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Web Traffic Snarls Sites on Black Friday

Posted by Zonk on from the hit-em-hard-then-pick-them-up dept.

eweekhickins writes "A surge of e-commerce traffic on Thanksgiving night and all day Friday apparently caught several retail giants by surprise, with Lowe's, Macys and Victoria's Secret especially hard hit. In fact, almost a third of leading retailers suffered significant slowdowns on Black Friday, according to statistics released this weekend by Keynote Competitive Research, a firm that tracks Web site performance."

105 comments

  1. Sears.com was hit by compwizrd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sears was responsive enough, not much in slowdowns. However, once you put something into your cart, it wouldn't allow you to remove it... had to delete cookies to get a new cart.

    1. Re:Sears.com was hit by Datamonstar · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's a feature. Good way to FORCE a shopper to buy something. In the brick & mortar store I used to work at we used krazy glue.

      --
      The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
    2. Re:Sears.com was hit by cjb-nc · · Score: 1

      The Sears website was working fine on Saturday morning. The follow-up is still slow. I placed an order before 10AM on Saturday. I only just now (Monday, 11AM) received an email telling me that they are too backlogged to send me an email to confirm my order. As for when I can go pickup my item from the store... that's anyone's guess.

    3. Re:Sears.com was hit by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Funny, I tried to get to the Sears website from my iPhone on Saturday morning (probably about 10:30 or 10:45 Central time, but I'm not exactly sure), and it was inaccessible. I had no trouble reaching other sites (Slashdot, CNN). I kept trying for about five or six minutes and I couldn't get the front page to load. It got as far as the redirect off the main URL and then failed to load the following URL. I have no way to know whether they actually had site problems or some critical backbone router went down, though.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    4. Re:Sears.com was hit by origamy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I was online at around 5.50am(PST) when Sears.com died. I was opening a new page to view the details of one product and that new page would not show up. Sears.com would also not work in a new page. Shortly after 6am I was able to get back into the site, only to see the prices had gone up!

    5. Re:Sears.com was hit by PuckSR · · Score: 1

      Yeah....and unfortunately Sears uses the same system for Sears.com and their in-store ordering system. Typically wouldn't cause much of a problem, but for some reason Sears tries to heavily restrict its in-store merchandise and works from several "warehouses" that typically deliver 6 times a week to the stores. Kinda stupid, but it keeps their total inventory in-store low... Anyways, they still haven't completely restored the system yet....and this is after an incident 3 years ago on Black Friday that caused EVERY SYSTEM to crash....including Credit BTW... Black friday is a bad thing It is typically a more common term for retail employees, and makes reference to the fact that you have one of the highest traffic days(but not highest profit or revenue days) of the year. The people who typically use that term(at least until it was popularized on the net) are making reference to how much they HATE black friday... Honestly....what kinda of freak gets up at 4 am to wait in line in the cold and snow to purchase items that are frequently at the same price as the previous week. The retailers run a few items(known as "doorbusters") that actually have a significant markdown and the rest of the stuff is at regular price.....they run out of the "doorbusters" typically as soon as they open but continue to see high sales all day long from idiots who think they are getting a good deal without intelligently shopping around. It is as if it proves the old adage:"You don't have to give someone a good deal, you just have to tell them that they are getting a good deal"

  2. Why... by kungfujesus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why don't these huge stores buy servers that can take the strain? sure, they may be ridiculously overpowered for most of the year, but being able to function on black friday is extremely important for their bottom line.

    1. Re:Why... by snl2587 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Money

    2. Re:Why... by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How do you know they didn't have huge servers - just not huge enough? (Ditto for bandwidth, etc...)
       
      Seriously, predicting traffic is pretty much a black art. Even if you build out for what you thought would be enough, you still could get caught flatfooted.

    3. Re:Why... by interiot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And why don't the brick-and-mortars open up at midnight, with 3 times the normal cash registers open? Because the near riot is good for business when it gets covered in the local news. There's a reason that each store stocks 12 units of the best deal, and most of the other prices are just normal sale prices... that generates an aura of crazed shopping, and a line of 200 people who are willing to stand hours in the cold -- 188 of whom will be buying products at a profit.

    4. Re:Why... by BosstonesOwn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's retail they don't spend before it happens , they try and save a buck when they can.

      My experience at a retail business was exactly that. We had to have weeks of slow networks and servers in order to get the ok to get vendors in to bid on selling us gear. It was a huge joke.

      They should host with companies like akimai who can provide bandwidth on demand.

      --
      This package Does Not Contain a Winner
    5. Re:Why... by mcrbids · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Seriously, predicting traffic is pretty much a black art. Even if you build out for what you thought would be enough, you still could get caught flatfooted.

      Hear Hear! This man speaks wisdom!

      A year ago, I purchased a number of 1u 4-way servers in anticipation of rising demand. Based on rough guess of processing speed and current workload, I made an estimate of how long these servers would handle the load.

