Etail download speeds sluggish on Mega Monday, says research
Dec 03, 2009
Figures released today by web site monitoring and load testing specialist, Site Confidence, an NCC Group plc company, revealed that consumers faced slow web site download speeds on Mega Monday – the UK’s busiest online shopping day.
Site Confidence, which tested a large sample of the UK’s top etailers, noted an average download speed of 11 seconds on Monday, significantly higher than the sub-eight second target of most major retail web sites. The worst performing site surveyed saw an average download time of 22.52 seconds – double the sample average and nearly three times the acceptable threshold.
Consumers spent over £300 million on gifts with Visa Europe on Monday – an increase of 25 per cent on last year – with many hoping to ensure that presents arrive in good time for Christmas. Visa cited lunchtime as the key gift-buying time, while Site Confidence saw significant peaks in traffic between 6.00pm and 8.00pm.
Earlier this month, Site Confidence reported that etailers commonly fail to prepare for the November Christmas shopping rush, despite it being the highest month for time spent on retail web sites over the festive period. The results showed that the average download time for retail web sites in November 2008 was greater than figures for both December and January.
However, it was not all bad news for etailers. Despite having high download speeds, web sites surveyed by the performance and load-testing specialist on Monday enjoyed 100 per cent uptime.
Bob Dowson, director at Site Confidence, said: “Competition at Christmas is fierce in the etail space, and companies know that their web sites are essential in gaining competitive advantage. Mega Monday is a major focal point for the industry, yet many are failing to prime their sites ahead of this critical shopping day, despite forewarning.
“Retail website functionality issues affect a company’s revenue and reputation, and send its customers into the open arms of competitors which are only a click away. Rigorous load testing ahead of November can help to ensure online retailers have the necessary capacity to cope with predicted periods of increased traffic in this important month, while website monitoring can ensure that user experience remains unaffected by poor performance.”
