Holiday Season Report 2006 Past

Performance Tracking > 2006 Holiday Season

WebSitePulse 2006 Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report

The Holidays are the most important time of the year for the online retailers, and it's not surprising that they're already planning ahead for a banner season.

The outlook is indeed bright: according to the latest study by Shop.org and Forrester Research, the US eCommerce industry has experienced a "blistering" compound annual growth rate of 33%. In fact, Forrester predicts that revenue in 2006 will continue to grow another 20% to top $200 billion. Furthermore, 41% of the retailers surveyed by WebTrends said that the Holiday season accounts for more than 20% of their annual revenue.

WebSitePulse Performance Reports measure Uptime and Response Time as the most important metrics for the availability and the reliability of any web-based operation, critical for the End Users' overall online experience. The Reports reflect not only the performance of the websites' home pages, but typically measure a complete web transaction representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. Measurements of the multi-step transactions are made every 15 minutes, simultaneously from 3 different monitoring locations. WebSitePulse advanced monitoring system has automated, built-in false alarm prevention and error verification controls that ensure the reliability of the measurement results. The Reports reflect the most common performance criteria: response time and availability - but in-debt analytical information is also collected and stored in the WebSitePulse system for future references.

An RSS feed from the daily Reports is added for more convenience for those interested in the performance of the monitored websites.

Daily Report for January 04, 2007

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WebSitePulse reports the following results from web performance measurement of the websites participating in the the Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report:

The daily Average Response time from all monitored websites was 4.308 sec.

The Average Response time as measured from the US East Coast (Washington, DC) was:	3.205 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from the US West Coast (Los Angeles, CA) was:	5.818 sec.
The Average Response time as measured from US Central (Chicago, IL) was:	3.902 sec.

The Best Response time measured from the US East Coast was:	1.117 sec.
The Best Response time measured from the US West Coast was:	2.808 sec.
The Best Response time measured from US Central was:	1.512 sec.

The typical transaction loading took the least time for circuitcity.com visitors - 2.170 sec., while the visitors of amazon.com had to be the most patient, as the loading there took in average of 6.829 sec.
Five of the monitored websites delivered above-the-average response times for their shopping transaction, while five of them demonstrated below-the-average daily performance.

The daily average uptime for the entire Group was 99.87%.

The Average Uptime as measured from the US East Coast (Washington, DC) was:	99.89%
The Average Uptime as measured from the US West Coast (Los Angeles, CA) was:	99.88%
The Average Uptime as measured from US Central (Chicago, IL) was:	99.84%

Seven websites were available with no interruptions - 100%.
Eight websites' availability was above the average, while two sites dragged the average down with below-the-average availability.

No events of particular importance or possible negative impact on the online visitors' interaction with the Websites included into the 2006 Holiday Season Report were detected during the reported period, and according to WebSitePulse, the Group delivered the expected levels of End-User experience and Customer satisfaction.

Please, scroll down for Detailed Reports and Charts provided by WebSitePulse:

Daily Response Times

Legend:
amazon.com	bestbuy.com	circuitcity.com	compusa.com	kmart.com
radioshack.com	sears.com	target.com	toysrus.com	walmart.com

Average Response Times for January 04, 2007

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. resp. time
1	circuitcity.com	2.808	2.586	1.117	2.170
2	kmart.com	3.818	1.512	1.585	2.305
3	compusa.com	3.393	2.778	3.502	3.224
4	toysrus.com	6.056	2.675	1.497	3.409
5	radioshack.com	5.503	2.853	1.879	3.412
6	target.com	7.093	4.285	3.182	4.853
7	walmart.com	5.686	5.597	4.053	5.112
8	bestbuy.com	6.615	5.815	4.321	5.584
9	sears.com	7.679	4.775	6.098	6.184
10	amazon.com	9.526	6.143	4.819	6.829