      Now, a year has gone by, and the load has only risen slightly, despite a dramatic increase in traffic! Bandwidth has risen sharply, yet the server load still floats at around 3-5% all day long, while based on my past estimates, would should be routinely hitting 25% and spiking to 200% from time to time.

      It's rare that it ever hits 20%. But disk usage is out through the roof - now at about 3x initial guess. Our customers are USING THE CRAP out of our services, but apparently refinements in the software over the past year (caching, etc) have all but completely negated any performance hit from the increased load.

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    6. Re:Why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Posting anonymously since I'm too close to this...

      I've worked with all of the companies mentioned at one time or another. Some do better planning than others. Quite simply, Black Friday represents a worst-case-scenario for an ecommerce site. Either you build out enough extra capacity to handle it (and we're not talking a couple servers here - we'd be talking more like hundreds of servers, not to mention massive database backends) and pay for it (both hardware, management, bandwidth, storage, etc), or you don't build out any extra and get slammed. Tens of millions of dollars of equipment and management, all for one day. Or what most companies do - you build out enough to handle the brunt of it, make as much profit as you can, and some peaks you just don't handle because it's not worth the massive investment to handle 100% of the traffic. It's a cost-benefit analysis, plain and simple. I can't comment in too much detail, but some of the companies listed did exactly this, and some... well, let's just say they didn't invest nearly enough. That's their choice.

      (Please recall that a OnDemand type of initiatives don't handle this - the idea behind them is there is extra capacity that you "switch on" on a moment's notice to handle a spike. The problem is that there's no capacity when everyone is hit at the same time. OnDemand is great if your peak is at a time when someone else's isn't - they get extra capacity at that time (for instance, flowers and greeting card companies on holidays, retailers on Black Friday). Here, everyone needs capacity at the exact same time. It's simply brutal.)

      It will be an interesting week as we get more data on Black Friday and everyone filters back in from Thanksgiving (mind you, many of us were working all this weekend, and some serious overtime monitoring and improving the situation however we could).

    7. Re:Why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some computer hardware companies, actually sell servers with capacity on demand for just these types of scenarios....

      You call to purchase a short term license to run extra cpus that are already installed, just not seen by the host OS until to you get the key to unlock them. I think the network would be the bottleneck, not so much the CPU hardware.

    8. Re:Why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm on the other side of the equation. We pitched Akamai to several of these companies. They turned it down because it was too expensive. A shame, because this is exactly what it's intended for.

      Of course, Akamai will only help with browsing - anyone who actually wants to buy will still hit your site, since it will have to get processed through the backend application and database servers.

    9. Re:Why... by SeaFox · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why don't these huge stores buy servers that can take the strain?

      I used to work for the Dept of Education (by way of a subcontractor) and the site I supported (the one your submit you government college financial aid form through) had the same problem. Several times a year it would slow to a crawl or not really be usable at all. The days this happened were the days that states required forms be filed by to be eligible. Despite the fact there are 365 days in a year, it seemed there were only a dozen or so days that states would choose as their deadline days, so we'd always have at least a few states all due on the same day.

      Anyway, the question you just asked used to come up a lot. "Why don't they just buy more servers/capacity?" The answer is because the difference in traffic is so huge between these days and "normal" days it would simply cost too much to maintain that sort of capacity. And (in our case at least) the security required for the app and data keeps a temporary bandwidth solution from being viable solution.

      Note: in the case of the FAFSA, it was ultimately the users themselves who were at fault for the slowdown, it not like an 18-hour shopping sale where you have to be there in a small time window, the form was available year round, it just happens that most people wait till the [i]last possible day[/i] to do it, then complain about the traffic jam (I'm looking at you, California!).
    10. Re:Why... by cskrat · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The answer is simple. The people that ultimately decide what gets purchased are businessmen and not engineers. As such they will try to exactly hit the minimum required amount of equipment to handle the situation. Unfortunately they will also use a naive method of determining that minimum, i.e. they may look at the number of sales transactions for the last couple years on that day and then use that information to project a number of 'visitors' to have the IT department prepare for.

      The network manager, if they're any good, will, however, think in terms of peak page requests and database transactions per minute, how to minimize cross-server requests and how to tweak site assets to minimize bandwidth requirements. Unfortunately the data that he presents to the people that control the spending accounts will not be in line with what they already presume to know based on the last 5 years of sales data. At this point, either the network manager needs to know how to be a salesman or the VP that he reports to needs to trust his people to know what they were hired to know. If both conditions fail then the site is doomed on Black Friday. If either condition holds true then either the web site will be prepared to the network manager's recommendation or, and this is more likely, the following decision process will be followed.

      Where X = Money spent on preparation
      And Y(X) = Margin dollars earned in sales after spending X on preparation
      Maximize Y(X)-X
      Like I said, simple.

