We watched massive volumes of gift card activations course through our OLS.Switch acquirer implementations yesterday. In our bricks and mortar implementations we’re handling activations, deactivations and refreshes of cards picked from these ubiquitous ‘Gift Card Malls’ that have sprouted up around the endcaps of major retailers everywhere.
While our peak day was December 24th, what this means for eCommerce providers is that the peak shifts to December 26th, when card usage starts. This year, the usage surge ought to be especially spiky on December 26th. We have a Friday jammed in the middle of Christmas and a weekend. Many people have taken the day off to manufacture a nice four-day break.
While the hardcore shoppers head out to the malls, people like me are looking to get into the buying spirit while staying close to home. So, it’s gotta suck to be working IT for The Gap right now. These Gap.com and BananaRepublic.com screens reflect what me and other people have been experiencing over the past couple of hours: A complete eCommerce outage:
Analysts talk about ‘Cyber Monday’, but I bet December 26th is the peak eCommerce buying day this year.
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