Über das Yahoo-Portal verkaufen in den USA über 40.000 kleinere Webshops Ihre Produkte. Am Montag dieser Woche kam es allerdings zu einem Erliegen. Auch der bekannte Shop von Sears.com musste die Fahnen kurzzeitig strecken.
Was hat diese Ausfälle mitten im Weihnachtsgeschäft verursacht?
Der in den USA mittlerweile "Cyber Monday" genannte Montag, war auch schon in den letzten Jahren der Tag mit den meisten Online-Bestellungen. Es ist der erste Tag nach Thanksgiving, also einem langen Feiertagswochenende, den Angestellte gern nutzen, um vom PC am Arbeitsplatz aus Geschenke im Internet zu bestellen. Sowohl der Yahoo Checkout-Prozess als auch der Webshop von Sears.com konnten diesen Ansturm der Shopper nicht verkraften.
Weitere Informationen zum Hintergrund der Ausfälle hat die New York Times:
"Yahoo's relationship with our merchants is extremely important to us and we value their loyalty," the company said in an e-mailed statement. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and we are continuing to put processes in place to prevent further disruptions."
That apology rang hollow with small business owners who depend on Yahoo for their livelihood. "I couldn't have imagined a worse scenario," said Sara Schwimmer of New York, who runs PopJudaica, a retailer of Jewish products. Ms. Schwimmer has been using Yahoo to run her site since March of 2004. This year, she thought that the convergence of Cyber Monday and an early start to Hanukkah could translate into big revenues.
But orders on her site started to slow at around 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, as Yahoo Merchant Solutions system began experiencing problems. The network has yet to recover nine hours later, Ms. Schwimmer said. "It's been horrifying and it's a loss of thousands and thousands of dollars. I can only imagine how many people have given up out of frustration. First impressions are lasting impressions. There's no telling how much business we lost."
