Historically, consumers have held off on big electronics purchases during the early part of the year, saving them for Black Friday’s door-buster deals. This year, however, the verdict is still out as to whether the biggest shopping day of the year still holds the same level of anticipation. Regardless, anyone in retail can agree: Black Friday and Cyber Monday have taken up a big chunk of the daily workload over the past few months – and then some.   So although...

Every month, typically on the second Friday, the U.S. Census Bureau releases its advanced retail sales report. Except for this month, of course. This month, if you try to retrieve the report, you’ll receive the following message: “Due to the lapse in government funding, census.gov sites, services, and all online survey collection requests will be unavailable until further notice.” As of today, the shutdown has gone on for 11 days, sidelining the government reporting that helps to track and define the...

For online storeowners, the best-case scenario this holiday season is a flood of new customers and in turn, new orders. The worst-case scenario is a site that crashes because it can’t handle the influx in activity. To avoid the possibility of lost sales or even worse, a bad site reputation, webstore owners need to know the importance of performance testing, especially the benefits that can come from load tests and stress tests.   The first line of defense will be to...