      Of course every company has a sort of corporate personality. Many of which will tend to throw more people at a problem rather than invest in equipment for the existing people to use. If you can see this happening in their stores then you can be sure that they're doing it in their web department as well. Unfortunately the best that such a practice can hope to accomplish is speeding up recovery time from equipment failures. Many companies are also completely clueless in terms of technology so they may just be doomed from the start. As an anecdotal example for the latter case, I work for a company whose website uses several cross server assets per page. This works fine from an external browser but causes several firewall password prompts per page from any of our in store terminals.
      --
      My God! It's full of eval()'s.
    11. Re:Why... by aussie_a · · Score: 2, Funny

      Seriously, predicting traffic is pretty much a black art. So should we burn practisers or hire them in order to reach fill the quota?
    12. Re:Why... by jrexilius · · Score: 2, Informative

      Akamai is great but it doesn't help shopping carts or processing. Its only good for offloading the static bits (gifs, js, css, flash, etc.). It helps but still not the big win. (Full disclosure - my company http://hostedlabs.com/ is in this space and I know a thing or two about how hard this is)

    13. Re:Why... by Guido+von+Guido · · Score: 1

      I think it goes beyond predicting traffic. I did some work this year for a Large Retailer Which Shall Not Be Named. They bought a lot of hardware for a new code from an Outsourcing Vendor new platform from a Proprietary Unix Vendor. The new code has been problematic, but they spent a lot of time sorting through bugs and performance issues, including a ton of load testing.

      My Large Retailer friends had problems on Black Friday, despite a ton of new hardware and extensive load testing. What they found was that at high loads with actual traffic they ran into both performance issues and bugs in the new code that they didn't encounter with simulated traffic. Additionally, they run a ton of back-end apps, which are pretty complex and difficult to test under simulated load, some of which caused problems under the high load.

      In terms of hardware and bandwidth, though, they were fine.

    14. Re:Why... by Guido+von+Guido · · Score: 1

      In terms of network capacity, no, capacity on demand won't be there if everybody needs it.

      In terms of server capacity, though, you can buy servers with additional CPU and memory which are not activated. Both Sun and IBM have programs where you buy a server with unlicensed CPUs and/or memory. If you need additional capacity down the line, they'll happily sell you either temporary or permanent licenses for the unlicensed CPUs and/or memory. Personally, I have more experience with this from the IBM side.

      Does it make sense to use this? Got me. Obviously it's going to depend on your capacity needs. Personally, I suspect Sun and IBM use this more as a sales gimmick to get their higher end gear in the door. In the one situation where I've actually used it, the customer might have been better off using the full hardware from the start. But I imagine it could be useful in some situations.

    15. Re:Why... by stacey7165 · · Score: 1

      I am curious - have you tried http://www.hyperic.com/ at all to help manage these swells in traffic? It's exactly what its designed to do - monitor and manage web infrastructure and help manage availability/capacity. Several large hosting companies that are experts in managing changing traffic patterns use it with great success - like Contegix, Mosso (a division of Rackspace), and USi. You are right though - some of these traffic floods would take extra millions in infrastructure to really handle, but sometimes you can turn off services and reduce the complexity of the site to give a little extra cushion that can help accommodate some of it. Otherwise... I guess its back to the sneaker-net to get your shopping done. :) Full disclosure: I work for Hyperic, so by working with them regularly I do know a lot about how these large managed hosting providers cope with swings in traffic - and how sometimes companies just aren't willing to pay/ever prepared for what it takes to survive them gracefully.

  3. Last year... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wasn't there some article about how etailers had a different 'black Friday' than brick and mortar stores? They were going around calling it black Tuesday or some crap.

    1. Re:Last year... by insertwackynamehere · · Score: 1

      wow how many buzzwords can be pushed into one post? on a serious note, this is actually interesting if its true, but "etailers" and the idea of "black tuesday" cause my neck to stiffen and twitch

    2. Re:Last year... by compwizrd · · Score: 1

      Cyber Monday.

    3. Re:Last year... by Datamonstar · · Score: 4, Funny

      My old Everquest guild had one of those first Monday every month. Let's just say I didn't get too much questing done them days, knowwhudIUmean?

      --
      The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
    4. Re:Last year... by rehtonAesoohC · · Score: 1

      I put on my wizard robe and hat.

  4. O RLY? by Pinckney · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who would have guessed that tens of thousands of people trying to use a website all at once would cause it to slow down?

    1. Re:O RLY? by Kingrames · · Score: 5, Funny

      They should give that effect some sort of catchy name.

      --
      If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
    2. Re:O RLY? by Mister+Kay · · Score: 0

      You want to name the "Effect" caused when a "Mass" of people all hit a website at once...? I'm stumped for a name.

    3. Re:O RLY? by BosstonesOwn · · Score: 1

      Slashdotting ? /.ing ? Id like to see those in the news.

      --
      This package Does Not Contain a Winner
    4. Re:O RLY? by gbobeck · · Score: 1

      They should give that effect some sort of catchy name.

      I propose "Pickleweasel" as a name for that effect...
      --
      Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
  5. VS down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Would someone please think of the panties!

