Holiday Season Report 2015 Past

Performance Tracking > 2015 Holiday Season

WebSitePulse 2015 Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report

Holiday Season is just around the corner and FedEx is predicting “a record-breaking holiday season, forecasting shipments between Black Friday and Christmas Eve will jump about 12% from last year,” according to http://fortune.com/.

12% increase in shipments mean that FedEx is expecting to move about 317 million shipments during that period. In addition,

“Many forecasters are forecasting a 3.5%-4% overall increase in total holiday sales, a deceleration from last year’s 5.2% growth. But the e-commerce segment remains a hot growth area as more shoppers move online for their holiday shopping needs. E-commerce sales are forecast to rise between 6% to 8% in 2015, hitting as much as $105 billion, the National Retail Federation has estimated,” Fortune.com also noted.

As usual, we have decided to monitor 11 of the most popular websites for shopping online. Considering the forecasts above, however, we must note that such an increase in e- commerce may turn horribly wrong for some of these websites if they are not prepared to bear the heavy traffic load. In other words, the heavy traffic may cause the website to slow down or to crash which then may lead to a number of lost customers.

Thus, keeping your website up and running at all times is of utmost importance.

We will be publishing daily reports of each of the monitored websites in the period between November 24th , 2015 and January 4th, 2016, so stay tuned.

Daily Report for January 04, 2016

See 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 2.889 sec.

The Average Response time as measured from the US East Coast (Washington DC) was:	2.657 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US West Coast (Los Angeles, CA) was:	3.265 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US Central was (Chicago, IL):	2.744 sec.

The Best Response time measured from US East Coast (Washington DC):	0.821 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US West Coast (Los Angeles, CA):	1.095 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US Central was (Chicago, IL):	0.845 sec.

The typical shopping transaction took the least time for kmart.com visitors - 0.948 sec., while the visitors of amazon.com had to be the most patient, as the shopping transaction there took in average of 5.386 sec.
Five of the monitored websites delivered above-the-average response times for their transactions, while six 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 2015 Holiday Season 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:
amazon	bestbuy	target	kmart	sears
toysrus	walmart	qvc	tigerdirect	hallmark	jcpenney

Average Response Times for January 04, 2016

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. resp. time
1	kmart.com	1.095	0.850	0.899	0.948
2	sears.com	1.333	0.845	0.821	1.000
3	tigerdirect.com	2.346	1.729	1.481	1.852
4	qvc.com	2.686	1.587	1.484	1.919
5	bestbuy.com	2.173	2.008	1.840	2.007
6	toysrus.com	1.993	2.399	2.437	2.276
7	jcpenney.com	4.046	3.383	3.580	3.670
8	target.com	4.598	4.296	3.720	4.205
9	hallmark.com	4.516	3.880	4.219	4.205
10	walmart.com	4.552	4.113	4.262	4.309
11	amazon.com	6.582	5.095	4.481	5.386

Average Response Times November 23, 2015 - January 04, 2016

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. resp. time
1	kmart.com	1.262	0.967	1.066	1.098
2	sears.com	1.437	0.998	1.093	1.176
3	bestbuy.com	2.161	1.857	1.759	1.926
4	qvc.com	2.314	1.809	1.832	1.985
5	tigerdirect.com	2.437	1.938	1.689	2.021
6	toysrus.com	1.761	2.284	2.367	2.137
7	jcpenney.com	3.665	2.931	3.450	3.349
8	hallmark.com	4.554	3.929	4.231	4.238
9	walmart.com	4.727	4.310	4.095	4.377
10	target.com	4.745	4.411	4.173	4.443
11	amazon.com	6.463	4.862	4.340	5.222

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 January 04, 2016

Target	Hours
Target	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23
amazon	5.45	5.51	5.26	5.65	5.25	5.12	5.45	5.21	5.16	5.31	5.27	5.33	5.42	5.65	5.42	5.53	5.24	5.58	5.54	5.49	5.14	5.44	5.40	5.49
bestbuy	2.00	2.05	1.88	2.05	2.15	2.23	1.83	1.76	1.84	1.70	1.86	1.85	1.81	1.95	1.94	1.78	2.42	2.03	1.88	2.12	2.12	2.66	2.08	2.18
hallmark	4.31	4.20	4.36	4.08	4.68	4.23	4.48	4.08	4.19	4.21	4.19	4.06	4.08	4.03	3.97	4.23	4.12	4.14	4.30	4.32	4.12	4.12	4.23	4.15
jcpenney	3.09	3.32	3.71	3.34	4.29	4.51	3.53	4.08	3.34	3.65	3.81	4.05	3.16	3.73	3.79	3.77	3.90	3.82	3.20	3.79	3.60	3.85	3.25	3.48
kmart	0.91	1.00	0.98	0.96	0.84	0.87	0.87	0.90	1.02	1.08	1.05	1.08	1.04	0.91	0.85	0.88	0.95	0.96	0.93	0.85	0.99	0.92	0.99	0.93
qvc	2.10	1.88	1.85	1.56	1.85	1.30	1.45	1.51	1.60	1.83	1.71	1.88	1.55	1.78	1.67	2.00	1.66	2.38	1.55	4.12	2.26	2.52	2.19	1.86
sears	1.02	1.13	0.84	0.94	0.95	0.77	0.86	0.94	0.86	1.02	1.13	1.02	0.85	0.96	0.99	1.10	0.87	0.83	0.87	1.52	1.19	1.24	1.04	1.04
target	4.15	5.72	4.88	3.37	4.14	4.25	4.07	3.91	4.46	3.83	4.14	3.90	4.06	4.23	4.68	5.64	3.89	3.66	3.86	3.83	3.80	3.98	4.08	4.39
tigerdirect	2.30	2.64	2.04	2.03	3.68	2.71	2.03	2.07	2.02	1.97	2.29	2.06	2.23	2.13	1.21	1.19	1.49	1.07	1.48	1.12	1.14	1.28	1.30	0.98
toysrus	1.81	1.86	1.92	3.25	2.56	2.55	3.55	3.11	2.78	2.72	2.44	2.18	2.23	2.21	1.97	1.92	1.97	1.93	1.93	1.92	1.97	1.96	2.00	1.91
walmart	4.19	4.17	3.44	3.80	4.05	4.07	4.15	5.05	3.33	4.44	4.26	4.56	4.22	4.51	4.23	4.20	4.40	4.51	4.35	4.33	5.33	4.30	4.84	4.69

