In a 2021 survey, Brazilian websites were down for more than 9 hours. That was the period from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. As a result, this Black Friday instability generated more than R$ 36 million in losses

Black Friday needs to be used well by both sides involved: consumer and retailer. There are 24 hours — or 96, if you count Cyber Monday — for your business to reap the benefits. Moreover, this date remains the second most important for e-commerce, behind only Christmas.

In practice, this short window brings a boom of simultaneous consumers to websites. As a result, it causes Black Friday instability. As we show in this article, revenue for the date in 2021 was R$ 5.4 billion, according to data from Neotrust. Since then, volume has only grown, and the margin for error has narrowed.

However, that result could have been even better were it not for website instability. A survey by Sofist from the same year looked at the numbers. It indicated that slowness and inconsistency of e-commerce sites cost R$ 36.1 million during the period.

The figure was almost 26% lower than in 2020. In that year, the loss due to Black Friday instability reached R$ 48.7 million. In other words, the number swings from one edition to the next. However, the pattern repeats: every minute of downtime turns into a lost sale.

How was the loss determined?

The estimated loss figures came from monitoring 116 websites. The monitoring ran from 10 p.m. on November 25 until 11:59 p.m. on November 29, 2021. That was the most common promotion window at the time. Moreover, to count as instability, the survey considered several factors:

– Technical problems, such as error pages;

– Use of waiting pages, also known as “placeholder” pages;

– Excessive delay (timeout), when the site does not finish loading within 45 seconds.

Meanwhile, 54 of the 116 stores (46%) went down at some point during the monitored period. Altogether, websites were unavailable for 9 hours and 25 minutes. As a result, this produced the calculated R$ 36.1 million in losses. In other words, a few moments of instability turn into significant losses for e-commerce businesses.

How to avoid Black Friday instability?

There are several precautions to take. However, the main one is investing in technology that delivers scalability under high traffic. In practice, that means autoscaling, containers, and continuous load tests throughout the year. In addition, the checkout must absorb the Pix peak, now consolidated in Brazilian digital retail. In this sense, it is important that IT takes on a leading role and is planned strategically.

After all, constant IT diagnostics help identify inconsistencies in systems, as we show in this blog article. The areas to evaluate include storage, backup performance, infrastructure optimization, and systems integration. Likewise, observability correlates logs, metrics, and traces to expose the bottleneck before the customer does. Therefore, other technology investments can contribute:

The technologies that hold the peak

– Internet of Things – It helps integrate physical and online stores. Moreover, it collects more data about customer behavior. In addition, edge and 5G move that processing closer to the operation.

– Data analytics – It is a large body of information relevant to the business. However, it requires processing to become structured, trustworthy data. As a result, decisions rest on reality and history.

– Demand forecasting – Forecasting models estimate the volume of customers during Black Friday peaks. For this, they use the data history stored in analytics. Next, that number becomes the load test scenario.

– Artificial intelligence – It goes from purchase recommendations to recovering abandoned carts. In addition, AI agents already triage support tickets and summarize incidents during the peak. Therefore, the support team focuses on what blocks the sale.

– Cloud services – In this article, we talked about the cloud for mapping IT assets. However, it brings other benefits: “the technology has gained ground because of the direct results it brings to companies. For example, better management and increased productivity and security. Another possibility is stability and scalability, with services that are always available and can be expanded or reduced as needed.” In addition, FinOps sizes that consumption with chargeback and rightsizing, avoiding invoice surprises.

In addition, as you can see, this work does not happen overnight. You need to plan and invest in infrastructure, solutions, and testing. Therefore, you reach a standard that replicates the reality of this period. In short, only organized action prevents Black Friday instability in e-commerce.

Think time

In practice, in the IT world, “think time” is the time used to simulate the behavior of a real user. In this sense, websites should know their own think time. It applies to login, search, order completion, and payment. Likewise, it covers the other actions in an online purchase.

Therefore, the tests that size a website’s capacity need to consider this situation. If the checks do not follow human patterns, they deliver no real insight to executives. As a result, they create an unrealistic scenario.

That distorted scenario may lead a business to oversize its infrastructure. On the other hand, there is the opposite risk of sizing below what the peak demands. Meanwhile, FinOps helps find the balance between cost and headroom. As a result, you project possible Black Friday instability with more realism.

Likewise, a user’s think time and browsing behavior help size the required response time. In addition, they indicate the adjustments needed to handle the demand.

As a result, do you want to know the path to prepare your e-commerce for Black Friday? Check out our guide with the main tips for your business! Download your copy!

Meanwhile, do you want to see the solution package to prepare your IT for Black Friday? See it here