    Seriously though, I'll be really pissed if my S.O. tried to order some for herself and couldn't.

    captcha: populate
    heh

    1. Re:VS down? by djupedal · · Score: 1

      "Seriously though, I'll be really pissed if my S.O. tried to order some for herself and couldn't."

      More pissed than if she tried to order some for you and couldn't?

      Seriously though, I don't know about you, but I kind of like it when your S.O. goes ALL naked down there...

    2. Re:VS down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Snail trails.

    3. Re:VS down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My years of research and extensive personal experience tell me that wont be much of a concern for most of us slashdotters.

    4. Re:VS down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      some of us like to smell them.

  6. Ted Stevens by Celarnor · · Score: 1

    Quick, the tubes are clogged! Call Senator Stevens so we can regulate it!

    1. Re:Ted Stevens by corsec67 · · Score: 1

      Maybe you are crazy rich, but when faced with clogged tubes, most people would call a plumber, not a senator.

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    2. Re:Ted Stevens by Rebelgecko · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually, senators are surprisingly affordable, especially compared to a plumber.

      --
      CATS/Diebold '08- All your vote are belong to us!
    3. Re:Ted Stevens by stonecypher · · Score: 2, Funny

      Compared to plumbers, it's surprisingly affordable to have elves visit from the future to build you a robot from solid gold bars.

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
  7. victoriassecret.com is ok. by WK2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    victoriassecret.com was working fine last time I checked. For research.

    --
    Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
    1. Re:victoriassecret.com is ok. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still up now.

      I'll give 'em another look in an hour or so, just to be sure.

    2. Re:victoriassecret.com is ok. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      victoriassecret.com was working fine last time I checked. For research.
      I'm told that Victoria's Secret is pretty lame -- the real action is supposed to be at Frederick's of Hollywood. Not that I have any personal experience here. Ahem.
  8. blame by shawn443 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Since the article makes no mention. I will not blame perl, apache, or linux. I will blame .net, IIS, and of course PHB's.

    1. Re:blame by shawn443 · · Score: 4, Funny

      my moderation luck sucks lately. hasn't been this bad since I wrote a javascript is awesome post.

    2. Re:blame by ErroneousBee · · Score: 2, Informative

      Mods missed the point, all 3 of the sites listed in the article appear to be using Apache or similar on the front page. IIS is more often associated with IT meltdown and security breaches (Monster.com, etc).

      And the author misses some important info. The front page loads OK, but search and payments are slow. Its not the web servers that are the problem, but the backend database and transaction systems. These are going to be stuff like DB2 on IBM mainframes, high-end Oracle systems, or 3rd party transaction processing systems (like Visa and Mastercard).

      Its just the web equivalent of the wait I had at the petrol station last week. It took 2 tries and 2 minutes to get my card accepted and debited. Not the stations fault, its just that every Visa payment goes via Basingstoke, and if Basingstoke is busy everyone has to wait.

      More interestingly, www.newegg.com runs IIS and the front page is still loading slowly.

      --
      **TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
  9. compare to physical stores by Lehk228 · · Score: 4, Funny

    as compared to the physical locations which were just as fast as normal and didn't have long waits while shopping.....

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  10. O RLY?-Hand driven. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many porn sites experienced a slowdown?

  11. The term "Black Friday" by popo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it just me, or is the term "Black Friday" being used much more this year than in previous years? Maybe I'm the only clueless one, but I was seeing it so much I Wiki'd it for a little explanation: the root of the term (and if this is well known to all, my apologies... I'm slow that way) is that the balance sheets of retailers are typically "in the black" by the Friday following Thanksgiving.

    I can't help thinking it sounds more like a stock market crash than a "good thing".

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
    1. Re:The term "Black Friday" by forkazoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Is it just me, or is the term "Black Friday" being used much more this year than in previous years? Maybe I'm the only clueless one, but I was seeing it so much I Wiki'd it for a little explanation: the root of the term (and if this is well known to all, my apologies... I'm slow that way) is that the balance sheets of retailers are typically "in the black" by the Friday following Thanksgiving.


      Apparently, Black Friday is extremely well known, even internationally. I passingly know a fellow who grew up in Germany and moved to the US this year, and was very excited about his first chance to see Black Friday shopping in person after having heard so much about it. Seeing Americans in a consumerism frenzy must be a bit like watching sharks in a feeding frenzy, I guess.
    2. Re:The term "Black Friday" by UserChrisCanter4 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Please read the wiki again; the root of the term is the high stress caused to transportation workers. The first citation anyone can find refers to the traffic snarls and the associated headaches for traffic police, cab/bus drivers, etc.

      As the wiki points out (and common sense will tell you), bleeding money for 11 months of the year and hoping to recoup it in the last one is one of the most asinine business plans since the "???->profit" joke. Similarly, the wiki points out that quarterly SEC filings from any decent retailer will show you that they do make a profit in the other quarters, as well.

      Unless you're a Christmas decoration specialty retailer or something similar, waiting until the fourth Friday in November to turn a profit would be a recipe for failure.

