November 26, 2007 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Email monitoring system provider WebSitePulse (websitepulse.com) reported on Monday that retail store Sears' (sears.com) website was completely down for online shoppers on Black Friday.
The retailer's website posted a disclaimer on its front page warning visitors that it is "temporarily experiencing high traffic volume" just after 9 a.m. EST on Friday. The message was not removed from the site until 4:30 p.m. Later that day at 9 p.m. the message was posted again, this time only for 45 minutes.
Kmart.com, which is also operated by Sears Brands, ran into the same problems at the same times. Kmart.com's traffic, however, was not as heavy, and WebSitePulse's monitoring agents were able to complete successfully some of the tests during the day.
Both Sears.com and Kmart.com were included among other websites in the WebSitePulse 2007 Holiday Retail Performance and Uptime Report. WebSitePulse will post the performance reports of the 10 leading online shopping destination daily from November 21 through January 4, 2008.
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Comment by Anonymous on Monday, November 26, 2007
I was wondering what the Black Friday retail sales numbers would have been if Sears.com was working. The research companies did not take this into consideration.
Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 27, 2007
I can not even navigate this site @ night. It is just not functional at all, ever!
Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Be thankful you could not order. I could, and my order got cancelled, even though the items I ordered are still in stock on their website. This is a mess. They have become KMART!!!
Comment by Anonymous on Friday, November 30, 2007
I was able to make an order, but now I cannot even get on the site to check a status or anything. When I go on the site now, all i see are Javascript error messages. It doesn't make sense at all. I will shop elsewhere next year.