For the week running up to Christmas Day, the week to New Year’s Eve and this first week in January, Keynote is reporting consistently strong performance amongst its basket of 13 top retailers.
For the week to Christmas Eve, House of Fraser returned to its top spot with 100% availability and the fastest average performance.
For the week from Christmas Day to New Year’s Eve, nine of the 13 retailers managed 100% availability and only HMV and Selfridges suffered from slow response times.
For the following week, to January 7, seven of the retailers had 100% availability and all the retailers had over 99% availability.
That’s in marked contrast to the US, where big name online retailers are still not getting things right during periods of peak demand. Wal-Mart, Target, Gap, Blockbuster and others all had performance issues over the Christmas and New Year period.
Keynote Christmas Index
Performance and availability (Thursday 18/12/2008 — Wednesday 24/12/2008)
| Company | Average performance (s) | Availability (%) |
| House of Fraser | 1.22 | 100.00 |
| BHS | 1.29 | 100.00 |
| Toys ‘R’ Us | 1.34 | 100.00 |
| John Lewis | 1.48 | 99.18 |
| Tesco Direct | 1.64 | 100.00 |
| Argos | 1.78 | 100.00 |
| Play | 1.79 | 100.00 |
| Hamleys | 1.99 | 100.00 |
| Debenhams | 2.09 | 99.75 |
| Littlewoods | 2.71 | 99.69 |
| Amazon | 2.75 | 99.94 |
| HMV | 3.55 | 98.55 |
| Selfridges | 4.63 | 99.94 |
Performance and availability (Thursday 25/12/2008 — Wednesday 31/12/2008)
| Company | Average performance (s) | Availability (%) |
| Toys ‘R’ Us | 1.24 | 100.00 |
| House of Fraser | 1.29 | 99.94 |
| BHS | 1.36 | 100.00 |
| Tesco Direct | 1.54 | 100.00 |
| Play | 1.88 | 100.00 |
| Argos | 1.90 | 100.00 |
| Debenhams | 1.95 | 100.00 |
| John Lewis | 2.03 | 100.00 |
| Hamleys | 2.24 | 100.00 |
| Littlewoods | 2.66 | 99.87 |
| Amazon | 2.73 | 100.00 |
| Selfridges | 4.72 | 99.87 |
| HMV | 5.42 | 98.79 |
Performance and availability (Thursday 1/1/2009 — Wednesday 7/1/2009)
| Company | Average performance (s) | Availability (%) |
| John Lewis | 1.19 | 99.75 |
| Toys ‘R’ Us | 1.28 | 100.00 |
| BHS | 1.33 | 99.94 |
| House of Fraser | 1.33 | 99.87 |
| Tesco Direct | 1.61 | 100.00 |
| Argos | 1.77 | 100.00 |
| Debenhams | 1.92 | 100.00 |
| Hamleys | 1.98 | 100.00 |
| Play | 2.14 | 100.00 |
| Amazon | 2.69 | 99.94 |
| Littlewoods | 2.73 | 100.00 |
| HMV | 3.80 | 99.19 |
| Selfridges | 4.61 | 99.94 |