    3. Re:The term "Black Friday" by popo · · Score: 1

      ... hasty skimming is always a bad idea.

      Yeap. You're right.

      --
      ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
    4. Re:The term "Black Friday" by diamondsw · · Score: 1

      In a nutshell, it's the day retailers finally turn a profit for the year - they move "into the black". Little scary that it takes that long, isn't it?

      --
      I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
    5. Re:The term "Black Friday" by happyemoticon · · Score: 1

      It's being hyped by retail interests; that's why you're hearing about it more. They're mainly doing this with traditional advertising (ad spots, mailers, etc), but media coverage can be said to be a component of that. While the 10 o'clock news is not an advertisement in the sense that an infomercial is, the news is sponsored by adverts and thus those same retailers. Thus, the media has a vested interest in trying to get people out to the malls.

      Of course, the reason that retailers want to get people out to the malls in the first place is because consumer spending numbers ain't so great this year and the dollar is weak. By making an emotional appeal, they're hoping people will make hasty and imprudent decisions. They probably would make it sound less sinister than that, but I think it's the bottom line.

    6. Re:The term "Black Friday" by bladesjester · · Score: 2, Funny

      I went shopping on Black Friday a few years ago. My general comment has been that I will only do it again if I'm armed. Those people are freaking crazy. It's like a bunch of rabid Tasmanian devils...

      --
      Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
    7. Re:The term "Black Friday" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes, but you know how accountants are. They will take the yearly retail PROFITS and figure it is approximately 1/12th of yearly SALES, and "conclude" that retailers operate in the red 11 months or yer and turn black staring "black Friday" - as in all profits happen starting then. The monthly and quarterly picture is quite different, of course. This is the same as saying we work till May 17 (or so) every year to just pay taxes. Imagine not taking home a paycheck until almost mid-year!

    8. Re:The term "Black Friday" by diamondsw · · Score: 1

      Apparently I was totally incorrect. Thanks, Wikipedia. :)

      --
      I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
    9. Re:The term "Black Friday" by Kaelten · · Score: 1

      I've noticed this as well. Having been a retail manager for years and done other work in retail, I'll say that me and my workers called it Black Friday for a few reasons. We had to open the store up at some ungodly hour (3-4 hours early), and the sheer amount of people who came in on Friday. I was a manager for one of the countries largest book chains, and as asinine as it sounds, many of our stores did nearly half the yearly business from mid November to late December. Something clicks in a lot of peoples brains that "oh crap, xmas is how many days off, time to shop." My regional manager once told me that as a region we did as much business those 4-6 weeks as we did most of the rest of the year. Judging by my stores daily amounts he wasn't off by much.

    10. Re:The term "Black Friday" by hcdejong · · Score: 1

      I thought it was because it's a day you'll want to avoid shops like the plague.

      (if there's one thing I can't stand, it's shopping on a busy day)

    11. Re:The term "Black Friday" by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      The term is more based on the workers woes.
      It's black for whoever works that day because it's the first day after thanksgiving that everyone except retail workers have off, and actually have a chance to do christmas shopping.

      It's mutated alot through the years.

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
    12. Re:The term "Black Friday" by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      I went shopping on Black Friday a few years ago. My general comment has been that I will only do it again if I'm armed.

      You could go back with a laser on your head (going off the previous comment).
    13. Re:The term "Black Friday" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who modded this crap +4, Interesting?

      Is it just me, or is the term "Black Friday" being used much more this year than in previous years?

      Nope, same as always.

      Maybe I'm the only clueless one, but I was seeing it so much I Wiki'd it for a little explanation: the root of the term (and if this is well known to all, my apologies... I'm slow that way) is that the balance sheets of retailers are typically "in the black" by the Friday following Thanksgiving.

      You need to find a better wiki, then; I suggest Wikipedia, which observes that this explanation is horseshit, and has the correct one.

      I can't help thinking it sounds more like a stock market crash than a "good thing".

      Well good because it is.

    14. Re:The term "Black Friday" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      drop the b.s. once retailers made black friday a "holiday" we all collectively said jesus who? it is not even about family or giving anymore or we would all just spend time with each other and give simple useful or handmade gifts. fights in stores over tickle me elmo and other such items retailers should be ashamed that they still have to justify our spending. no one really cares about other holidays anymore, thanks giving is thought of as stocking up on food for a marathon day of shopping and what about veterans day? in my town we had a veterans parade and a town that can double in size for the mountain fest motorcycle rally few people turned out. in capitalist America shopping owns you. careful capitalist spies are everywhere.

    15. Re:The term "Black Friday" by definate · · Score: 1

      I live in Australia, never been to the US, but know some people from there. However, we hear stories about Black Friday, and I even looked into shopping online for Black Friday/Cyber Monday, etc.

