One of the most striking stories about how a bricks and mortar retailer stuffed up online retailing is a warning for all businesses anywhere in the world trying to go online. They need to be careful, it's easy to stuff up and ruin their brand and reputation.
US Target launched its web site the other week offering lots of bargain basement prices. It was selling everything from clothing to bikes designed or decorated by Italian designer Missoni at bargain prices, all designed to boost flagging sales. The website crashed because of the surge in traffic. Target had been using Amazon's e-commerce platform but had decided to take its website off the cloud and host it all in-house. Big mistake. The demand was far greater than Target sees even on the busiest shopping days of the year. Target's marketing campaign had created the buzz by releasing glimpses of the Missoni collection on Facebook and YouTube. It even concocted a doll blogger, with its own Tumblr page and Twitter account But Target failed to anticipate what happens when you get more eye balls than bandwidth.
You only get one chance in the world of online. Stuff that up and you're screwed, people won't forgive you. The company is now being attacked on social media. Angry customers are now using Facebook, Twitter, and popular fashion blogs such as Racked.com to complain about lost or delayed orders and canceled sales. On one Facebook page, the disaster has been dubbed the "BP oil spill of fashion.''
Racked.com is now running Target horror stories and it says it has heard from many who say they will never shop there again.
What are the lessons for other retailers? They need to plan and forecast these events very carefully. Don't go for big bang marketing to generate market hype and buzz unless you can serve customers, both online and offline. Companies vulnerable to huge swings in traffic should use cloud computing. And be ready for the unexpected.
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