Average Response Times November 24, 2006 - January 04, 2007

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. resp. time
1	circuitcity.com	2.657	2.054	1.201	1.971
2	kmart.com	4.121	1.613	2.310	2.681
3	toysrus.com	5.585	2.650	1.555	3.263
4	compusa.com	3.405	2.922	3.889	3.405
5	radioshack.com	5.544	3.264	2.376	3.728
6	target.com	7.767	4.791	3.406	5.322
7	walmart.com	6.081	6.094	3.861	5.345
8	sears.com	7.571	4.883	6.555	6.336
9	bestbuy.com	8.297	7.535	4.399	6.743
10	amazon.com	9.806	6.643	5.184	7.211

Hourly Average Response Times
Select individual website to display:

Legend:
individual site response times	monitored group average response times

Average response times by hour for January 04, 2007

Target	Hours
Target	00	01	02	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23
amazon	7.63	7.66	7.01	6.79	6.63	7.01	6.76	7.05	6.93	6.54	6.57	6.40	6.47	7.55	6.51	6.53	7.06	6.69	6.62	6.49	6.54
bestbuy	4.79	4.35	5.56	6.61	4.46	6.62	4.99	7.04	5.80	6.61	5.45	6.22	6.23	6.10	5.23	5.25	4.74	4.92	5.82	5.20	5.39
circuitcity	1.96	1.81	2.45	2.88	2.51	2.71	2.19	1.63	2.45	1.98	1.90	3.06	1.67	2.20	1.83	2.57	1.81	1.89	2.25	1.87	2.20
compusa	3.05	3.54	3.03	3.14	3.06	3.00	3.29	3.19	3.71	3.19	3.29	3.34	3.36	3.37	3.37	3.17	3.30	3.10	3.07	3.08	3.07
kmart	1.93	2.13	1.90	1.90	1.96	1.87	2.18	2.20	2.30	2.24	2.34	2.24	2.59	2.33	2.40	2.58	3.07	2.27	2.93	2.96	2.25
radioshack	3.21	3.04	2.90	5.95	4.53	3.31	2.90	3.48	3.49	3.27	3.71	2.96	2.60	2.53	2.75	2.82	3.24	3.63	3.73	4.25	3.49
sears	7.35	5.32	4.66	7.61	17.51	10.64	5.45	5.92	5.33	5.38	4.64	4.72	5.21	4.82	4.38	4.38	4.35	4.96	5.54	4.92	5.87
target	5.27	5.15	5.26	5.21	4.81	4.64	4.65	4.53	4.49	4.88	4.55	4.49	4.42	4.93	4.91	5.09	4.86	4.94	4.99	4.98	4.96
toysrus	3.09	3.11	3.37	3.58	3.44	3.11	2.92	2.84	3.99	3.17	3.37	3.07	3.02	2.83	3.32	3.93	3.37	3.65	4.24	4.55	3.60
walmart	5.24	5.73	4.79	5.47	6.81	4.69	5.61	6.08	5.03	4.57	4.74	5.70	4.68	4.70	4.31	5.04	5.00	5.00	5.25	4.60	4.42

Average response times by hour November 24, 2006 - January 04, 2007

Target	Hours
Target	00	01	02	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23
amazon	7.44	7.44	7.81	7.46	7.37	7.16	7.10	7.09	7.16	7.09	7.14	7.14	7.12	7.06	7.07	7.03	7.07	7.30	7.18	7.00	7.18
bestbuy	6.26	7.93	6.37	8.37	6.15	7.03	6.73	6.73	6.67	6.31	6.54	6.42	6.55	6.65	6.31	6.51	6.12	5.89	5.92	5.88	7.61
circuitcity	1.86	1.82	1.90	2.27	2.04	2.35	2.09	2.06	2.08	1.90	1.96	1.93	1.89	1.96	1.81	1.93	2.01	1.87	1.88	1.90	1.83
compusa	3.15	3.36	3.28	3.16	3.16	3.29	3.55	3.71	3.84	3.71	3.64	3.61	3.50	3.45	3.38	3.31	3.32	3.32	3.31	3.26	3.21
kmart	2.31	2.68	2.12	2.16	2.15	2.42	2.77	3.00	3.18	3.40	3.53	3.57	2.87	2.46	2.29	2.48	2.53	2.42	2.56	2.27	2.14
radioshack	3.69	4.36	4.72	5.77	4.09	3.62	3.63	3.45	3.40	3.44	3.64	3.43	3.34	3.33	3.35	3.35	3.38	3.41	3.50	3.55	3.42
sears	5.45	5.55	6.14	11.17	9.36	6.94	5.93	5.65	6.11	6.25	6.67	5.60	5.42	5.42	5.33	5.26	5.19	5.77	5.67	5.41	5.62
target	5.42	5.40	5.54	5.39	5.27	5.27	5.26	5.11	5.12	4.94	5.18	5.23	4.97	5.18	5.23	6.00	5.51	5.31	5.57	5.48	5.37
toysrus	3.01	3.08	4.35	3.98	3.01	3.03	3.02	3.03	3.13	3.08	3.80	3.13	3.23	3.13	3.00	3.12	3.10	3.17	3.27	3.24	3.16
walmart	4.84	4.86	4.80	4.77	4.93	5.40	5.48	5.99	5.71	6.23	5.30	5.34	5.40	5.31	5.36	5.27	5.27	5.24	5.24	5.35	5.23

