This year's Black Friday increased the number of API calls (Application Programming Interfaces) by 22%, in literal translation) that went through the Sensedia platform, compared to the same period last year.According to data from the global company specialized in APIs, there were more than 21 billion requests in November among its e-commerce and payment method clients. The uptime, this is, available environment time, it was 100%
Despite the increase in the volume of transactions recorded in 2024, the peak of requests shows that the profile of Black Friday in Brazil has been changing significantly year after year, in the analysis conducted since 2017 by Sensedia
"Through the requests that go through our systems", we noticed that if before the customer traffic operating on Black Friday was much more concentrated from Thursday to Friday, today it is much more spread out over the entire month, with an intensification in the week of the date, explain José Vahl, Head of Operations at Sensedia
APIs are the engines responsible for making digital scenarios run, uniting various industries, from the world of e-commerce to the financial and payment markets, like PIX. We noticed that despite the return of shopping in physical stores, online research and shopping continue to grow, what generates an increase in API calls from companies. That's why, it is vital to properly prepare these environments to support the volume, complements the executive
Lessons from Black Friday
For being one of the most important dates for retail, both in terms of volume and average purchase ticket, each year Black Friday presents companies with new challenges and opportunities
In addition to ensuring a robust infrastructure, Vahl emphasizes the importance of structuring dedicated teams to monitor the increase in demand and respond quickly to any unforeseen events. A widely recommended practice is the creation of so-called "war rooms", in the literal translation, also known as "situation rooms". In these environments, professionals from the e-commerce company and technology suppliers work side by side, ensuring agility in the identification and resolution of problems, so that the customer experience is not compromised
"In terms of systems", something essential for companies that plan to boost their business during peak online shopping periods, like Black Friday, is to keep your systems stable and scalable so that there are no incidents in the operation, explain Philippi Pereira, Head of Customer Support at Sensedia
Still according to Philippi, in addition to preparing the infrastructure to ensure extra computing capacity, another good practice is to perform load simulations, through tests involving all suppliers involved in the operation to identify bottlenecks and optimize the performance of the APIs
"During the seasonal period", it is also recommended to make a good plan so that changes or system updates are approved and implemented only in very necessary cases. Thus, companies can maintain a more controlled environment, what can – and must – to be constantly monitored through dashboards created to track the most critical elements of the infrastructure and the most important APIs at that moment for the business, concludes
