Press releases
Meerderheid e-commerce sites kan komende kerstdrukte niet aan (2009-05-14)
WatchMouse voorziet wachtende e-shoppers
UTRECHT 20051201 -- Nu de decemberinkopen weer in alle hevigheid zijn losgebarsten, blijken veel online shops regelmatig 'gesloten' te zijn. Dat concludeert WatchMouse in haar jaarlijkse bereikbaarheidsonderzoek van cadeausites. Het Nederlandse sitemonitoringbedrijf heeft net als vorig jaar een onderzoek gehouden onder webwinkels. Slechts drie sites in het onderzoek haalden de maximale 100%. Het merendeel haalt zelfs niet de score die door hosting providers wordt aangehouden als absoluut minimum.
Veel sites zijn maar matig voorbereid op grote aantallen bezoekers. Door de grote belangstelling raken servers regelmatig overbelast. Ook blijken reactietijden van sites dramatisch dalen. Het onderzoek dat WatchMouse in de weken voor Sinterklaas heeft gehouden, laat duidelijk zien dat sites problemen vertonen naarmate er meer bezoekers in de webwinkels verschijnen.
Om te controleren of e-commerce sites goed bereikbaar zijn, heeft WatchMouse de hele maand november controles uitgevoerd. De uptime bleek regelmatig onder de 99.9% te liggen, een grens die in veel service level agreements (SLAs) van hosting providers geldt als minimum. Dat percentage wordt maar door tien van de 25 sites gehaald. Neckermann, Bonaparte en eBay zijn de enigen met een score van 100%. Vorig jaar waren er nog zes sites die een maximale uptime haalden.
De bereikbaarheid van Kijkshop, Bart Smit, de Bijenkorf en Wehkamp blijkt verre van optimaal. De score van Wehkamp, 97.27%, betekent bijvoorbeeld dat deze site per dag meer dan een half uur slecht bereikbaar is.
De grootste stijger was Bonaparte (kleding) die van de 17e plaats in 2004 steeg naar een gedeelde eerste plaats. eBay bleef als enige twee jaar achtereen op 1. De grootste daler was ECI die van een gedeelde eerste plaats in 2005 naar de 23ste plaats zakte.
In het licht van de toenemende bestedingen online kan de economische schade voor een site groot zijn. In de eerste zes maanden van dit jaar is er online ruim een miljard euro besteed, concludeert de Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor 2005. De online bestedingen maken met 37% ten opzichte van dezelfde periode vorig jaar bovendien een snelle groei door.
Consument gewend aan snelheid
"In vergelijking met vorig jaar zijn effectieve maatregelen uitgebleven", zegt Mark Pors, CTO van WatchMouse. "Consumenten zijn gewend aan snelheid op internet. Moeten ze wachten op een site, dan blijken ze zeker voor decembercadeaus gemakkelijk naar een andere site te gaan. Veel bedrijven weten echter niet dat hun sites matig bereikbaar zijn.”
Opvallend zijn verder de sites die 100% halen. Pors: “Twee van de drie blijken in het buitenland gehost te worden. Waarschijnlijk is men in de VS (eBay) en Duitsland (Bonaparte) wel gewend de sites goed te dimensioneren”.
Vorig jaar bleek de kerstperiode overigens nog drukker dan de periode voor Sinterklaas. Om die reden zal WatchMouse ook in de weken voor kerst blijven monitoren. Vlak voor kerst verwacht WatchMouse met de resultaten te komen van die tweede testperiode.
