's Day seems to be just as promising. The forecast indicates that the overall spending is about to jump with about 13% over last year. Of course, the most popular gifts will be flowers, jewelry and candy.

The trends from recent years show that we can count on a yet another increase in the percentage on online sales as well. That is why the availability and performance of their sites is bound to be a primary concern for the major retailers. Traditionally, WebSitePulse is monitoring ten of the most popular online shopping destinations for the 2012 Valentine's Day. The measurement results from the transaction monitoring reflect the performance levels and the availability of the ten websites related to the increased Internet traffic during the period. This information is helpful to analyze the End Users' shopping experience, the reliability of the IT infrastructure of the Internet retailers, as well as their estimated losses in case of downtime and unavailability of critical websites, web pages, web systems, network devices, and web applications.

Continuous website monitoring for all ten Internet retailers covers the period February 1 through February 14. The reports and charts are updated daily showing the results from the previous day and for the entire monitoring period to the current date.
Daily Report for February 15, 2012See 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 15.515 sec.

The Average Response time as measured from the US East Coast (Washington, DC) was: 14.906 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US West Coast (San Francisco, CA) was: 20.260 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US Central (Chicago, IL) was:11.379 sec.

The Best Response time measured from US East Coast:0.000 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US West Coast:0.000 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US Central:0.000 sec.

The typical shopping transaction took the least time for proflowers.com visitors - 0.000 sec., while the visitors of candy.com had to be the most patient, as the shopping transaction there took in average of 48.087 sec.
Three of the monitored websites delivered above-the-average response times for their transactions, while seven of them demonstrated below-the-average daily performance.

The daily average uptime for the entire Group was 99.97%.

The Average Uptime as measured from the US East Coast (Washington, DC) was:100.00%
The Average Uptime as measured from the US West Coast (San Francisco, CA) was:99.94%
The Average Uptime as measured from US Central (Chicago, IL) was:99.98%

Eight websites were available with no interruptions - 100%.
Eight websites' availability was above the average, while two sites dragged the average down with below-the-average availability.

Report Highlights

No events of particular importance or possible negative impact on the online visitors' interaction with the Websites included into the 2012 Valentine's day 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     proflowers     vermonteddybear     redenvelope 
    1800flowers     candy     helzberg     pagoda     harryanddavid 

Average Response Times for February 15, 2012
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. resp. time
1proflowers.com0.0000.0000.0000.000
2redenvelope.com0.0000.0000.0000.000
3harryanddavid.com6.5823.9536.4505.662
4brookstone.com11.0365.7314.6627.143
5helzberg.com9.6647.13613.34410.048
6pagoda.com21.02410.5808.51513.373
71800flowers.com19.26511.24315.50615.338
8ftd.com23.70212.98316.83617.840
9vermonteddybear.com51.97021.73339.27637.660
10candy.com59.36040.43344.46848.087

Average Response Times February 01, 2012 - February 15, 2012
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. resp. time
1proflowers.com2.5512.7782.5262.618
2redenvelope.com3.3192.4503.2192.996
3harryanddavid.com4.6753.5215.0584.418
4brookstone.com11.4595.8664.5747.300
5helzberg.com13.0597.66112.73511.151
6pagoda.com22.00111.7109.08414.265
71800flowers.com22.67111.85413.56016.028
8ftd.com55.62627.02022.19134.945
9vermonteddybear.com48.97435.18232.91239.023
10candy.com59.84743.40345.27849.509



