key findings: ecommerce page speed & web performance - state of the union (fall 2013)

Key Findings:

Ecommerce Page Speed & Web Performance

State of the Union – Fall 2013

Web speed has become a mainstream issue. But what impact, if any, has this had on the websites that many of us use every day?

Slide 2

Why Retailers Need to Care About Speed

Slide 3

In one study, a 1-second page delay led to…

3.5

%

conversion rate decrease

9.4

%

page view decrease

2.1

%

cart size decrease

8.3

%

bounce rate increase

Strangeloop Networks, Case Study: The impact of HTML delay on mobile business metrics, November 2011

Why Retailers Need to Care About Speed

Walmart.com found that…

For every 1 second of load time improvement,

the site experienced up to a 2% increase in conversions.

For every 100 milliseconds of improvement,

incremental revenues grew by up to 1%.

Slide 4

Real User Monitoring at Walmart.com, February 2012

How Fast Are Top Retail Sites

for Real Users?

Test Methodology

We tested the home pages of the top 500 ecommerce sites, as ranked by Alexa.com, over Internet Explorer 10, Firefox 22, and Chrome 29*:

• Load time

• Time to interact (TTI) – When primary content loads in the browser and becomes interactive

• Size (KB)

• Number of page resources

• Adoption of core performance best practices (e.g. use a CDN, enable keep-alives, compress resources, progressive image rendering)

*Except where otherwise noted, results discussed in the following slides are for Chrome 29.

Slide 6

Key Findings

1. The trend toward bigger, slower pages continues.

2. The median page takes 5.3 seconds to become interactive.

3. Three common design best practices are failing users.

4. Adoption of performance best practices is inconsistent.

5. Browser vendors are not keeping pace with page demands.

Slide 7

Who Was Fastest?

Slide 8

Note that load time is not always the most meaningful

measure of a site’s performance.

Finding #1: Pages Are Bigger and Slower

The median page took 8.56 seconds

to load for first-time visitors –

a 14% slowdown over the median

recorded three months ago.

Slide 9

The median page was 1258 KB

and contained 92 resources

(images, JavaScript, etc.).

Finding #2: Median TTI Is 5.3 Seconds

Slide 10

Finding #3: Design Best Practices Are Failing Users

When combined with performance delays, three common

design best practices negatively affect the user experience:

1. Feature banner loads last

2. Feature banner loads last… with call-to-action button at the bottom

3. Feature banner loads last… with no call-to-action

Slide 11

Finding #4: Performance Best Practices Are Inconsistent

Among the top 100 sites, adoption of some best practices is nearing saturation,

while others remain neglected.

Slide 12

Finding #5: Browser Vendors Are Not Keeping Pace

Across major browsers, performance is trending downward

as vendors struggle to keep pace with the demands

of today’s large, complex, dynamic web pages.

Slide 13

Takeaways

1. Performance is still a critical issue for leading ecommerce sites.

2. Site owners are relying on CDNs and ADCs to shoulder the

performance optimization burden.

3. There are significant untapped opportunities to make

acceleration gains.

4. Site owners need to study the performance of their pages

in real-world scenarios.

Slide 14

There are 12 things site owners can do to cure

performance pains.

Download our free report to learn more.

http://www.radware.com/stateoftheunion-fall2013