E-commerce websites across the globe had to handle up to 80% more traffic at the start of the festive shopping season than any previous week or month in 2022.
In fact, new research documenting traffic on 12,000 websites across Europe, APAC and the US revealed two billion visits on Black Friday itself, while visits on Cyber Monday were 59% above average compared to other Mondays across the year.
The analysis by web platform Platform.sh, across 12,000 e-commerce sites, implies continued enthusiasm for early deals before Christmas shopping gets into full swing. Post Cyber weekend, traffic for the first week of this month was up 24% with over a billion website visits per day compared to the 2022 weekly average.
Developer deployment on Black Friday
The research highlighted distinct challenges that e-commerce businesses face with seasonal peaks in site visits and demand, with smaller sites that typically don’t see high numbers potentially creaking under pressure from short, but aggressive spikes in traffic.
Marketers working to make sure that promotions or deals were adjusted in real time was one side of the story, the research said, citing developer teams as those being under high pressure to ensure optimal website performance. In fact, Platform.sh found that e-commerce developer teams deployed 10% more on Black Friday than any other sector’s website.
Fred Plais, CEO at Platform.sh said: “November and December are busy months for online retailers with overall website traffic considerably higher than on an average day or week in previous months,”
“The heightened user demand comes with a sensitivity to things going wrong but for a fast moving company during one of the biggest retail periods of the calendar year you have to be flexible and agile to any potential changes.”
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