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How Apple’s New iPad Launch Was An E-commerce Failure & Win

So, Apple made a little announcement yesterday. The new iPad is coming out.

As it turns out, people are kind of excited about it. The masses were visiting store.apple.com to pre-order the new iPad, only to come across this:

 

Unquestionably, this is part of Apple’s plan to build further anticipation around the product release. The
press even covers when the product is available to buy.

There have been other big days at Apple for Ecommerce including June 15, 2010 when Apple and it’s partners took
600,000 pre-orders for the iPhone4. With an average selling price of over $400 – there is a lot of revenue at stake. Yesterday was another big day for Apple and Ecommerce with pre-orders for the latest iPad aka “The new iPad”

Once Apple finally reopened their Ecommerce store, visitors experienced unexpected performance problems. Users were coming across screens like this:


You can see their worldwide timeouts in Yottaa’s web performance monitoring service:

 

And, users weren’t shy to share their sentiment on Apple’s poor performance:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The results are still coming in, but there are already 2000+ negative tweets about Apple’s website being down.

The event marks an interesting contrast for Apple. On one hand, many became frustrated and angry with Apple’s performance issues. At the same time, they were able to extend the conversation of their launch and reach more people. It begs the question:
is this bad press for such a beloved brand like Apple?

Regardless of which side one argues, the underlying issue remains web performance matters and impacts your reputation. As showcased yesterday, users will never praise you for having a reliable website – they expect it. But, users are always quick to point out when your website is hurting their experience. Even huge brands like Apple, with countless resources dedicated to web performance, struggle with keeping their website reliable 24/7.

Here at Yottaa, we are passionate about helping small businesses succeed with their marketing campaigns and e-commerce websites. Sign up for our 14-day free trial to keep your website fast and reliable around the world – your website visitors and bottom line may depend on it.

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