5 ms·

Page Views on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

89 points by jgrahamc 8y ago

newscracker 8y ago
> Despite all of that mobile browsing activity, desktop devices are more commonly used for checkout actions. People seem to browse more on mobile, committing to buy more often with desktop... Could this be because people are also doing comparison shopping for deals, and that using tabbed browser interfaces is easier and more convenient on the desktop than on mobile with smaller screens? Regardless of the reason, using standalone browsers (as opposed to apps), especially on desktops, gives users more (this is relative) freedom and control to avoid being tracked and also block ads and annoyances, resulting in a much better user experience. That's something I'd always encourage. P.S.: Off topic, but in the back of my mind I worry about Cloudflare becoming the new Google, at least as it pertains to collecting information on the sites that it sits in front of and profiling and monetizing that. Also given that many sites may use the free SSL solution from Cloudflare, the traffic from Cloudflare to the site would be visible to it. I wish Cloudflare would provide cheaper paid plans in multiple tiers so that there's more to it than just free vs. (a relatively steep) $20 a month.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Re: Cloudflare plans, their paid plans also see the traffic; at most you can get a dedicated cert, or even hide the cert from them, but the traffic is always visible, since their CDN system pretty much relies on that.
  - r1ch 8y ago
    I think the parent comment is referring to the "Flexible SSL" option where Cloudflare does HTTPS on the frontend but HTTP over the internet to the origin. Customers like it since they get the "green lock" in one click and no one can tell it's actually insecure. You could speculate Cloudflare are only analyzing this outbound unencrypted traffic, but they are of course seeing everything as you rightly pointed out.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Okay, but you don't need to pay to get Full SSL.
- dewey 8y ago
  Is $20 really that steep for that? I'd say it's amazingly cheap for what you get.
  - Moru 8y ago
    Yes, but do I need all that or could I live with a small subset of it for cheaper?
- c22 8y ago
  > Could this be because people are also doing comparison shopping for deals, and that using tabbed browser interfaces is easier and more convenient on the desktop than on mobile with smaller screens? I don't know about everyone else, but I make a conscious effort to "check out" on a pc instead of the phone because it's much easier to fill out the litany of forms.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  > P.S.: Off topic, but in the back of my mind I worry about Cloudflare becoming the new Google, at least as it pertains to collecting information on the sites that it sits in front of and profiling and monetizing that. Also given that many sites may use the free SSL solution from Cloudflare, the traffic from Cloudflare to the site would be visible to it. I wish Cloudflare would provide cheaper paid plans in multiple tiers so that there's more to it than just free vs. (a relatively steep) $20 a month. I was just thinking about this when I read the headline. I also wish they would provide some less pricier plans. We used to use them for private servers, lots of skids like to "DDoS" (they pay for a service to do it for them) when you don't make them admins or you ban them for scamming other users, etc.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
zylepe 8y ago
It is deeply concerning that regular employees at cloudflare have access to analyze the content of user traffic like this.
- li_am 8y ago
  I thought so too - though I note that the request included 'HTTP/1.1', which I presume means this is solely non-encrypted traffic? Can anyone clarify?
  - r1ch 8y ago
    I would hope that requests to "POST /store/checkout" are encrypted. Cloudflare is a MITM so they can of course see this (and the associated personal / payment data...) regardless of encryption.
- joking 8y ago
  cloudfare also does ssl termination, so it will have access to the traffic between their edge servers and the origin ones.
  - zylepe 8y ago
    Yes, as soon as you use the "orange cloud" they have access to traffic, which lets them insert their value-added services for content delivery - and apparently also store and analyze the content of your traffic.
- paxys 8y ago
  What makes you think regular employees have this access?
  - zylepe 8y ago
    The fact that they can analyze this data for a blog post on Black Friday as opposed to limiting its use to security, network improvements, etc.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
>Black Friday is spreading internationally despite these still being normal working days for the rest of the world. // My feeling, in the UK, is that it's not stuck. Peak seemed to be 2 years ago, last year was big but more organised to avoid the violence (!) of the previous year. This year ... some kids in my city had the day off school, other than that it seemed calm, some companies definitely avoiding it, perhaps it's moved primarily online? A UK consumer rights company "Which?" published price comparison info showing most items are cheaper at other times of the year. I think this realisation may in part be why the super-hype is not working.
- corobo 8y ago
  Yeah honestly I completely forgot about it till I went to buy something from Amazon and saw their banners everywhere (UK). Got a decent enough discount on the item I wanted but not going to remember it next year either.
canthonytucci 8y ago
>We can see here that Black Friday has an almost 200% increase in checkout interactions compared to the previous Friday. Anecdotally I hear a lot of people say they are "waiting for Black Friday". Is it best to compare to the previous Friday here, or to average Fridays? some other number?
55555 8y ago
I would love to see this data for Singles' Day (the Chinese holiday). Alibaba's claims are staggering.
- thisone 8y ago
  Singles day is also migrating around the world now. There are some numbers from Alibaba that I've seen in Apache Flink presentations, though I can't remember which ones off the top of my head
megous 8y ago
A lot of other stuff might be analyzable from those "POST /store/checkout" requests, too, so please keep sharing with the world. Thanks! You're awesome!
mywacaday 8y ago
Why is the content only taking up a middle third of the available space on a 20" monitor making the text on the graphs almost unreadable? Not even an option to zoom/click on the graphs.
shaklee3 8y ago
These plots seem to be very deceiving. Obviously if you aren't one of the big players like Walmart or Amazon, it may not look as dramatic as it really was. I'm assuming cloudflare is not a cache for those two?
ramshanker 8y ago
I suspect google could do the same with "Anonymize Data" from FREE Google analytics platform.