Het onderzoek liep van 1 t/m 30 november 2005. Van 'downtime' is sprake als een site een foutmelding geeft of de HTML na acht seconden niet ontvangen is, en dit vanuit een tweede meetpunt bevestigd is. Het complete bereikbaarheidsonderzoek is te vinden op: http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2005/eshops_NL.php
Over WatchMouse
Bedrijven kunnen eenvoudig hun websites controleren door gebruik te maken van de monitoringdienst van WatchMouse. WatchMouse controleert sinds 2002 Internetsites en e-commerce toepassingen van bedrijven over de hele wereld. WatchMouse heeft duizenden klanten in meer dan 70 landen. De dienst is beschikbaar in acht talen en de analyses worden uitgevoerd vanuit een groot aantal locaties in het wereldwijde WatchMouse monitoring netwerk. Eerder dit jaar werd WatchMouse uitgeroepen tot Rising Star in de Deloitte Fast 50. Deze award wordt jaarlijks toegekend aan snel groeiende technologiebedrijven die nog geen vijf jaar bestaan
US online stockbroker beats UK counterpart (2005-12-11)
WatchMouse report favourable on availability US stockbroker sites
UTRECHT, NL, 20051206 -- The websites of US online stockbrokers have an excellent availability record. This was one of the findings in a research by WatchMouse, a company providing monitoring services for websites and e-commerce applications worldwide. Of the 29 US websites that were covered by the research, 18 have an uptime percentage of 99.9% or better, and as many as 10 of these reached the perfect 100% mark.
This makes the US online brokers perform significantly better than their UK counterparts: at a similar research in the UK, just one out of 16 websites researched is available continuously, and five are listed at 99.9%. An uptime level of 99.9% is generally seen as the minimum acceptable level and is often quoted in service level agreements (SLAs) with hosting providers or in-house IT departments.
With a growing percentage of the stock market taking place on the Internet, it becomes ever more important to always be available, with the fastest possible response time. Mark Pors, CTO at WatchMouse claims: "Even more than shopping sites, stockbroker sites cannot afford to be unavailable- the stock business is an always-on business"
In order to determine the extent to which the online stockbrokers achieve satisfactory availability, WatchMouse monitored the websites during the official trading hours of the New York (NYSE) and London stock exchange respectively. During a period of two months, October through November, every five minutes, one of WatchMouse’s monitoring stations accessed the customer login page of the website, which was then expected to download within 8 seconds, without any errors.
The differences are remarkable: US brokers have- almost without exception- a very high availability. Ameritrade Plus, Bank One, Charles Schwab, Cititrade, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Quick and Reilly, Tradingdirect, USAA, and Wellsfargo, were all continuously available throughout the research period. Another eight sites displayed a 99.9% uptime. Not one of the US brokers reported an uptime below the 99% mark. Still, AB Watley Direct, last on the list at 99.04%, adds up to a 1 hours and 20 minutes downtime per month during trading hours.
In the UK the results are far worse. Only Alliance-Leicester maintained the 100% availability, and five others are at 99.9% or up. Two of the 16 UK brokers were even tagged with a "poor availability". Stocktrade is difficult to reach almost two hours per month and Fasttrade a whopping five hours, both during trading hours.
Still, the online stockbrokers have a significantly higher uptime average than other sectors, such as e-shops, government, and news media. WatchMouse reports on these sectors on a regular basis with their 'availability index'.
Online trading trouble
Mark Pors, emphasises the importance of a high uptime for online stockbrokers: "With online securities transactions, the site should be very responsive. After hitting the 'confirm button', you should never have to question whether the order was placed correctly or not. Online brokers understand the importance of being online, and having a fast response time during trading hours."
A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing the US and UK online brokers, can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2005/uk-us-brokers.php
About WatchMouse
Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.
WatchMouse was voted a Deloitte Rising Star in the Netherlands, as part of the 2005 Fast 50 awards; the list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies.
Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com
Spanish e-tailers not ready for Xmas shopping rush (2005-12-09)
WatchMouse research reveals weaknesses of Spanish online shops
Not a single Spanish webshop has an uptime of 100%, and only one out of 10 meets the regular industry availability standards. This is the conclusion of a research by WatchMouse, one of the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands, and winner of the Deloite Rising Star award in 2005.
