Shoppers anticipate Black Friday and Boxing Day sales all year long. Many people take advantage of the bargains to finish their holiday shopping or even treat themselves to something expensive. The retail events we’ve grown to enjoy will unquestionably look different as a result of shifting economics, with bargain hunters set to turn out in greater numbers but with tighter budgets. Knowing where best to position your sales to take advantage of the increasingly oversaturated sales market can be challenging. Looking at the two powerhouse annual events, we can see clear trends for the season ahead. Black Friday & Cyber Monday According to Finder research, British shoppers will spend an average of £189.59 during this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. There is a 31% (£85) decrease since last year’s statistics when consumers spent an average of £275. With the cost of living crisis showing no signs of improvement in the New Year, this more frugal figure shows that many Britons are genuinely trying to cut back on their expenditures. UK consumers will spend £3.95 billion less on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2022 compared to £6 billion in 2020 and £4.8 billion in 2021. Spending in the UK is anticipated to decrease by more than £850 million (18%) this Black Friday and Cyber Monday due to Brits choosing to spend significantly less. That said, despite a decline in overall spending, the percentage of Brits planning to shop during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales has increased by 6% from the previous year, going from 33% in 2021 to 39% in 2022. This increase could be explained by people wanting to make more savings before the holidays. Black Friday has become a firm favourite for those looking to pick up bargain deals for Christmas gifts, with electronics, toys, clothes, and entertainment making up a large percentage of sales. Boxing Day As record inflation affects consumer budgets, sales are predicted to decline by £2.51 billion from Christmas 2021’s expected total of £84.7 billion, sliding below 2019’s pre-pandemic numbers of £83.1 billion. Sales are not anticipated to fall to the levels observed during Christmas 2020 when the pandemic peaked (£79.7 billion). Analysts predict a 6.8% decrease in gift spending compared to 2021 (£11.59 billion vs. £12.44 billion), with consumer electronics suffering the brunt of this loss with a forecasted £2.27 billion vs. £2.7 billion. Jewellery is down 11.1%, followed by apparel and footwear, both of which have experienced declines of 12.1%. Boxing Day sales are increasingly seen as a chance for people to spend any money they’ve received for Christmas. Alcohol and confectionary see strong sales in the period between Christmas and New Year. At the same time, shoppers are more likely to ‘treat themselves’ to luxury items they might have missed out on over the holiday period.

As we enter a new year, many businesses are gearing up for their next product launch. With the anticipation of increased traffic to their website, it’s important to ensure that everything runs smoothly and that customers have a positive experience. One key way to do this is to work with thinkTRIBE and load test your website before code lockdown. A comprehensive load test program for six months leading up to peak traffic is the optimum solution for peace of mind. However, we understand that this may not always be realistic. The important thing is to make sure that a load test is conducted before code lockdown, with enough time to implement, test and fix any issues. This way, tech teams have no last-minute pressure to deliver the impossible. Testing third-party material or calls is crucial because they are frequently a key contributor to performance concerns, a potential bottleneck and speed tax. In busy periods, this will aid in enhancing your website’s speed and user experience. It’s also important to review your infrastructure configuration and server-side optimization. This includes checking that load balancing and autoscaling are configured and implemented correctly. Additionally, ensure that caching is enabled and that pre-rendering and CDN implementation work for the appropriate content. All of this functionality can be covered by thinkTRIBE’s 24/7 Customer Experience monitoring journeys. Preparing for peak traffic during a product launch can require a combination of load testing, stripping back to essential functionality, reviewing infrastructure configuration and server-side optimisation and testing a contingency plan. By taking these steps with thinkTRIBE, you can confidently ensure that your website can handle the increased traffic and that your customers have a positive experience. Which in turn ensures your sales continue to increase inline with the increased traffic and they don’t plummet due to site failure or a negative user experience. Get in touch with us at thinkTRIBE today and make sure your site is in peak shape for peak traffic.

