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Performance Tracking  > 2018 Holiday Season

WebSitePulse 2018 Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report


The Holiday Season is fast approaching and which means people and various businesses are preparing for it. In the United States, Christmas shopping season traditionally begins on Black Friday, the day following Thanksgiving Day.

Over the past several years online shopping has become more and more common to the point that shoppers will want to purchase their holiday gifts earlier than usual this year, as a major jump in online holiday shopping could complicate the delivery system. In 2018, holiday shopping e- commerce is projected to increase by 16.6 percent compared to the previous year with an expected revenue of 123.73 billion U.S. dollars.

Naturally, purchases peak during Black Friday Cyber Monday. But the entire week of Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday commands the bulk of online shopping, November itself far outperforms December.

Expecting the high demand online retailers need to keep a close eye on their websites, servers and web assets in order to meet the growing needs of the online shoppers.

For 13 years in a row, WebSitePulse will monitor 12 of the most popular shopping websites. This Performance Reports will measure the websites’ uptime and response time as the most important metrics for the availability and the reliability of any web store. Measurements of web transactions will be made every 15 minutes, simultaneously from 3 different monitoring locations. In-depth analytical information is also collected and stored in the WebSitePulse system for future references.
Daily Report for January 04, 2019See 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 3.676 sec.

The Average Response time as measured from the US East Coast (Washington, DC) was: 3.572 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US West Coast (Los Angeles, CA) was:4.273 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US Central was (Chicago, IL):3.183 sec.

The Best Response time measured from US East Coast (Washington, DC):1.283 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US West Coast (Los Angeles, CA):1.810 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US Central was (Chicago, IL):1.130 sec.

The typical shopping transaction took the least time for lowes.com visitors - 1.527 sec., while the visitors of walmart.com had to be the most patient, as the shopping transaction there took in average of 6.419 sec.
Four 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 99.99%.

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

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 2018 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     target     walmart     qvc     tigerdirect 
    hallmark     officedepot     cdw     lowes     costco 

Average Response Times for January 04, 2019
#TargetLos AngelesChicagoWashingtonAvg. resp. time
1lowes.com2.0271.2721.2831.527
2target.com2.6341.1301.3761.713
3costco.com1.8102.0881.7821.893
4qvc.com3.5931.7181.8342.382
5tigerdirect.com2.7992.0583.8652.907
6cdw.com4.5323.3702.7463.549
7amazon.com4.1103.5507.1774.946
8officedepot.com6.5715.4224.0825.358
9hallmark.com7.6335.4025.1496.061
10walmart.com7.0175.8176.4246.419

Average Response Times November 21, 2018 - January 04, 2019
#TargetLos AngelesChicagoWashingtonAvg. resp. time
1lowes.com2.1301.4001.1171.549
2costco.com1.8751.8301.5841.763
3target.com3.1811.2541.3911.942
4qvc.com2.4281.8991.7802.035
5tigerdirect.com2.8841.9753.8762.912
6cdw.com4.3763.3943.5063.759
7amazon.com4.2733.3227.3024.966
8officedepot.com6.5715.2455.2455.687
9hallmark.com7.5365.6245.4316.197
10walmart.com6.95411.5096.0458.170



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, 2019
TargetHours
000102030405060708091011121314151617181920212223
amazon5.105.385.215.134.574.973.894.615.074.144.515.595.355.554.814.704.685.655.544.694.764.724.875.21
cdw3.352.923.542.9411.243.133.023.342.962.992.963.633.233.853.183.523.004.592.943.652.763.302.522.65
costco2.001.891.571.581.361.631.841.721.371.842.573.002.272.561.643.251.411.612.011.521.671.691.811.64
hallmark5.896.057.355.745.995.415.936.176.695.465.855.806.126.356.006.306.046.346.136.096.135.356.236.08
lowes1.361.301.461.621.261.571.481.641.301.411.491.611.511.641.811.571.811.691.521.391.501.991.521.22
officedepot5.315.734.855.255.234.824.895.184.954.985.315.455.745.695.525.775.635.695.505.355.545.345.575.32
qvc2.392.521.651.772.312.432.162.602.652.242.372.632.282.333.492.922.462.462.212.703.011.971.761.85
target1.701.561.761.432.081.921.781.701.651.622.051.531.711.711.491.772.111.961.751.641.691.511.471.54
tigerdirect2.512.732.563.193.623.232.952.793.122.902.952.682.642.862.712.572.712.613.452.892.743.252.753.35
walmart6.416.495.925.806.385.916.405.956.257.456.537.436.797.146.976.836.336.725.786.876.585.665.615.86


Average response times by hour November 21, 2018 - January 04, 2019
TargetHours
000102030405060708091011121314151617181920212223
amazon5.104.774.704.494.624.554.854.684.624.754.834.964.915.215.065.245.305.225.195.225.365.175.205.14
cdw3.453.293.533.097.7611.143.003.062.962.912.993.193.303.243.393.213.103.372.993.173.383.433.683.59
costco1.511.651.451.741.561.903.122.741.451.641.591.841.581.831.611.961.581.881.591.691.551.691.481.69
hallmark6.096.246.716.556.286.306.016.476.115.995.936.086.316.396.026.196.176.146.116.106.036.116.186.22
lowes1.461.371.361.371.311.291.481.691.911.471.541.811.681.831.581.631.531.531.641.491.591.551.541.52
officedepot5.525.345.125.385.175.175.215.375.305.495.615.885.966.586.446.856.225.925.835.695.735.585.645.49
qvc1.931.901.871.831.861.882.011.911.932.052.082.112.152.212.172.122.072.142.112.142.132.112.122.03
target1.751.711.801.871.812.141.991.972.112.541.752.031.811.942.521.731.772.051.891.911.961.822.011.75
tigerdirect2.832.942.922.852.842.862.842.902.852.832.852.923.162.982.922.912.892.952.882.863.102.902.932.98
walmart8.128.018.967.637.378.377.887.867.218.078.258.228.208.428.067.758.118.337.967.468.288.039.559.97


Uptime

Uptime January 04, 2019
#TargetLos AngelesChicagoWashingtonAvg. uptime
1officedepot.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
2cdw.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
3lowes.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
4hallmark.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
5tigerdirect.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
6amazon.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
7walmart.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
8qvc.com100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
9costco.com99.820%100.000%100.000%99.940%
10target.com100.000%100.000%99.810%99.937%

Uptime November 21, 2018 - January 04, 2019
#TargetLos AngelesChicagoWashingtonAvg. uptime
1target.com100.000%100.000%99.995%99.998%
2amazon.com99.992%100.000%99.998%99.997%
3tigerdirect.com100.000%100.000%99.979%99.993%
4qvc.com99.943%100.000%100.000%99.981%
5walmart.com99.986%99.975%99.981%99.980%
6cdw.com99.980%99.980%99.970%99.977%
7hallmark.com99.977%99.970%99.977%99.975%
8officedepot.com99.823%99.822%99.875%99.840%
9costco.com99.760%99.753%99.766%99.760%
10lowes.com99.082%99.282%99.308%99.224%

Methodology:
The 2018 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 21, 2018 and January 4, 2019. 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:

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