Online retailers geared up to handle Black Friday frenzy

Will the glitch steal Christmas for online shoppers this Black Friday?

No, say the retailers, who claim they are ready to fend off system overloads and crashes when thousands of shoppers look for bargains on November 24.

Last year shoppers using Takealot.com ran into problems in the checkout process. This year the company said it had prepared for five times the average payday traffic.

"Our checkout process ran into problems on last year's Black Friday because the banks' payment gateway fell over from the surge of online shoppers. The combination of all the retailers running Black Friday sales meant they simply couldn't handle the volume of transactions - but we've done everything we can to mitigate these challenges this year," said Takealot.com chief marketing officer Julie-Anne Walsh.

Spree's Black Friday traffic and order volumes have grown by 100% a year in the past four years. Last year it was one of the few e-commerce sites that did not fall over under the visitor load. The fashion retailer's main concern is the banks' ability to process the onslaught of credit card payments.

South Africa's only digital credit product for online shopping, Mobicred, said its system was built to cater for increased traffic.

"We're comfortable with the expected volumes."