Web performance testing is a critical component of ensuring that your website delivers a fast and seamless user experience. It involves simulating real-world scenarios and testing the performance of your website under different loads and conditions. This type of testing helps to identify and address performance issues before they impact the user experience. Why is Web Performance Testing Important? Web performance testing is important for several reasons. First, it helps to ensure that your website can handle the expected traffic volume without crashing or slowing down. This is particularly important for e-commerce websites or other sites that experience high levels of traffic. Second, web performance testing can help to identify and fix issues that may be impacting the user experience, such as slow page load times or broken links. Finally, web performance testing can help to identify areas for improvement and optimization, which can help to boost search engine rankings and overall website performance. thinkTRIBE is a leading provider of website performance monitoring and testing services. We offer a range of services designed to help businesses identify and address performance issues, including: Load Testing : thinkTRIBE offers load testing services that simulate real-world traffic scenarios to test the performance of your website under different loads and conditions. This helps to identify performance bottlenecks and other issues that may be impacting the user experience. Customer Experience Monitoring : thinkTRIBEs synthetic monitoring services simulate realistic user interactions with your website to identify performance issues that may impact the user experience. This type of testing can help to identify issues such as delivery time, website features and broken links. thinkTRIBE Native Mobile App Monitoring (NEW):   measure the performance, availability and consistency of journeys across your native Android app as experienced by App users. Performance Optimisation: thinkTRIBE offers performance optimisation services designed to identify and address performance issues, helping to boost website performance and search engine rankings. Mobile Performance Testing : thinkTRIBE’s mobile performance testing services help to ensure that your website delivers a fast and seamless user experience on mobile devices, which are becoming increasingly important for website traffic.

Online sale seasons present a critical opportunity for companies to boost revenue and improve their bottom line. Retailers need to take action to locate and address any potential bottlenecks or errors in their website to make sure that they are ready for the rush. ThinkTRIBE offers a variety of services to help you get your website ready for peak sales periods. Performance load testing is the best place to start. Load Testing replicates and exceeds predicted website traffic, so that businesses may spot any possible problems before they have a direct impact on the customer. Sale seasons are a highly competitive market for retailers, so your website must be stress tested ahead of time to avoid losing customers because of slowness or errors. Another important service offered by ThinkTRIBE is Customer Experience Monitoring . This allows retailers to track the performance of their website in real-time, using authentic customer browsing patterns and realistic user journeys. This enables you to identify any issues that may arise during the sales period and take immediate action to resolve them. It ensures your customers have a smooth and seamless experience while using your website, which is essential for maintaining customer loyalty and brand integrity. Take a peek behind the curtain with ThinkTRIBE and get real-time dynamic insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your website. By following in your customer’s footsteps and experiencing your website the way they do, you’ll be ahead of the curve when it comes to sales, ready for the rush and set to start the year with the best possible success.

Boden, leading UK online fashion retailer, relies on ThinkTribe’s digital customer experience monitoring to ensure smooth performance and maximise sales across its websites globally. With over 90% of sales coming from online, Boden serves customers across multiple eCommerce stores in the UK, US, Australia, Germany, Austria, France, and a new Eurozone site. The Challenge A team of in-house developers build the company’s websites and key applications, enabling Boden to quickly diagnose and fix issues, which is crucial as their internet business grows. However, the continuous nature of their websites requires 24/7 monitoring to ensure seamless digital experience (DX), especially during their high-traffic end-of-season sales. The Solution Boden uses ThinkTribe to monitor digital CX on their websites 24/7 and alert the team to any issues. ThinkTribe replicates customers performing journeys across the site, identifying digital experience problems in real-time. This proactive approach allows Boden to fix issues promptly, ensuring a seamless shopping experience. Lalit Mandalia, Head of Technical Services, responsible for the smooth running of Boden’s IT infrastructure and networks, explains “We issue new software updates for the websites and associated systems every couple of weeks. When we push out a new release, we monitor ThinkTribe and our other monitoring tools very closely. ThinkTribe is our number one place to look to ensure the websites are OK.” The Benefits David and Lalit highlight ThinkTribe’s comprehensive monitoring and excellent customer service. Historical views and journey comparisons help Boden swiftly track issues and improvements and ensure their websites perform optimally. Discover the full case study here. #digitalexperience #DXmonitoring #globalecommerce