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, 2012
TargetHours
000102030405060708091011121314151617181920212223
1800flowers20.4213.5513.9613.0312.8111.6913.9513.8512.0513.8313.2213.7015.1015.7914.0718.0317.8415.0413.8317.8016.4217.7723.6216.76
brookstone7.387.086.827.427.177.027.829.226.666.616.626.856.686.466.417.167.037.217.106.797.346.888.657.04
candy47.9445.9646.1146.1046.2448.3646.5645.9647.3147.4449.3051.2748.9550.1849.5150.4849.4449.6348.8148.7547.6448.1846.7347.25
ftd20.9319.4221.3322.3821.4120.6921.5420.3421.3920.0420.8423.0419.3918.9318.8313.3113.1412.7813.1713.0012.8913.6012.9212.87
harryanddavid4.733.863.694.513.443.213.583.493.283.873.453.993.953.523.835.246.355.074.878.117.5916.6417.757.88
helzberg11.8911.008.8712.7111.549.5811.4310.5010.629.5010.0612.158.859.149.169.3910.178.908.818.459.699.239.909.63
pagoda13.1713.0815.5115.8113.4617.6015.0212.4412.9713.9411.3813.2111.9411.9511.7012.7013.3313.7112.9013.0711.5213.0815.1012.35
vermonteddybear38.5737.1636.8236.8237.2534.6334.8833.9534.0434.3435.2736.8634.9736.8535.7936.0136.9242.2641.1641.4141.2143.2442.3941.06


Average response times by hour February 01, 2012 - February 15, 2012
TargetHours
000102030405060708091011121314151617181920212223
1800flowers17.1517.2815.8314.9314.8814.7516.2615.3514.8214.6414.8615.2716.3415.3914.5515.3215.3316.1915.3216.7317.5719.3819.7516.77
brookstone7.406.926.806.917.067.046.997.237.027.036.997.237.186.887.167.067.237.227.657.687.918.178.737.71
candy47.8646.5847.0846.8446.3946.5547.3446.6747.2347.0449.8149.9650.2253.7850.3250.7851.1452.8250.0751.1852.7852.6752.6150.50
ftd36.4736.0433.3733.1934.0434.0134.3234.4134.1134.4335.7636.5536.4436.6735.1535.0733.9833.0435.3134.5534.0935.8335.1836.67
harryanddavid4.193.913.947.523.873.443.373.523.513.663.804.344.533.944.234.394.834.424.484.885.025.685.594.96
helzberg11.4811.0910.2110.5210.3310.8310.5110.8911.6511.5711.2711.4011.2511.9610.7611.0911.1111.3110.9211.8211.5812.0011.3510.73
pagoda13.0012.9815.0714.5613.5918.1815.7014.4313.5313.1613.2214.5414.0813.5613.4013.6714.0014.8013.9614.2515.0315.2614.7613.64
proflowers13.1012.9511.0911.2811.3711.8010.9711.6810.6111.3811.5011.2111.3410.8210.7511.6611.2712.3711.0612.1413.1414.7617.1711.47
redenvelope18.8819.0414.6614.5115.3115.9214.7515.1013.9414.2115.3313.3914.0612.8212.7512.9613.7814.8813.9614.4714.7418.2418.5615.68
vermonteddybear38.0037.2437.0036.2037.5638.5237.6037.5238.2536.2938.1540.7640.5639.1652.9640.4737.1038.2838.4638.4842.8438.6438.6637.84


Uptime

Uptime February 15, 2012
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. uptime
1candy.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
2helzberg.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
3pagoda.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
41800flowers.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
5redenvelope.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
6ftd.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
7proflowers.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
8vermonteddybear.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
9brookstone.com100.000%99.790%100.000%99.930%
10harryanddavid.com99.360%100.000%100.000%99.787%

Uptime February 01, 2012 - February 15, 2012
#TargetSan FranciscoChicagoWashingtonAvg. uptime
1redenvelope.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
2pagoda.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
3proflowers.com100.000%100.000%99.986%99.995%
4brookstone.com100.000%99.971%100.000%99.990%
51800flowers.com99.923%99.983%99.943%99.950%
6harryanddavid.com99.901%99.945%99.967%99.938%
7ftd.com99.615%99.986%100.000%99.867%
8vermonteddybear.com99.703%99.687%99.689%99.693%
9helzberg.com98.853%98.852%98.867%98.857%
10candy.com98.543%98.772%98.693%98.669%

Methodology:
The 2012 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 1 and February 14, 2012. 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:
  • WebSitePulse should be referred as the "Source" of the information;
  • WebSitePulse should be acknowledged as the owner of the copyrights of the information in the Reports;
  • The texts of the Reports could be changed or altered to better suit the needs and the style of the publisher without prior notice to WebSitePulse. However, the integrity and the meaning of the information should be preserved;

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