BJ’s Deploys Software to Load Test and Monitor its eCommerce Website

Membership warehouse club retailer BJ’s Wholesale Club is deploying new software to optimize the performance of its website and its ability to handle traffic.

The retailer is working with San Mateo, Calif.-based Keynote Systems on the project. For the first part, it ran peak load tests (using Keynote LoadPro) to ensure that all components of BJ’s site were fully prepared to handle expected usage before the site went live. Now that the site is operational, ongoing monitoring services from Keynote inform BJ’s whether the site is available and performing optimally to deliver superior experience to its members. This allows BJ’s to respond immediately to issues before they impact customers.

“We take performance and user experience very seriously,” explained Shamim Mohammad, VP of information technology at BJ’s. “Although we do considerable testing within our environment, we needed to validate that end users are seeing good performance and availability. Keynote services show us how our site is responding from an end user perspective from all parts of the country so we can uncover any issues and fix them before they impact our customers.”

BJ’s began using Keynote when it transferred its website to a new platform. Based on its experience with other large retailers, Keynote designed load tests that optimally modeled user behavior based on typical online retail customer usage patterns. These tests allowed BJ’s to see how well their new site would be able to handle real world customer demand. With this information, BJ’s was able to address potential issues before the site went live.

Now that the site is successfully serving members, Keynote monitors the site on an ongoing basis for performance and availability. BJ’s uses Keynote Transaction Perspective to run test scripts from five locations around the United States every 15 minutes. The scripts run through the entire check-out process from an end user perspective. If the tests reveal any performance or availability issues, Keynote proactively notifies BJ’s of the issue and whether it impacts members.

Keynote also provides performance and availability trending on a monthly basis and offers recommendations for optimizing the site. “This testing has helped us improve site availability and performance,” said Mohammad. “The flexibility and partnership Keynote provided helped us ensure that we were successful in launching our site on time. Their consultants have been very good in terms of knowledge, skills and competency. They have given us a level of insight and visibility into different parts of our site that we can’t get from any other source.”

Westborough, Mass.-based BJ's Wholesale Club operates 190 clubs and 103 gas stations in 15 eastern states.