I read an article in the newspaper about shopping traffic on Black Friday. Except this wasn’t normal traffic, it was internet traffic. Websites like Walmart.com which were offering after Turkey day deals, were hit a record number of times on this day. Many of the websites couldn’t sustain the heavy traffic and experienced delays and site down time.
I think that this goes to show the degree of comfort that American’s have with internet shopping is going up. On the day after thanksgiving “the biggest shopping day of the year” so to speak, people are turning to the internet rather than the big stores with their big lines and big messes. This shows that people are now willing to use the internet to avoid the hassle of shopping at actual stores. Right now this occurs on a day when stores are horrid, but I am sure in the future this is going to be more and more popular for everyday use. As for the websites that were facing difficulties with that type of load, I have confidence they will figure out the glitches and not have such problems in the future when they anticipate peak demand. I am sure in this season right before Christmas we are going to see a drastic rise in the use of internet shopping.