      It's internationally known

      --
      This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  12. Consumer patience may vary... by flabbergast · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Consumers might also be more patient with a graphic-intensive site that has images they truly want to see. Victoria's Secret, for example, experienced a huge slowdown Thursday night--from a 5-second response to a 15-second response--but White speculated that its customers might be more tolerant of delays because they're expecting a more graphic-intensive experience, and the delay is thus worth waiting through."

    Right, I tolerated the delays because VS is simply "graphic-intensive". Uh-huh... yeah, that's it.

  13. The term "Feeding Frenzy" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Seeing Americans in a consumerism frenzy must be a bit like watching sharks in a feeding frenzy, I guess."

    Oh pleeze! With the weak dollar, the feeding frenzy is going international as well. So many foreigners are coming here to shop that tours are being arranged.

  14. corpirate nazi hypenosys vs. really believing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    one side doesn't have a prayer.

  15. Newegg! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Newegg was hit pretty hard. It was impossible to check out their deals without refreshing a dozen times... only adding to the load...

    But honestly, Victoria's Secret? That makes me lol on many levels.

  16. You're not the only one by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one. Any other application of "black" to a day seems to have meanings a lot more... well, dark.

    E.g., "Black Tuesday" is when the Great Depression hit.

    Heck, even "Black Friday", other than that particular meaning, was applied to massacres, riots, major financial scandals, you get the idea.

    So I can't help wonder what kind of idiot chose "Black Friday" to mean "we're selling lots of stuff". I mean, gee, it must be such a dark and depressing thing.

    More importantly, it's the kind of language that obscures instead of informing. For someone who doesn't know that particular pun already, it evokes the exact opposite image. I'll confess that I too, when reading that summary, was left thinking, basically, that it was some great catastrophe that befell them.

    On second thought, though, heh, it sounds like what marketers and management tend to do to sound smart... when they aren't. Now I'm not saying that all of them are clueless, far from it. Just that you can often tell the ones who _are_, by the inclination to speak gobbledygook and think that having a buzzword for everything makes them so great.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:You're not the only one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never worked retail at the grunt level then, eh?

      As someone who *has*, lemme tell ya: the name is 100% appropriate for either of the two major interpretations. Those of us who work at one of the megacorps not listed (We're trying to beat the tar out of wal*mart) absolutely *dread* Black Friday. A rush of 200ish people towards your store's electronics department, which is staffed by about six or eight people, some of whom are visitors from corporate HQ who HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING THERE (yes, it's great that you want to show your solidarity with the team. We're all very happy for you. That being said, if you don't know a damn thing about the locations of stuff in the store, you're doing nothing but wasting two peoples' time when you play the role of the intermediary), others of whom are cashiers who have never worked in electronics before.... It's great fun, it really is.

      Oh, and the best part, which I nearly forgot?

      That you got to go to bed at around 7 or 8 pm on Thanksgiving, leaving the family/friends meal early, just to be able to be up at 4 to be at work at 5 to be able to open at 6 when your store normally opens at 8 am. Whee!

    2. Re:You're not the only one by codeButcher · · Score: 1

      Heck, even "Black Friday", other than that particular meaning, was applied to massacres, riots, major financial scandals, you get the idea.

      So perhaps that's where the phrase "making a killing" comes in? ;-)

      --
      Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
    3. Re:You're not the only one by n+dot+l · · Score: 1

      Heck, even "Black Friday", other than that particular meaning, was applied to massacres, riots, major financial scandals, you get the idea.

      So I can't help wonder what kind of idiot chose "Black Friday" to mean "we're selling lots of stuff". I mean, gee, it must be such a dark and depressing thing. It makes perfect sense to every retail chain sales drone that's had to work on a busy holiday.
    4. Re:You're not the only one by RyoShin · · Score: 1

      So I can't help wonder what kind of idiot chose "Black Friday" to mean "we're selling lots of stuff". I mean, gee, it must be such a dark and depressing thing.
      My understanding of the origin is that for most of the year, businesses are slightly in the red (where red represents a negative number in accounting) from costs, and the spur of sales (both discount and normal) on that Friday puts the retailers into the "black" (or positive) cash.

      I'm not a business owner, so I have no idea if this is the way it actually works. If this is correct, it sounds stupid.

      Oh, and when I worked at Best Buy (retail level), we were told that we should refer to it as "Green Friday" (Green having the same idea as black), since Black had the bad connotations you previously mentioned. No one did, to my knowledge.
    5. Re:You're not the only one by qzulla · · Score: 1

      Well, it worked for Oswald.

      qz

  17. Black Friday? by nick_davison · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...with Lowe's, Macys and Victoria's Secret especially hard hit. Black Friday has nothing to do with it. I like to "research" what I would buy a hypothetical girlfriend, should I have one, every Friday. The only difference was that I had all of this Friday free.

    Uh, I mean, that's what I imagine some theoretical person might have been doing.

