Retailers could miss £11.5bn on e-commerce!

Christmas has come around again, but have our merchants really prepared themselves for it enough? With the icy conditions and more snow predicted to fall people are swapping their local shopping centres for their sofa’s at home!

Choosing to avoid stepping out in this seasons arctic conditions all eyes aren’t on the high street but they are looking towards their computer and laptop screens within the comfort of their own homes. Shopping online for those Christmas gifts and spending up that money you have been saving! It has recently been predicted that in this year alone a massive £11.5bn will be made from online sales. This will mean there will be a growth of 29% since the same time last year!

With this huge amount of opportunity staring retailers and merchants in the face you would think they would grab at it with open arms. However, many want to but have simply not prepared themselves for what will be a record amount in online sales.

They have spent ages gathering together brilliant Christmas offers but, their back end systems just cannot cope with the surge in demand at this busy period. The impact that will hit these systems will cause downtime to payment systems.

Already, having surveyed a selection of merchants over half of them, 59% admitted that in an average month where there isn’t this impacting demand they have actually suffered from downtime to their payment system. A massive record time of 72.8hours of downtime per year and this, is a lot of time that people can allocate to spending money.

With better deals sometimes online there has been an increase in the numbers of people who shop online whether it be for clothes, food or even electrical gadgets!

Just as you wouldn’t expect to walk into a shop on the high street, pick something up and go to the till to pay where are told you cannot have the item because their till is down! You wouldn’t expect the same online shopping either.

You, the consumer have a need for consistency. This consistency comes from merchants offering reliable shopping experiences. Without this and with added downtime people just simply won’t be tempted to revisit your site they will just shop elsewhere.

Now with Christmas 1 week and three days away – not that were counting! It is vital that merchants and retailers ensure their back end systems can cope, and if it simply is just too late then learn from your mistakes and prepare better next year!