89 points by jgrahamc 8y ago

> Despite all of that mobile browsing activity, desktop devices are more commonly used for checkout actions. People seem to browse more on mobile, committing to buy more often with desktop... Could this be because people are also doing comparison shopping for deals, and that using tabbed browser interfaces is easier and more convenient on the desktop than on mobile with smaller screens? Regardless of the reason, using standalone browsers (as opposed to apps), especially on desktops, gives users more (this is relative) freedom and control to avoid being tracked and also block ads and annoyances, resulting in a much better user experience. That's something I'd always encourage. P.S.: Off topic, but in the back of my mind I worry about Cloudflare becoming the new Google, at least as it pertains to collecting information on the sites that it sits in front of and profiling and monetizing that. Also given that many sites may use the free SSL solution from Cloudflare, the traffic from Cloudflare to the site would be visible to it. I wish Cloudflare would provide cheaper paid plans in multiple tiers so that there's more to it than just free vs. (a relatively steep) $20 a month.

icebraining 8y ago
Re: Cloudflare plans, their paid plans also see the traffic; at most you can get a dedicated cert, or even hide the cert from them, but the traffic is always visible, since their CDN system pretty much relies on that.
- r1ch 8y ago
  I think the parent comment is referring to the "Flexible SSL" option where Cloudflare does HTTPS on the frontend but HTTP over the internet to the origin. Customers like it since they get the "green lock" in one click and no one can tell it's actually insecure. You could speculate Cloudflare are only analyzing this outbound unencrypted traffic, but they are of course seeing everything as you rightly pointed out.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Okay, but you don't need to pay to get Full SSL.
dewey 8y ago
Is $20 really that steep for that? I'd say it's amazingly cheap for what you get.
- Moru 8y ago
  Yes, but do I need all that or could I live with a small subset of it for cheaper?
c22 8y ago
> Could this be because people are also doing comparison shopping for deals, and that using tabbed browser interfaces is easier and more convenient on the desktop than on mobile with smaller screens? I don't know about everyone else, but I make a conscious effort to "check out" on a pc instead of the phone because it's much easier to fill out the litany of forms.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
> P.S.: Off topic, but in the back of my mind I worry about Cloudflare becoming the new Google, at least as it pertains to collecting information on the sites that it sits in front of and profiling and monetizing that. Also given that many sites may use the free SSL solution from Cloudflare, the traffic from Cloudflare to the site would be visible to it. I wish Cloudflare would provide cheaper paid plans in multiple tiers so that there's more to it than just free vs. (a relatively steep) $20 a month. I was just thinking about this when I read the headline. I also wish they would provide some less pricier plans. We used to use them for private servers, lots of skids like to "DDoS" (they pay for a service to do it for them) when you don't make them admins or you ban them for scamming other users, etc.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

zylepe 8y ago

It is deeply concerning that regular employees at cloudflare have access to analyze the content of user traffic like this.

li_am 8y ago
I thought so too - though I note that the request included 'HTTP/1.1', which I presume means this is solely non-encrypted traffic? Can anyone clarify?
- r1ch 8y ago
  I would hope that requests to "POST /store/checkout" are encrypted. Cloudflare is a MITM so they can of course see this (and the associated personal / payment data...) regardless of encryption.
joking 8y ago
cloudfare also does ssl termination, so it will have access to the traffic between their edge servers and the origin ones.
- zylepe 8y ago
  Yes, as soon as you use the "orange cloud" they have access to traffic, which lets them insert their value-added services for content delivery - and apparently also store and analyze the content of your traffic.
paxys 8y ago
What makes you think regular employees have this access?
- zylepe 8y ago
  The fact that they can analyze this data for a blog post on Black Friday as opposed to limiting its use to security, network improvements, etc.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

>Black Friday is spreading internationally despite these still being normal working days for the rest of the world. // My feeling, in the UK, is that it's not stuck. Peak seemed to be 2 years ago, last year was big but more organised to avoid the violence (!) of the previous year. This year ... some kids in my city had the day off school, other than that it seemed calm, some companies definitely avoiding it, perhaps it's moved primarily online? A UK consumer rights company "Which?" published price comparison info showing most items are cheaper at other times of the year. I think this realisation may in part be why the super-hype is not working.

corobo 8y ago
Yeah honestly I completely forgot about it till I went to buy something from Amazon and saw their banners everywhere (UK). Got a decent enough discount on the item I wanted but not going to remember it next year either.

canthonytucci 8y ago

>We can see here that Black Friday has an almost 200% increase in checkout interactions compared to the previous Friday. Anecdotally I hear a lot of people say they are "waiting for Black Friday". Is it best to compare to the previous Friday here, or to average Fridays? some other number?

55555 8y ago

I would love to see this data for Singles' Day (the Chinese holiday). Alibaba's claims are staggering.

thisone 8y ago
Singles day is also migrating around the world now. There are some numbers from Alibaba that I've seen in Apache Flink presentations, though I can't remember which ones off the top of my head

megous 8y ago

A lot of other stuff might be analyzable from those "POST /store/checkout" requests, too, so please keep sharing with the world. Thanks! You're awesome!

mywacaday 8y ago

Why is the content only taking up a middle third of the available space on a 20" monitor making the text on the graphs almost unreadable? Not even an option to zoom/click on the graphs.

shaklee3 8y ago

These plots seem to be very deceiving. Obviously if you aren't one of the big players like Walmart or Amazon, it may not look as dramatic as it really was. I'm assuming cloudflare is not a cache for those two?

ramshanker 8y ago

I suspect google could do the same with "Anonymize Data" from FREE Google analytics platform.