    Look! A beowulf cluster! *runs*
    1. Re:Black Friday? by eclectro · · Score: 1

      and Victoria's Secret especially hard hit.....Look! A beowulf cluster! You are mistaken. It's a boob cluster.
      --
      Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  18. There is no excuse... by stox · · Score: 1

    except being too cheap. Of course, to upper management, this was a failing of the IT staff whose hide will appropriately beaten on Monday. Never mind that the IT department had been begging for more machines and memory all year. After all, a Harvard MBA knows far more about capacity planning than a lowly IT employee.

    As usual, the CEO's, and upper management, will receive huge bonuses and the rest will suffer.

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    1. Re:There is no excuse... by lakeland · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Try viewing it from the other side of the fence.

      From upper management's perspective there are dozens of great ideas - some will boost the brand, some will help fill niches that competitors are festering in, some will cement loyalty, some will increase appreciation by best customers, grow the number of best customers, decrease churn, reactivate customers, grow the customer base, provide additional channels for purchase, shift horizontally, shift vertically, decrease long term overheads, increase flexibility by reducing response time to market dynamics, ...

      That's just off the top of my head in a minute - you can't begin to imagine how many ideas get put forward and some of those ideas are really very good. It isn't until you sit in front of your budget and realise you only have the money for 10% of the ideas that reality sets in.

      Which ideas do you cut? Enough IT infrastructure for black friday, a brand refresh to counteract waning customer interest or redundant logistics infrastructure so you don't get caught paying for warehouse space while customers are going to compeditors in frustration at your stock not being in stock?

      Every body I've ever talked to is convinced their project is the most important. In my (admittedly, limited) experience it is rarely IT that has the greatest strategic or tactical ROI - most of them end up over budget and under performing!

    2. Re:There is no excuse... by holistah · · Score: 1

      As much as your post is so full of buzz terms it could be out of a dilbert comic (and you spelled competitors wrong), your last paragraph is probably accurate for most companies... but that is only because of incompetence in implementation, not necessarily the value of the ideas themselves.

    3. Re:There is no excuse... by lakeland · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sorry about that. It was partially deliberate as I was trying to give the point of view of the person hearing proposals all day, but probably they've permeated my consciousness such that I can now say them with a straight face...

      And while I agree about IT why projects fail, how do you get the competence necessary to ensure project success? The number of skilled senior IT manages I have met is ... well, not quite zero. Even if you manage to get one, how do you hold on to them? And if you have ordinary management, should you avoid embarking on IT projects?

      We're getting a long way from the original issue, but something that came up today was a project IBM offered to manage. Now my initial reaction looking at it was - there is no way we should be paying $100 to $450/hr for all of those people - they're not doing anything I couldn't do! But to be honest if I had set out and hired a whole team to do the same job, what are the odds I would've screwed up and hired a couple duds that end up wrecking the whole project? You end up paying exorbitant rates because IBM has a team that works pretty well together, and you haven't. (There's other factors like the extra respect that outsiders can get, but now we're on to a digression from a digression)...

      Returning back to the topic. The reason I chose IT projects failing is that I wanted to point out that for C level executives, they have to choose between dozens of different projects and one thing they have to weigh up for IT projects is the odds of it turning into a white elephant. They don't know enough about the projects to accurately ascertain which ones are going to blow up, their job is to weigh up the alternative strategic directions and choose projects which fit the strategic direction of the company. Essentially, while an IT middle manager will push what's best for IT, a sales manager will push what's best for sales, and a marketing manager will push what's best for marketing, it's up to senior management to decide whre the company is headed and which projects they can afford to shelve.

      PS: And I didn't even mention pet projects!

  19. Ink colors by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 1

    Traditionally ( ie: prior to visicalc ) profits were recorded in black ink, and losses in red ink. This kind of made sense, for the losses were things that had to be tended to quickly, and in red ink they stood out. This eventually led to the phrases '...in the red' ( Operating at a loss ) and '...in the black' ( Making a profit ). So a reference to black was a positive thing.

  20. Re:The term "Black Friday" vs. Black Sabbath by xPsi · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is it just me, or is the term "Black Friday" being used much more this year than in previous years? Maybe I'm the only clueless one, but I was seeing it so much I Wiki'd it for a little explanation: the root of the term (and if this is well known to all, my apologies... I'm slow that way) is that the balance sheets of retailers are typically "in the black" by the Friday following Thanksgiving.

    I can't help thinking it sounds more like a stock market crash than a "good thing".

    Definitely puts Black Sabbath in a whole new light for me. So much for the "70s cool evil schtick", they were just making a financial statement.
    --
    i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
  21. When I hear people who shop use the phrase.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...I understand "black friday" to mean that the shopping will be terrible, but it's just something they've got to do.

    I wonder if that was the plan: to convey a sense of duty.

  22. Nondelivery by Msdose · · Score: 1

    An even worse experience awaits online shoppers when they find out that the United States Postal Service is routinely destroying all electronic devices sent by mail to international customers. Truckloads of products are heading for landfills while people are awaiting their purchases.

    1. Re:Nondelivery by Kredal · · Score: 1

      Have a source?

