Shoppers using coupons for holiday purchases

A recent survey from the websites RetailMeNot and VoucherCodes found shoppers in the United States and the U.K. are using more online coupons for holiday purchases.

The survey showed shoppers are planning to save money this holiday season by implementing online codes when making purchases via computers and mobile devices, in an effort to keep spending levels consistent with 2010. Online coupon usage on the RetailMeNot site increased 23 percent in the months leading up to the holiday shopping season, and for the three months prior to the holidays, merchant sales driven by online coupons increased 82 percent compared to 2010.

IT Business Edge recently identified different ways retailers can prepare their websites for the peak week of online shopping, when shoppers will be using online coupons to make holiday purchases.

Retailers should check their free disk space for logs, as increased traffic to a site will lead to an increase in the log size. Retailers should make sure they have enough room to accommodate the mad rush of shoppers to sites, the source reported.

Furthermore, retailers should check to see if their ecommerce site's connectivity limit is burstable. Companies should see how much bandwidth has been used in November thus far, and then make sure there is enough additional bandwidth to support the busier second half of the month, the source reported.