According to the BBC, Amazon’s “website recorded orders for more than 5.5 million goods, with about 64 items sold per second.”

Meanwhile, Tesco direct, Argos, Currys and John Lewis implemented queuing on their site.

On Tesco Direct, the queuing technic involved a rolling 30-second period when your browser would try to access the site. If unsuccessful, the browser would start yet an other 30-second period.

Argos had simply put an holding page up, informing their customers of the massive traffic and asking them to try again.

In the case of Tesco Direct and of Argos, the tactic used was aimed at mitigating the customer’s experience already on the site.

Basically, the retailers  implemented an e-bouncer at the entrance to ensure that if you were lucky enough to be on the online shop, you could still move around and buy stuff. And if you were kept outside of the online shop, you would have to wait for someone to get out of the shop first before being allowed to get in.

The objective is to avoid that the entire online shop collapses and then no sales could be processed.

This tactic is required when the demand exceeds the technical capacities (software, infrastructure, network) of the online shop.

Meanwhile Amazon had put in place a smart demand management. The deals were opened for a period of time, openly communicated, informing customers of the remaining stock level, and offering a wait list when not full.

Throwing more tin into the mix or e-bouncing shoppers is not the only answer and Amazon got it.  They developed a control demand strategy coupled with great marketing. Well-done Amazon.

The question is whether all  orders will be delivered on time. Some retailers have already extended the delay when you buy online and collect in store.

In my opinion, all these technical glitches are far less terrible than the events in stores. As Barbara Ellen wrote in The Observer, Sunday 30 November 2014: “The Black Friday shopping scrums are so shaming”.