Average response times by hour November 23, 2015 - January 04, 2016

Target	Hours
Target	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23
amazon	5.24	5.23	5.24	5.17	5.20	5.17	5.20	5.15	5.15	5.21	5.24	5.19	5.19	5.23	5.25	5.28	5.24	5.24	5.22	5.25	5.22	5.28	5.26	5.28
bestbuy	1.91	1.84	1.85	1.94	1.98	1.83	1.76	1.84	1.77	1.80	1.78	1.95	1.91	1.89	2.02	2.12	2.07	2.04	2.10	2.03	1.92	2.00	1.97	1.91
hallmark	4.25	4.23	4.39	4.23	4.42	4.31	4.37	4.20	4.22	4.18	4.36	4.15	4.22	4.15	4.17	4.14	4.16	4.17	4.15	4.17	4.21	4.26	4.31	4.29
jcpenney	3.20	3.28	3.48	3.32	3.54	3.67	3.50	3.38	3.41	3.29	3.28	3.30	3.32	3.20	3.38	3.30	3.49	3.36	3.49	3.30	3.16	3.27	3.25	3.20
kmart	1.07	1.09	1.19	1.19	1.08	1.11	1.16	1.13	1.15	1.07	1.07	1.04	1.04	1.06	1.07	1.12	1.10	1.08	1.07	1.13	1.08	1.09	1.08	1.07
qvc	2.15	2.11	1.76	1.70	1.67	1.67	1.69	1.74	1.79	1.84	1.84	1.99	2.02	2.09	2.03	2.12	2.12	2.22	1.96	2.15	2.12	2.17	2.28	2.38
sears	1.15	1.15	1.18	1.17	1.07	1.07	1.02	1.20	1.07	1.06	1.17	1.06	1.14	1.09	1.15	1.23	1.26	1.31	1.68	1.39	1.16	1.16	1.22	1.10
target	4.69	4.50	4.08	4.18	4.60	4.23	4.79	4.20	4.46	4.51	4.36	4.42	4.36	4.40	4.47	4.70	4.59	4.74	4.42	4.56	4.26	4.33	4.29	4.48
tigerdirect	2.09	1.90	1.85	1.88	2.00	1.81	1.96	1.94	2.10	2.04	2.02	1.99	1.89	2.02	2.06	2.03	2.19	2.15	2.07	2.13	2.25	2.01	2.00	2.14
toysrus	1.95	1.96	1.94	1.94	1.94	2.01	3.89	2.74	2.41	2.27	2.10	2.16	2.04	2.01	2.00	2.02	1.98	1.99	1.95	2.10	1.95	1.94	2.00	1.98
walmart	4.33	4.12	4.07	3.91	4.68	4.39	3.94	3.90	4.07	4.12	4.32	4.75	4.72	4.61	4.63	4.57	4.81	4.60	4.48	4.72	4.31	4.27	4.41	4.31

Uptime

Uptime January 04, 2016

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. uptime
1	qvc.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
2	tigerdirect.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
3	hallmark.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
4	jcpenney.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
5	walmart.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
6	toysrus.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
7	bestbuy.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
8	target.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
9	kmart.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
10	sears.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
11	amazon.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%

Uptime November 23, 2015 - January 04, 2016

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. uptime
1	kmart.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
2	hallmark.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
3	bestbuy.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
4	sears.com	100.000%	99.994%	100.000%	99.998%
5	jcpenney.com	99.996%	99.994%	99.996%	99.995%
6	toysrus.com	99.990%	99.988%	99.991%	99.990%
7	qvc.com	99.968%	99.977%	99.960%	99.968%
8	walmart.com	99.876%	99.886%	99.827%	99.863%
9	amazon.com	99.716%	99.693%	99.718%	99.709%
10	tigerdirect.com	99.197%	99.147%	99.157%	99.167%
11	target.com	98.689%	98.613%	98.668%	98.657%

Methodology:
The 2015 Holiday Season Reports reflect a complete web transaction, representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. The reporting period covers the dates between November 24, 2015 and January 4, 2016. 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: Los Angeles, 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".

WebSitePulse 2015 Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report

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