Christmas shoppers hammer small websites

Small businesses in the UK may be missing out on their share of the estimated £5bn online Christmas spend because they are unable to cope with the massive surges in website traffic, according to hosting company Fasthosts.

The company said that the websites of small and medium sized enterprises are already creaking due to basic infrastructure and some are set to collapse as site traffic increases by an average of 200 per cent over the holiday period.

SMEs running their websites on in-house, single server solutions are most vulnerable and are in danger of driving customers to competitors or larger online traders by having slow and unresponsive sites.

Consumers are also becoming less tolerant of slow websites as broadband becomes more commonplace, the company said.

“As online competition increases, it amazes me that so many SMEs are willing to chance their Christmas sales. Ensuring that your website is supported by the correct infrastructure is vital to provide a quality buying experience,” said Stephen Holford, director of product marketing at Fasthosts.

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