£8.5 billion down the drain: the real cost of slow websites to uk retail

£8.5 billion down the drain:the real cost of slow websites to UK retail

eCommerce report Q4 2013

Contents

2

1.Introduction

2.Why is site speed important?

3.Our research

4.Our analysis

5.The results

6.What can you do?

7.About Summit

3http://www.summit.co.uk/slow-ecommerce-website-speed-costs-sales/

Slow websites will cost UK online retailers £8.5 billion* in 2013

–Summit, specialist in online retailing, conducted an in-depth study into the impact of website speed.

230 UK retailers were tested. 92% failed.

–Summit believe that site speed has for too long been designated as a technical issue but the reality is it has a major impact on revenue as well as brand reputation.

–With 30% or more of traffic coming from mobile devices it’s never been more important to ensure your ecommerce site is fast.

Download the full report

* See final slide

http://www.summit.co.uk/slow-ecommerce-website-speed-costs-sales/




A one second delay in page response can result in:

Why is site speed important?

4

Slow page loading can cause:‒ 75% of online consumers

to leave and visit a competitor’s site

Of these:‒ 88% are less likely to return

to the site

Of these:‒ 33% will tell others about

their unsatisfactory experience

(The Gomez Report)




Our research

Top 230 UK retail websitesHome|Search|Category|Product

Tuesday

Peak Off peak Peak Off peakPeak

Saturday Monday

Off Peak

We tested four pages (home, search, category and product) on each of the 230 UK retail websites using our proprietary site speed testing tool eCommerce Performance Checker. The tests were run during peak and off-peak times, on three different days in one week.

Peak PeakOff PeakPeak Off peak

Saturday Monday

Peak PeakOff Peak

Top 230 UK retail websitesHome|Search|Category|Product

Tuesday

Off peakPeak Off peak

Saturday Monday

Peak PeakOff Peak



http://www.summit.co.uk/performance-checker/



Our analysis

Results were categorised using a traffic light system:

We looked at the average results for:

Different page types• Home• Search• Category• Product

Different times of day• Off-peak• Peak• Saturday, Monday and

Tuesday

Different industry sectors




The results

Average site speed across all retailers was 4.71 seconds during peak, 4.10 seconds off-peak, and 4.5 seconds overall.




The results

The average site speeds for each page type were all over the 3-second benchmark, but the product page was particularly slow to load.

Average load times:

Home: 4.11

Search: 4.80

Category: 4.25

Product: 5.20




The results

More detailed results can be found in the full report, including:

‒ Average site speed per sector

‒ Average results for peak and off-peak

‒ Average speed per page per sector

‒ The winners – the 8% of retailers who were faster than the benchmark





Why do pages load slowly?

Site speed can be impacted by:

Front-end design/build

‒ Multimedia such as Flash or video‒ Images that are not optimised i.e. reduced in size for the web‒ Dynamic scripts that are server-intensive‒ Web pages that aren’t compressed ‒ Bulky code – this can occur when different developers have worked on a site

or various new features have been added over time‒ 3rd party scripts and APIs

Hosting

‒ A shopper’s proximity to your hosting infrastructure can impact on response times

‒ Shared web servers where another eCommerce website’s traffic can impact server capacity




What can you do?

–Make site speed a priority amongst your other projects.

–Use our free eCommerce Performance Checker tool to check the current speed of your site.

–Involve designers, UX, marketing and front-end developers in order to find the right balance between brand, design, user experience and performance.

–Visit the Summit website to download the full report and see our blog for tips and tricks to speed up your site.





http://www.summit.co.uk/blog/website-speed-is-money/


Summit is the UK’s specialist in online retailing. For 13 years we’ve worked for some of Europe’s most successful retailers and brands helping them use the internet to attract more customers and make more money. Last year we delivered over £300 million of sales online for our clients.

summit.co.uk

If you would like to know more about how Summit can help you make more money online call Paul Green on 0203 428 5304 or email [email protected]

twitter.com/summitmedia linkedin.com/company/summit-media

youtube.com/user/summituk

For media enquiries please contact Renee Joyce on 0203 428 5309 or email

[email protected]



http://www.summit.co.uk/


ResourcesAberdeen Research Group:http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeenlibrary/5136/RA-performance-web-application.aspx

Brand Perfect:http://brandperfect.org/online-retail-research-report-november-2012.pdf

IMRG/Capgemini Retail Index:http://www.imrg.org/index.php?catalog=302

The Gomez report:http://www.gomez.com/pdfs/wp_why_web_performance_matters.pdf

Google:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html

Strangeloop Networks:http://www.strangeloopnetworks.com/assets/PDF/downloads/SO-Datasheet.pdf

* Average site speed was 4.5 seconds, total industry revenues are assumed at £87bn (IMRG Jan 2013), AOV £77 and conversion rate at 4.5% (IMRG / Capgemini Retail Index Aug 2013). 1 second over the 3-second benchmark leads to a 7% loss of conversion (Aberdeen Research Group). The additional 1.5 seconds leads to a 9.83% impact on conversions, meaning the potential conversion rate if site speeds are 3 seconds would be 4.94%. Assuming orders of 1,240,886,084 in 2013 the potential revenue would be £95.5bn against the projected £87bn



£8.5 billion down the drain: the real cost of slow websites to uk retail

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