Re: 59,000 hits to non-functioning web-site infuriates users

From: Matt Mickiewicz <matt_at_sitepoint.com>
Date: Wed 30 Jul 2003 08:30:04 -0500

Diane DeLoach <dianedeloach_at_frontiernet.net> wrote:

>Can you 'calculate' a financial loss because of disastrous results that
>occur when, after two years of planning, preparation, expenditures, plans
>for advertising, creative expenses, trade shows, etc., you 'hire the best'
>to design incredible software, etc. to launch the site properly--- and
>still the outsourced software prevents the site from working? Thus, 58,958
>initial customers are lost on the first weekend, etc.etc.etc.; forget the
>word-of-mouth factor via e-mail.

"Hits" is a meaningless term (it refers to the total number of files
accessed, you can increase the number of hits to your site simply by putting
more images on each page).

That being said, if you can obtain the number of unique visitors during that
weekend, you'll have a much more reliable number to use in your
calculations.

Assuming that the problems were fixed after that weekend, you should be
able to determine an average conversion rate for your visitors, and an
average sale amount and then apply those numbers to that particular weekend.

ie. 1000 visitors during that weekend
Once the site was fixed, it converted 1% of visitors into customers at an
average sale of $100

Therefore, the lost revenue during that weekend would have been 1% x 1000 =
10 sales at $100 each which is $1000 in revenue.


____________________________________

Matt Mickiewicz
SitePoint - Master The Web.

e: matt_at_sitepoint.com
w: www.sitepoint.com
    www.editize.com
p: 604 716 4638
f: 630 214 3583
____________________________________





Received on Wed Jul 30 2003 - 08:30:04 CDT