European e-commerce sites poorly prepared for Christmas rush

    Comparison with US "role models" Amazon and Barnes and Noble

/24-7PressRelease.com/ - December 24, 2004. NETHERLANDS, 20041223 -- Many European e-commerce sites have made only minimal preparations for the increased number of visitors in December. The congestion caused by Christmas meant that, on average, only one in six web sites was continuously available. This was the conclusion of WatchMouse, a Dutch monitoring service provider, following a survey of over 50 European e-commerce sites. Excessive interest from customers can overload the server or have dramatic effect on response times.

During the past month, WatchMouse - at its own initiative - closely monitored over 50 web sites where consumers can shop online. The survey shows that the availability varied from 98% to 99.6%. "This may seem high, but a score of 98% means that a site is not available for half an hour per day. This makes 14 hours a month, or a week a year", says Mark Pors, one of the founders of WatchMouse.

As a comparison to the US market, two "role models of e-commerce" - amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com - were monitored during the same period. Amazon performed similar as an average European web shop, Barns and Noble outperformed most e-commerce sites with an uptime of 100%.

The consequences of downtime are reflected not only in loss of income. Pors: "A website that is not available can cause stacks of work for your helpdesk and, at the end of the day, damage your brand. The problem is that many website owners are unaware that sites are responding poorly, or not responding at all. If they were aware of this, taking action to intervene is simplicity itself: for example, by adding extra server capacity."

WatchMouse has concluded from its survey that more than 70% of the web sites have not achieved optimum accessibility. Given the increasing trend in online purchases, gigantic sums are involved: Online sales will increase by 44% to 13 billion ($17 billion) in Western Europe over the holidays period, compared to 10 billion ($13 billion) in the US (Forrester Research, November 2004).

December is a top month for purchasing on the internet. Pors: "We see response times and the number of error reports increase dramatically in the days leading up to Christmas."

More information: http://www.watchmouse.com/

Companies can easily monitor their internet sites themselves, thanks to WatchMouse's monitoring service.

WatchMouse has been monitoring internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies all over the world since 2001. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The company's services are available in seven languages, analyses are performed from a range of locations and networks via the world-wide monitoring network.

More information on http://www.watchmouse.com/

Editors: for further information on this press release, contact Mark Pors of WatchMouse, tel. +31 30 2722085 or see www.watchmouse.com

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