It’s 2 a.m. Do you know if your web site’s up?

Now that more and more consumers are comfortable with buying online, and e-retailers are maturing with merchandising and fulfillment strategies, one of the biggest remaining worries is if a web site is up and running 24/7. But many e-retailers still rely on delayed response from disgruntled customers to learn that a site, or parts of it, is not operating properly. "More often than not, consumers call in to report that a web site is not working before the retailer is aware of it," says Tom Ohlsson, vice president of marketing for Xaffire Inc..

Guide to E-Commerce Technology

And as is often the case, he adds, a customer notifies customer service, where a rep’s first response is to satisfy the caller’s need to complete a purchase. "The rep’s last task is to forward the site failure information to the IT department," Ohlsson says.

Xaffire, a company that provides software for monitoring web site transactions, is providing browser-based access to retail managers and IT managers to let them see in real time incidences of blocked transactions and whether the problem is tied to a network server, a database server or at the application level, Ohlsson says. The system also provides alerts directly a manager`s device of choice, including cell phones or PDAs. The system ranges in cost from $15,000 to $25,000 for a one-time license, plus about $5,000 or more a year in per-transaction fees.

The system is designed to constantly test a web site’s ability to complete transactions. "We run synthetic transactions against a site to get early warnings of when problems occur," Ohlsson says.