In the United States, the term ‘Black Friday’ is synonymous with riots, outrageous deals and competitive shopping.

The tradition is quickly becoming adopted into other countries including the UK, with British retailers gearing up for record retail activity this festive season.Grocers Asda and Sainsbury’s are predicted to attract customers with huge savings on electrical goods and department store chain John Lewis will also join the fray with their ‘never knowingly undersold’ promise.

However, shopping on this scale is now no longer restricted to in-store activity and another annual trend has emerged; ‘Cyber Monday’.

Cyber Monday refers to the day following Black Friday when enthused shoppers return to work, no less motivated to take advantage of the deals on offer, primarily through on-line devices.

This has led to unparalleled site traffic to all major retailers, including Amazon and Ebay.

Last week, leading high street retailer H&M suffered a website crash when it launched its collaboration with designer Alexander Wang.

“Even minor delays to website response times can have a sizable impact on customer satisfaction, page views, conversion rates and site abandonment.”

says Archie Roboostaff, Portfolio Director at Borland Software Corporation.

According to Micro Focus research, more than ten well known global retailers were affected by the Cyber Monday’s one–day spike in website traffic last year. Brands including Ebay saw its website performance drop by 31% in the lead up to Cyber Monday

This year, Cyber Monday falls on 1st December.

Source: Retail Gazette
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Words: Daniel Pearce