Flash Sale or Product Launch Preparation

Executive Summary

Having a flash sale or a product launch? We define this as a short period of time where your resort will be driving 300% more traffic to your ecommerce site than is typical (i.e. a pass sales price deadline, a high volume special event that sells out quickly, etc.) Please take the following steps at least 7 business days prior to the flash sale to notify and work with your Aspenware representative to ensure your site has the proper Azure tier for the sale and product configuration questions answered ahead of the sale. 

Prerequisite Checklist

• Determine if you need to scale your site.

• Determine the specifics of your flash sale and email Aspenware at ski-support@aspenware.com at least 7 business days in advance of any flash sale.

• If Queue-it is used, update safety net max user redirects

1. Determine if you need to scale your site

If you are unsure whether your upcoming sale will cause performance issues in the shop, check Google Analytics traffic overview filtered by hour for data from last year's sale. If you see that the number of sessions for an hour at any hour during the day of last year's flash sale met or exceeded 300 sessions in an hour, the site should be scaled. For example, these spikes would require a scale: 

These spikes, however, would not require a scale:

Each site is set up with a database and app service in Azure to power your site that is cost-effective for your resort to maintain over time. The normal settings can handle a typical load to the site; however, when traffic exceeds a normal load by 3x, which is usually driven by flash sales, then a higher tier database and/or app service is required to handle the load for the period of the flash sale. 

Azure charges by the hour, rather than by the month, so if your site is scaled up for an hour, a day, or even a week, you will only pay the difference of cost between the database tiers for the hours used, rather than for the full month. For example, an S2 database is $.20 per hour, while an S3 database is $.40 per hour. If a flash sale runs 24 hours, the cost of having a performant database (going from S2 to S3 for 24 hours) is less than $5. The cost is negligible scaling up during a flash sale, but the impact of having a database that can handle your load during the period of a flash sale can make or break the success of your sale. In the event you are on the wrong tier during a flash sale, the worst-case scenario is that the traffic will bring your site down, and the best-case scenario is that the site will have poor performance.  

2. Determine the specifics of your flash sale and email Aspenware Commerce

• Answer the following questions about your upcoming flash sale:

  • When is the flash sale? (Date and time)

  • What is going on sale? (The more detail the more we can help brainstorm with you)

  • What load are you expecting? (Number of users from previous years, etc.)

  • How long do you want to scale up your database/ how long do you expect the sale to last?

  • Identify any questions on product setup, requests for support, training, testing, etc.

  • Please indicate whether you use Queue-it safety net.

With this information, we can recommend the right database, expected costs, set up product training calls, block out time for support and testing, adjust queue-it, and more. We recognize that flash sales are important for your business and having proper product setup and testing support for the products going on sale is important. We are happy to answer any product setup questions, help with configuration, testing, or just be available as you are working to answer questions. If you need any assistance with product setup to prepare for the flash sale, please email Aspenware at ski-support@aspenware.com 7 business days in advance of any flash sale so that we have adequate time to address your product setup questions and needs. 

With this information, we can recommend the right database, expected costs, set up product training calls, block out time for support and testing, adjust queue-it, and more. 

Aspenware will send a calendar invite to note when we are scaling your site up with the new Azure levels indicated as well as a calendar invite to note when we are scaling your site down with the baseline Azure levels.

3. If Queue-it is used, update safety net max user redirects

If you use Queue-It, please update your safety net max user redirects (throughput) to match with the level your site is set to using the table below BOTH when scaled up AND when scaled back down.