Finish Line deploys Web app experience management for the holidays

LEXINGTON, Mass. — The Finish Line Inc., one of the largest mall-based specialty retailers, today announced that it has selected Gomez Inc. to provide Web application experience management services for its Web sites. These services will ensure its online customers receive the best possible Web experiences, especially during the busy holiday season.

Finish Line sells sport inspired footwear, apparel and accessories via www.finishline.com and multicultural street wear via www.manalive.com. The company is anticipating that its Web traffic volumes will peak during the holiday season, with up to 150,000 unique visitors per day on its www.finishline.com site alone.

"We want our customers to have the best possible online shopping experience, especially during the crucial holiday season," says Roger Underwood, Finish Line's senior vice president, information systems. "To maximize potential revenue and our brand exposure online, we must be proactive about ensuring the quality of our Web experiences from development through deployment."

Finish Line will test Web applications in development using Gomez's self-service Reality Load XF external load testing service and its Reality View XF cross-browser visual testing service. Reality Load XF helps organizations preview how peak traffic impacts the end-user experience. It does this by combining high-volume application load testing with broad geographic experience testing, using Gomez's global network of 40,000 "last mile" measurement points. Reality View XF enables the Finish Line to view its Web sites across more than 500 combinations of browsers, platforms, operating systems and screen resolutions, providing visibility to situations where their Web sites would not display well or at all. The retailer will then be able to diagnose Web application experience issues before they affect the customer experience.

In production, Finish Line will use Gomez's Active Network XF and Active Last Mile XF monitoring services to measure the speed, availability and consistency of its websites from the customer point of view. These services test Web performance from more than 150 Internet backbone nodes and 40,000 last mile measurement points around the world.

Finish Line will use Gomez's services to establish trending models from which to baseline and benchmark the quality of their Web experience delivery.