Meredith Cunningham is the production/online editor for Retail Online Integration, its e-newsletter, The ROI Report, and website, RetailOnlineIntegration.com. Meredith is also the production/online editor for the Target Marketing Group's web-only brand, eM+C.
Before coming to North American Publishing Company, Meredith served as sports editor for The Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia, and was a designer for the Bucks County Courier-Times. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Utica College of Syracuse University in 2007.
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Do you remember all the way back to Black Friday? Yes, one short month ago many retailers were opening earlier, staying open later and offering the usual Black Friday deals. For Best Buy, Black Friday just backfired. Many customers who made purchases via BestBuy.com on and after Black Friday have had their orders cancelled just days before Christmas.
Among Black Friday's online exclusive items not delivered: high-definition TVs, laptop computers, tablets, Blu-Ray players, digital cameras and DVDs. Customers have flocked to Best Buy's online forum to voice their complaints and claim that Best Buy ruined Christmas.
One post reads: "There are a number of solutions that could be followed to rescue this mess and make me a satisfied customer. You could at least give me a voucher to pick it up in the store, or let the store know I’ll be by to pick one up (since they are available). All I want is to make sure a PS3 is under the tree on Christmas morning … anything less than this will truly ruin Christmas for my kids. The sale price is what made the purchase possible."
That request may have fallen on deaf ears. Best Buy released the following statement to Fox 9 News in Minneapolis: "Due to overwhelming demand of hot product offerings on BestBuy.com during the November and December time period, we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of our customers’ online orders. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and we have notified the affected customers."
Meanwhile, Barneys New York experienced a glitch with its online order management system, causing the upscale apparel retailer to also cancel several holiday orders. Barneys issued a much more direct, sincere and apologetic statement to its customers, however. Kevin Thompson, vice president of customer experience and development for Barneys, gave out his contact information so customers can contact him directly to solve any further issues.
Is it me or do retailers not prepare for Black Friday all year? How could something like this happen on such a large scale? Was Best Buy's e-commerce site simply not fully prepared for the holidays? How much hard work was wasted? And is this a situation where someone needs to be fired, as seen with Target's website crash back in October?
E-commerce sales are growing, but consumer confidence in the channel may begin to waver as more screwups like this occur. With big-name retailers seeing such problems, it's more important than ever to make sure your e-commerce site is up to date and can handle peaks in traffic at any given time.
How do you think Best Buy should handle this problem? Do you think Barneys handled the problem adequately? Let me know by posting a comment in the box below.
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