Dec 9, 2008 : Videos May Slow Online Sales: Hostway

📅 December 9, 2008 - In light of the boost in traffic online retailers are likely to expect over the holiday season, web hosting provider Hostway (hostway.co.uk ) released a warning to online retailers on Tuesday to plan for extra website capacity this Christmas, especially if they've got a lot of video content on the site, or risk losing customers to competitors.

Although this trend of heightened traffic during the holidays isn't a new concept, Hostway's focus on video-heavy e-commerce sites raises an interesting point as more and more online businesses are beginning to offer high-bandwidth video trailers and reviews of their products through their websites, which could result in slow website performance or downtime during peak season shopping demands.

"Video content is the new ticking time bomb for online retailers," says Thomas Herbert, product manager at Hostway. "Although most e-commerce operations have now dealt successfully with website performance issues, video content brings a gamut of new problems this Christmas. If a large number of people access video reviews or trailers at the same time, this can really slow down websites, and as we all know, poor performance can often be a deal-breaker for Christmas shoppers."

Despite speculations that retailers will be expecting a slowdown this year, online Christmas sales are set to increase by 10 percent this year as more consumers use the Internet for their gift and food shopping, according to recent research by Deloitte.

Recent figures from Jupiter also reveal that consumers in the UK are predicted to spend an average of £710 online in 2008 and will make an average of 9.3 purchases online during the year.

As such, Hostway says companies should actually be planning for a higher volume of traffic this Christmas and be especially prepared to maintain their websites if they use videos to promote and feature their products.

"With proper planning and the right tools, online stores don't need to experience these problems, and can make sure that they maximize their revenues during the festive season," says Herbert.

Reads: 1876 | Category: General | Source: TheWHIR : Web Host Industry Reviews
URL source: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/120908_Videos_May_Slow_Online_Sales_Hostway.cfm

Company: Hostway-UK

Want to add a website news or press release ? Just do it, it's free! Use add web hosting news!

Related news

📅 Mar 27, 2008 - Hostway UK Offers CDN Network - Web hosting provider Hostway UK (hostway.co.uk ) announced on Thursday that it now offering its content delivery network services on its UK website (hostway.co.uk/edgecaching), a service that is designed to meet the constantly rising demand for video and other rich media content on the Web. While the offering is new to Hostway's European operations, Hostway's North American operations (hostway.com ) have been offering its "edge caching" content delivery services at least since August 2007.Edge caching is the ability to distribute content from a local Web server to caching servers that are closer to the end user, or nearer the "edge". By using a number of Foundry Se

📅 Feb 21, 2008 - Hostway Urges .Asia Registration - UK domain registrar and Web hosting provider Hostway (hostway.co.uk ) announced on Thursday that it is advising companies to promptly register for their .asia domain names following the opening of the land rush period on February 20. Companies and other individuals who do not act quickly to protect their brand identity risk losing the domain name to other companies or cybersquatters, says Hostway. With 60 percent of the world population living in the Asia-Pacific region, and over 400 million Internet users, companies may be risking their pan-Asian brand identity if they fail to register for their domain name, says Hostway. This can result in the undermining of company tradem

📅 Jan 29, 2008 - Hostway Partners with Tilana Systems - UK domain registrar and Web hosting provider Hostway (hostway.co.uk ) announced on Tuesday that it has signed a new partnership with Tilana Systems (tilana.com). Under the agreement, Hostway will provide managed hosting services for Tilana's storage platform, including system architecture and monitoring, billing, provisioning and customer relationship management tools. On top of providing infrastructure and customer support services to Tilana, Hostway is also marketing Tilana's data protection service, Tilana Reserve, through its Gate.com hosting brand under the name GateVault. The service features a unique pricing structure called PayOnce where for a $2 per GB one-time fee,

📅 Jan 21, 2008 - Hostway Discounts IBM Servers - UK domain registrar and Web hosting provider Hostway (hostway.co.uk ) announced on Monday it is offering new customers two months of free service when they sign up for a 12-month contract on any of its new IBM sourced dedicated servers. Customers joining in January and February will also automatically have their RAM allocation doubled as part of the package. The offering features the latest IBM servers which deliver patented 'X-Architecture' technology. IBM System X and BladeCenter servers, which feature Intel's dual-core Xeon processors, help improve energy management, optimize performance, reliability and manageability and potentially lower the cost of ownership.

📅 Nov 13, 2007 - Hostway Offers 50 Percent off SSL - UK Web hosting provider Hostway UK (hostway.co.uk ) announced on Tuesday it is offering a 50 percent discount on industry standard 128 bit SSL certificates. The 128 bit GeoTrust QuickSSL premium certificates are priced at £35 per annum and will be the lowest cost single root certificate available, says Hostway. An automated two-step validation enables the certificate to be verified immediately without the need to fax in paperwork, which the company anticipates will prompt more users to take up the offer. "With the Christmas period looming, e-tailers need to make sure that consumers can shop safely on their sites," says Thomas Herbert, product manager at Hostway.