Uptime

Uptime January 04, 2007

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. uptime
1	radioshack.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
2	toysrus.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
3	amazon.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
4	compusa.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
5	bestbuy.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
6	circuitcity.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
7	target.com	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%	100.000%
8	kmart.com	100.000%	100.000%	99.710%	99.903%
9	sears.com	99.760%	100.000%	99.690%	99.817%
10	walmart.com	99.020%	98.370%	99.470%	98.953%

Uptime November 24, 2006 - January 04, 2007

#	Target	Los Angeles	Chicago	Washington	Avg. uptime
1	amazon.com	99.993%	100.000%	100.000%	99.998%
2	target.com	99.993%	99.993%	99.995%	99.994%
3	compusa.com	99.979%	99.994%	99.993%	99.988%
4	radioshack.com	99.938%	99.925%	99.945%	99.936%
5	circuitcity.com	99.836%	99.856%	99.849%	99.847%
6	kmart.com	99.835%	99.828%	99.844%	99.836%
7	toysrus.com	99.954%	99.951%	99.385%	99.763%
8	sears.com	99.476%	99.532%	99.512%	99.507%
9	bestbuy.com	99.348%	99.336%	99.368%	99.351%
10	walmart.com	98.863%	98.306%	99.075%	98.748%

Methodology:
Performance and availability are measured for a typical shopping web transaction at 15 minute monitoring interval every day between the hours of 6AM and 3AM EST. The WebSitePulse application monitoring service is used to collect data and to create the reports.
The steps in each shopping transaction - opening the home page, browsing for a product, adding product to the shopping cart, and secure check out - are comparable for all ten websites, and reflect the real online buyers' experience. The simultaneous monitoring is performed from 3 US locations of the WebSitePulse monitoring network: Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA, and Washington, DC. In case of a detected malfunction or unavailability, the system performs automated error verification from 3 independent resources before it is confirmed, recorded and included in the daily performance reports.

About WebSitePulse:
WebSitePulse is a leading provider of global, independent, and objective availability and performance monitoring of web sites, servers, network components, web applications, e-business- and email round-trip transactions.

Contact:
For more information about this report please contact:
George T., CTO
phone: 1-407-380-1600
email:

Reproduction:
WebSitePulse launched the Performance and Uptime Reports program to keep the general public and the Internet community informed about the performance of specific websites and the challenges their webmasters, owners and operators are facing on a daily basis, especially when the web traffic intensifies due to some special events through the year. Some of the most popular web destinations, related to each particular event, are selected for the purpose of the Reports, and data from their performance measurements is made available on the WebSitePulse public website.

With the intention to broadly disseminate this information for the benefit of the Internet community, we encourage the use of this information without prior approval and under the following Terms and Conditions:

WebSitePulse should be referred as the "Source" of the information;
WebSitePulse should be acknowledged as the owner of the copyrights of the information in the Reports;
The texts of the Reports could be changed or altered to better suit the needs and the style of the publisher without prior notice to WebSitePulse. However, the integrity and the meaning of the information should be preserved;

The Data from the performance measurements cannot be changed or manipulated and should be used "as is".

WebSitePulse 2006 Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report

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