WatchMouse has been monitoring the main ten Spanish webshops for 38 days, to find out if they are going to be able to handle the Christmas rush. The results of the WatchMouse Availability Index for Spanish e-tailers are poor. "We predict a long wait for internet customers this Christmas season, as Spanish e-shops don't seem to be ready to handle the increased traffic. In a fairly quiet period the performance has already been below standard. The extra volume of online shoppers before Christmas will definitely cause problems, and may even bring some sites down completely", says Mark Pors, CTO WatchMouse.
"According to recent research by the Asociación Española de Comercio Electrónico, retail e-trade in Spain reached some 1.8 billion euros in 2004. So there are big amounts at stake here. If customers cannot get through on a website, or are experiencing a long wait, they often decide to visit a competitive site, causing webshops to lose deals, and even risk losing loyal customers for good."
WatchMouse monitored the top ten Spanish e-tailers continuously from October 25 until December 2. Every 5 minutes, one of WatchMouse’s test stations tried to access the homepage of the site, which is expected to download within 8 seconds, without any errors. An uptime of 99.9% is seen as the minimum acceptable level. This percentage is also often quoted in service level agreements (SLAs) with hosting providers.
Of the ten websites monitored, there was only one meeting this requirement: Carrefour. Mercadona and AreaPC were the sites with the worst availability, showing a respective downtime of an equivalent of 10 and 16 hours over the 38-day testing period. In comparison: the main US e-tailers, such as eBay and Amazon all have 100% uptime, which shows perfect availability can be achieved.
A complete overview of the monitoring results of the 10 sites can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2005/eshops-es.php
WatchMouse will continue to monitor the performance of the ten Spanish etailers over the Christmas period and will publish its findings in January 2006.
About WatchMouse
Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.
Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com.
Spanish banks closed for online business (2006-02-14)
WatchMouse research reveals most Spanish Internet banks struggle to offer reliable access to customers
Madrid, January 10, 2006 - Only one out of 31 Spanish banks offering Internet banking, has a login page available 100% of the time. Added to this, only 5 of the Internet banks' login pages monitored meets the regular industry availability standards.
This is the conclusion of a research by WatchMouse, one of the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands, and winner of the Deloitte Rising Star award in 2005. The company has been monitoring the Internet banking portals of the main Spanish banks for 2 months, and has found them to be well below acceptable service standards.
"One of the primary aims of Internet banking is 24 hour, 365 day access to account information. Sadly, Spanish customers are finding that this is far from the case. One bank's online banking portal login page was even unavailable 11 percent of the time - which inevitably means poor service for its clients", says Mark Pors, CTO at WatchMouse. "Customers of this bank have no guarantee they will be able to access their money when they need to make an urgent transfer."
Of the 31 banks whose sites were monitored, only BBVA's login page was 100% available. An uptime of 99.9% is seen as the minimum acceptable level, but 80% of the banks were unable to offer that.
Caja Cantabria has the worst performing online banking portal, showing downtime equivalent to more than 3 days over the 2-month testing period (11 percent of the time). Banco Urquijo was second worst, with a total downtime of more than one day over the testing period.
As a comparison: the main US brokers, such as Morgan Stanley, Cititrade and Wellsfargo all have 100% uptime, which provides a benchmark for availability in the financial world.
WatchMouse monitored the 31 Spanish banks' websites continuously from November 6, 2005 until January 5, 2006. Every 5 minutes, one of WatchMouse's test stations tried to access the login pages of the bank's Internet banking portals, which are expected to load within 8 seconds, without any errors.
Besides the Internet banking portals, WatchMouse also checked the availability of the home page of each Internet bank, plus 19 other banks that don't offer Internet banking. Of these 50 homepages in total, none had a homepage with 100% availability and only 11 of the 50 are meeting industry standards.
A complete overview of results can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2006/banks-es.php
About WatchMouse
Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.
Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com.
