Cyber Monday is here and.. almost gone. This is a holiday created by marketers looking to capitalize online sales that may or may not one day match the phenomenon that is Black Friday. In the meantime, it still represents a day in which there area significant chunk of e-commerce sales and deep discounts.
Regardless of the hype, Cyber Monday seemingly caused an uptick in visitors to e-commerce websites throughout the industry. Web servers across the country saw their processors stretched to the limit and on-call IT technicians had their hands full. By and large, it appears that most websites were winners – with only a few retailers seeing minor downtime or sluggishness – applause and props go to the often overlooked network engineers and sysadmins who kept their servers runner.
The Cyber Monday cross hairs were aimed directly at the web servers of two retailers: J.Crew and Bloomingdale’s. Both retailers have seen significant outages today – with each website serving “System Unavailable” messages since early this afternoon.
Earlier in the year, J.Crew redeveloped their website. The site has seen problems and glitches ever since the launch. J.Crew went as far as to blame their decline in Q3 revenue on the problems they were seeing with their relaunched website. A lot of money was spent, I’m sure, on this new implementation of the website and it’s incredible to see the downtime they are still happening. Being down for a few hours on a weekday in June is bad – being down on one of the busiest days of the holiday season is unimaginable.
I don’t know what the issue is with Bloomingdale’s, but they haven’t fared much better. As with J.Crew, they’ve been serving a system error message for the better part of the afternoon. Another missed opportunity.
Additional coverage of the site outages from Computerworld and Crain’s, New York Business. I also have an on-going collection of System Maintenance screenshots over at ecommr.
Slowness and downtime issues aside, I’m hoping the rest of the industry is seeing a positive sales day. Looking forward to seeing the sales estimates over the next few days.
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A few of the stories I’m reading and wanted to share today:
John Zogby’s got a very insightful look into the political trends of retail consumers and dives behind the numbers to make sense of it all. He looks at presidential election polling numbers, the retailers the customers shop at, and how this relates to the retailers’ branding.
J.Crew’s website has had their share of mistakes and downtime lately. Church of the Customer is talking about the apology e-mail that the retailer sent out to their customers and what this means for the company.
Matt at A New Marketing presents a clean, easily digestable definition of what social media is.
.. and finally – Starbucks is offering a $2 discount on iced beverages in the afternoon when you buy a drink in the morning. I think this is a smart move that should drive repeat business throughout the day. Besides that, I’m selfish and now look forward to saving a little bit of money on my second trip to Starbucks every day.
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Someone forgot to merchandise these products in the J.Crew store:
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Stories that I’ve come across today on the web that I’d like to share:
Originally announced back in August, the Rite Aid purchase of Eckerd and Brooks pharmacy chains is official today. Rite Aid will have to divest certain properties to allow for competition. Conversion of the stores should take 16 months. Once this deal is complete, Rite Aid will be the third largest pharmacy chain in the US (behind Walgreens and CVS) and the predominant pharmacy retailer on the East Coast. More thoughts from the Albany Times Union.
I’ve got to say that I’m sad to see the Eckerd brand go. Part of it is the fact that the Eckerd stores in my area are newer than the Rite Aid locations, making for a more pleasurable shopping experience.
Last week the Motley Fool had a good look at Abercrombie & Fitch, this week they’ve got a good look at J.Crew. They’ve had a succesful IPO, improved their gross margin, increased revenue, and increased same store sales. Good times for that retailer.
Recently, Target introduced a line of wedding dresses and related apparel by Isaac Mizrahi. Today, the Chicago Tribune is talking about this, what it means for Target, and what it means for the industry.
Finally, lux.et.umbra is asking whether summer hours would improve business in Silicon Valley. Good thoughts. The budgets for small retailers is tight, but not being open when your customers want to shop is bad business. That’s not to say that everyone should be open 24 hours, but late hours during the Summer may not be a bad thing.
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J. Crew’s IPO today was pretty successful.
Strong interest in the stock priced it higher than originally anticipated (target was $15-17/share, offering price was actually $20) yet the stock still climbed over 25% in first day trading, currently hovering at $25.78 in after hours trading. The IPO raised $376 million, making it the third largest retail apparel IPO in history(after Intimate Brands in 1995 and Saks Holdings in 1996) in history.
Good day for J. Crew, indeed.
Not a bad day for Millard Drexler, who has led the turnaround of the company over the past few years, either. He also has a 22% stake in the company, making him $82 million richer right now (on paper, at least).
Here’s a run down of the coverage: ABC News/Associated Press, Reuters, MSNBC and Bloomberg.
In celebration of today’s IPO, I wore my favorite J.Crew dress shirt to work today. It wasn’t actually planned, it just happened to be the cleanest thing in my closet this morning.
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Another one of my exciting weekly rundowns of quick things going on around the retail industry:
Maybe I need to put on my tin foil hat, but I’m not a fan of one test currently going on in Florida. Coast to Coast convenience store in Tampa is currently testing in-store payments via biometrics. That’s where you put your finger into a scanner and your fingerprint is connected to your debit account information. Makers of the system, Pay By Touch, say it is a secure alternative to carrying cash or credit cards. Critics of biometrics say that the system can be defeated with gummi bears. Is this the future of retail payments? I hope not! I use my debit card for a majority of my purchases – but as much as I embrace technology, I don’t know if I am ready to link personal information in to my fingerprint. [story via Slashdot]
ManagersRealm writes about the new Home Depot customer service plan that they have launched. I talked about this the other day – they’ve earmarked $30m to give to stores and employees who provide great customer service. Is it going to work? Probably not. It seems that Gary Bourgeault shares this opinion and offers up some ideas on how the company could improve service.
J.Crew prepares for their IPO this week. Looking to raise $280 million through this stock sale, how will Wall Street react? I’m thinking investors will love this stock – a first quarter profit increase of 60%, the launch of the kids’ store, crewcuts, and the development of a new women’s store, Madewell. J.Crew has enjoyed a great turnaround over the past two years and this IPO is just another step forward.
Gap Inc. has announced three more locations for Forth & Towne, all in the Los Angeles area. All three will be opening sometime in the Fall.
Speaking of new stores, looks like Kohl’s has officially put out their list of new stores opening in October.
In somewhat lighter news, I hear a crew over at a local hardware store chain was loading pallets when they knocked into the sprinkler system, causing a minor flood. What better place for there to be a plumbing problem than at a hardware store?
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