# 30 Days of Ecommerce Testing Day 16: Busiest Times **URL:** \ **Category:** 30 Days of Testing\ **Tags:** 30-days-of-testing, e-commerce\ **Created:** [13 May 2018 23:01 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/30-days-of-ecommerce-testing-day-16-busiest-times/14835 "2018-05-13T23:01:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 5
**Author:** ![dkotschessa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/fbc32d/32.png) [@dkotschessa](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/dkotschessa)\ **Post date:** [16 May 2018 14:53 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/30-days-of-ecommerce-testing-day-16-busiest-times/14835/5 "2018-05-16T14:53:59Z")
According to the [national retail federation](https://nrf.com/), who keeps numbers on this stuff and helps people plan for the year. (This is for the U.S. - does the U.K. have something similar?) these were the top [10 spending events for 2017](https://nrf.com/resources/consumer-research-and-data/holiday-spending): ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/ministryoftesting/original/2X/5/5955de7519f4d761fe02f6f1cfb5548893c16f04.png) I’m glad I checked. I never even thought about ‘back to school’ and ‘back to college’ shopping, and never EVER did I think it was competitive with the winter holidays. According to the article on [back to school and college shopping](https://nrf.com/resources/consumer-research-and-data/holiday-spending/back-school-headquarters), over half of the consumers plan to shop in a department store. Online shopping is 4th place after discount and clothing stores, and most people plan to start their shopping about a month in advance. In fact [back to college spending hit an all time high in 2017](https://www.retaildive.com/news/why-back-to-school-shopping-matters-more-than-ever-in-2017/448535/). So back to colllege and back to school spending combine seem to beat out holiday shopping by a lot. And it’s a loong season. So we’re talking about a steady season from August through September, then maybe a drop in October, and then things start heating up again in November through the holidays. I found a few relevant articles about analytics around the holidays: [Preparing for the Holidays – Part I: Connecting Your Load Testing with Revenue Metrics](https://www.bluetriangle.com/blog/ecommerce-sites-preparing-for-the-holidays-part-1/) [3 Things eCommerce Sites Need to Do When Preparing for the Holidays](https://www.bluetriangle.com/blog/overview-ecommerce-sites-preparing-for-the-holidays/) These articles focus on load testing, A/B testing, and optimization. But look! When we get to back to school shopping, the needs might change a little: [Is your site ready for back-to-school shopping sprees?](https://www.soasta.com/blog/bts-shopping/) Performance is still an issue of course. But to illustrate the difference, and make my point, I will cherry pick a few facts from the report card. 🙂 “The top stressors are shipping costs (57%), out-of-stock inventory (51%) and not being able to see or test products before buying them (50%)” On [day 13](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/30-days-of-ecommerce-testing-day-13-testing-ideas/14992/2) I talked about shipping costs and making sure there were no surprises. Also, this type of shopping involves a lot of people buying the SAME THINGS, i.e. stationery, backpacks, etc. So the second complaint above makes sense. We need to make sure inventory count is working correctly. If X items are bought then X items should be deducted from inventory. If we go below a certain threshold, the merchant needs to know it’s time to get/order/make more of whatever it is they are selling. The last item is a good one as well. There should be pictures of the item to purchase - and good ones. Preferably multiple from different angles or some sort of a rotatable view. We need to make sure all these work (if they exist). “Nearly 1 in 5 (17%) plan to shop using their smartphones or tablets.” “Millennials are the most likely to shop online for back to school.” So definitely mobile testing! - Dave K --- _[View the full topic](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/30-days-of-ecommerce-testing-day-16-busiest-times/14835)._