      --
      Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
    2. Re:Nondelivery by porcupine8 · · Score: 1

      Do you have anything to back that up? Or have you just received a couple banged-up packages?

      --
      Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
  23. Re:pirst fost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    zlol dude just checkd ur post history wtf dude y nobody even moddn ya dwn lol wtf u mst be a prty shity troll lol

  24. Funny :) by __aawkdb2598 · · Score: 1

    That put a smile on my face, thanks. :D

  25. Why not offer a simpler version by cerberusss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When the peak hits, why don't e-commerce sites switch to a simpler interface? The gazillion queries that these sites do for one page can be completely switched off. For instance, I'd rather be able to put a book in my shopping cart WITHOUT stuff like:
    - "people who bought this article, also bought"
    - Full text search
    - Customer reviews
    - Editorial review
    - Offers "Buy together with hacksaw, 15% off"

    And the gazillion datamining queries done by the website.

    --
    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    1. Re:Why not offer a simpler version by BigDogCH · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Excellent point. I had trouble loading newegg all weekend...where normally it is really fast. Their site already has a built in option for a high or low bandwidth version of their site.......why couldn't they just force everyone to the low version (I am assuming this would save bandwidth and server load, less queries). Yeah sure, it would be missing some fancy tools, and some flash (darn), but it seems far better than turning customers away. I wonder how many $ a site like Newegg lost for each minute of downtime this weekend.

    2. Re:Why not offer a simpler version by danbert8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is an excellent point. Companies just keep sticking more fancy looking crap on their websites leaving bandwidth unchanged.
       
      My university did this with the registration website. The added flash and java to make it look cool, except when registration time hit, all that load brought the registration server to its knees. When many students weren't able to register for several days after their allotted time, the system was reverted to the plain ol' html interface it was before. When will websites realize that just because your public has the bandwidth, doesn't mean they need to use it?

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    3. Re:Why not offer a simpler version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When the peak hits, why don't e-commerce sites switch to a simpler interface? The gazillion queries that these sites do for one page can be completely switched off.

      I'm not sure this is as easy as you make it sound. For example, the amazon.com "People who bought this also bought ..." is served up from a completely separate database system. And all of the queries that make up a page run in parallel, and if one takes too long, it will still build the page. It seems to me that taking down all of the PWBTAB servers and re-imaging them to be web servers (and then the opposite 2 days later) might be more trouble than it's worth.

      Disclaimer: I don't work at amazon.com, but somebody who does explained this to me in a bar once. That makes me an expert, so nyah.

      I'd rather be able to put a book in my shopping cart WITHOUT stuff like:

      Plus shopping sites probably don't want to willingly remove features that would cause many people to spend more money.

    4. Re:Why not offer a simpler version by cerberusss · · Score: 1

      I totally agree that it's not that simple. However, if there's a real peak, I'd bet real money that the turnover with extra money-making features will be lower than without those.

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  26. Red Tuesday? ;) by Moraelin · · Score: 1

    Yes, and in the same age of red ink and black ink, the day of the Great Depression was still called "Black Tuesday", not "Red Tuesday."

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:Red Tuesday? ;) by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 1

      'Red' and 'black' were used by the professionals, not by the average person.

      What made Black Tuesday unique was that the losses affected hundreds of thousands of non-profesional investors. Black Tuesday was named by people who had probably never even seen a ledger or spreadsheet. Different group of people use different words.

      Had the losses been restricted to a smaller group of professional investors, it probably would have been named 'Red Tuesday'.

  27. Did they even try? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Running something like yslow against a site can show that there is a lot of work that some of these sites could have done to help alleviate the traffic strain.

  28. Lowes, Macys and Victoria's Secret are hosted... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    by IBM eBusiness Hosting Services.

    It would be no coincidence that they would have trouble. I imagine other IBM eBusiness customers also had issues.

  29. Papal Election by zoward · · Score: 2, Funny
    When the peak hits, why don't e-commerce sites switch to a simpler interface?



    My favorite example of this: when the pope died, and the College of Cardinals met to vote on the new pope. Once the white smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel chimney (indicating that the ballots had been burned and a new pope elected), the Vatican web site got HAMMERED. I looked, and then looked back a little later, and instead of seeing the web site, I only saw two words at the top of the screen:


    It's Ratzinger.


    Now that's a simplified interface.

    --
    "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
  30. 30-day return policies by tepples · · Score: 1

    Something clicks in a lot of peoples brains that "oh crap, xmas is how many days off, time to shop." That or if they change their mind on a gift, they can still return it and get something else before Christmas.
  31. Lowe's listed first..haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like Lowe's didn't ever fix their code for the price lookup on Lowes.com. That and they reached the bottle neck at their Wilkesboro store for price comparisons. This makes me laugh since every year I worked there, I had to spend it watching over the systems like a hawk to ensure a crappy app didn't take down the website or the store it uses for all online orders. Upgrading hardware to cope, countless hours to make sure no one on the web saw it slow down. Ha Ha Ha ! That makes my day.