Target Site Crash: Lessons Learned
The crash of Target.com for three hours on the morning of Sept. 13 could sound like a frothy exercise in hype. Target Corp. debuted its highly anticipated collection Missoni for Target, and for the first time in the retailer’s history, its e-commerce site crashed. The surging popularity for the diffusion collection from the iconic Missoni fashion house was blamed for the crash, according to a statement from the Minneapolis discount retailer.
“Target.com is seeing greater item demand than we do on a typical Black Friday and the excitement for this limited-time designer collection is unprecedented. We are slowly bringing the site back online to ensure we can provide a positive shopping experience to our guests,”a statement said.
The crash was an embarrassment for the new Target website, which was launched Aug. 23. Target took its e-commerce management in-house after years of being handled by Amazon.com. Retail analysts considered the crash troubling for Target.
The mass retailer should have seen it coming, according to Mercedes Gonzalez, director of New York-buying office Global Purchasing Cos.
“It’s an unforgivable mistake that cost them thousands of dollars,” she said. “After all the money spent with the hype of the collection, no one thought it would translate to web traffic?”
George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants based in Carlsbad, Calif., recommended the mass retailer apologize and go back to the drawing board.
They should offer a discount to those shoppers who could not get access the website, he said. “This is not known as busy time,” Whalin added. “Better fix this so they don’t have major problems on this fall.”
At least a formal apology is in order said Lynne Sperling of San Marino, Calif.-based consultancy Sperling & Hileman Group LLC. “There’s a problem when any site crashes,” she said. “I’d take out ads to apologize for the inconvenience. Perhaps with a bit of humor, say ’Wow, it was exciting that consumer response is as strong as it was,’ but then they should turn a negative into a positive by stating ’Please come back.”
Perhaps there is no reason to be shocked. E-commerce crashes are becoming more common according to Chris Morton, chief executive for London and New York-based online fashion market Lyst.com. H&M’s website experienced problems in 2010 when it offered its Lanvin collection. “Site crashes are also frequent for ticket sales of highly anticipated events, for example the 2012 Olympic ticket sales in the UK were marred by a website which simply could not cope with the traffic,” Morton wrote in an email.
Sales for popular items should remain unaffected he said. But customer relations will be hurt, judging from what happened after past retail site crashes. “The items that had just sold out on the website or in store were available to buy on eBay moments later at twice the price or more, which unsurprisingly did little to appease irate customers,” Morton wrote.—Andrew Asch
This story originally appeared on the ApparelNews blog Trade Talk
