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How performance monitoring caught a potential $100,000 e-commerce error
2/27/2008
Online nutritional supplement retailer iHerb.com says the detection of one database error alone has saved the company as much as $100,000 in lost sales since it implemented performance monitoring services from vendor AlertSite.
AlertSite’s monitoring services, including its DejaClick business transaction monitoring that tracks response times from around the world, replaced iHerb.com’s former in-house monitoring system. Set to alert the retailer’s IT staff of any transaction failure on the site, shortly after implementation in December DejaClick detected a transaction failure in the shopping cart function and notified the retailer immediately.
The cause of the failed transaction was a databse error that presented shoppers with an error message when they attempted to check out. Had iHerb still been using its internal performance monitoring system, it would have had to rely on its customers to report that they could not check out, setting the stage for anyone whose transaction failed on the site to simply go elsewhere to make the purchase.
The vendor’s transaction alert allowed the retailer to find and fix the problem in about 15 minutes. IHerb.com chief information officer Donald Naber estimates that without the instant alert on the failed transaction, it would have taken iHerb an hour or more to recognize and fix that problem, and that as little as 45 minutes of missed order traffic could easily have cost the site as much as $100,000 in sales.
“AlertSite allows us to resolve the issue in a matter of minutes. Not having such active monitoring could have cost us tens of thousands of dollars in sales and quite possibly hours in downtime,” says Naber.
IHerb.com is No. 230 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites.
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