While Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fanatics declined to give WSJ exact figures on sales and customer traffic, the company said within seven minutes of the Cubs making the final out against the Cleveland Indians in game seven, user activity on its website spiked by a factor of six. After the first hour, the company reported 40 percent more concurrent users on its site than ever witnessed before.
The surge in orders gave Fanatics the perfect opportunity to practice handling the expected holiday rush. The company’s fourth quarter sales typically account for more than half of its annual business thanks to seasonal demand increases. This year, Fanatics plans to process more than 10 million items between Black Friday and Christmas, according to the report.
“It was the best real life load test we could ask for,” said Matt Madrigal, chief technology officer of Fanatics.
Mr. Madrigal and his team started preparing for the surge in orders days before the Cubs won, planning out how they would handle the hours directly after the game, according to the report.
The company staffed a “war room” with 30 developers, engineers and other staff members to monitor the website throughout the World Series.
“We do this all the time for our big events, but we knew this was going to be the biggest one,” Mr. Madrigal told WSJ. “We overprepared.”
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