Retail
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Performance tests are technical evaluations that measure an application’s efficiency from various perspectives and under different usage loads. And if there’s one event that highlights the importance of this type of testing, it’s Black Friday. Performance tests make it possible to verify whether your systems are prepared for what is one of the most critical times of the year.
One of the most important dates for the retail industry—along with Christmas and Mother’s Day—Black Friday puts the efficiency of various programs to the test. E-commerce platforms face the greatest demands, but they are not the only ones: apps from banks, credit card issuers, fintech companies, logistics firms, payment gateways… The entire technology infrastructure linked to the sale of goods and services is impacted between the start of the second half of November and the first few days of December.
It is through performance testing that we verify the efficiency of applications, whether in terms of speed, stability, or responsiveness. In a scenario where, within a few minutes, a system’s traffic can increase tenfold or even a hundredfold—jumping from a few thousand to several hundred thousand—the operation is only truly protected if the resources—most often cloud computing resources—have been provisioned to handle the load.
In this article, we detail some of the most relevant types of performance tests for the Black Friday period and how they help protect your company’s revenue during this critical time of year.
For years now, Black Friday has established itself as one of the most important dates in the Brazilian retail industry, just as it is in other countries. Although it has already become iconic, for many product and service segments, the volume of traffic, connections, and data transfers during this time of year is similar to that seen during other key periods in the retail calendar, such as Christmas and Mother’s Day. In other words, the tests your applications must undergo are important for other times of the year as well, not just Black Friday.
Speaking specifically about this date, when we compare the data from 2024 and 2025, it’s already possible to get a sense of what the trend will be for this year. Last year, Brazilian e-commerce generated R$500 million more in revenue compared to the previous year, an increase of 11.2%. In addition to revenue, the number of orders also increased: 28% more than in 2024. With the growing digitization of commercial transactions in the country—thanks in part to PIX—we can anticipate another cycle of revenue growth for digital retail.
The success of this payment method is yet another factor that boosts sales during all retail events—and, of course, Black Friday. Last year’s Black Friday saw a record 297.4 million transactions, generating more than R$166 billion.
All of this transaction and sales volume is concentrated in a short period of time. If your site goes down or runs extremely slowly during Black Friday, you’ll miss out on sales and, as a result, drive customers to your competitors.
In addition to financial losses, these types of problems damage the company’s image and undermine its credibility. Many cases of failed purchases during Black Friday can have consequences that last much longer than just one night of downtime.
In the wake of all this activity, the volume of requests to financial apps—whether from banks, fintech companies, or credit card issuers—is also on the rise: people are checking their balances, verifying whether purchases were processed or reversed, and confirming whether the promised cashback has been credited… All of these operations tend to overload apps that haven’t undergone proper performance testing.
So far, we’ve focused on Black Friday, but as we’ve already mentioned in this article, there are other retail events that place heavy demands on systems due to the increase in traffic volume, connections, and data transfers. All the types of performance tests we discuss in the article on this topic—just click here to read it —are important for determining whether applications are ready for the event. However, some of them are even more critical:
In the case of specific retail applications, such as e-commerce systems, it is also essential to monitor the checkout process—the most critical part of the shopping journey. It is at this point that sales losses are most likely to occur due to slow system performance.
We’re just over three months away from Black Friday, which makes this the ideal time to begin a series of performance tests. By starting well in advance, it’s possible to conduct a more comprehensive and detailed assessment, enabling more precise corrections.
Performance testing—particularly for the retail and financial sectors—is one of the areas of expertise of Inmetrics ’ Digital Platforms unit. We provide high-quality, ongoing services to a wide range of clients, specifically to prevent failures during the most critical times of the year.
Get ready for Black Friday—and, why not, for Christmas too! Click here, contact us, and schedule a meeting with our experts to plan performance testing for your applications! Make sure everything is ready so your company suffers minimal losses during these key retail dates!
