State of Web Readiness Report 2013

7/28/2019 State of Web Readiness Report 2013

1/16

1June 2013

State of webreadineSS:e-commerce

E-commerce sites are some o the worst per orming as a category. Even thoughavailability and per ormance directly

impact their bottom line.


2/16


3/16

3

The resulTs of This, ur sec n rep rt n the state web rea iness, surprise us.We analyze the ata r m ver 5,000 per rmance tests an m re than 500

user surveys an c nclu e that, n average, e-c mmerce sites per rm well bel wexpectati ns; an ten with pr un per rmance issues. The reas n r ur sur-prise is that, base n usage patterns n l a impact.c m, e-c mmerce sites spensubstantially m re n per rmance testing than ther categ ries. Per rmance, itw ul seem is very imp rtant t them, an with g reas n; a number stu ieshave sh wn the irect c rrelati n between increase latency an ecrease cust -mer c nversi n.

The ata als reveale that e-c mmerce sites are sl wer than ther website cate-g ries. The average time it t k t l a a page n an e-c mmerce site was alm st 8sec n s while ther sites exhibite page l a times s mewhere between 4 an 5.5sec n s. The average r all sites, inclu ing e-c mmerce, was 5.6 sec n s.

Acc r ing t survey participants, e-c mmerce sites m re ten l se m ney anvisit rs ue t per rmance r stability pr blems than ther site categ ries. 40% e-c mmerce resp n ents rep rte l sing m ney in the last year ue t per rman-ce/stability issues. This c mpare t 25% sites in ther categ ries. Clearly there isa nee r change.

G per rmance is crucial t e-c mmerce, as the c rrelati n between per r-mance an increase sales is well un erst . Perhaps even m re imp rtant is theimpact p r per rmance n the bran a site. S why is it that espite all this,e-c mmerce sites seem t be ing w rse than thers? We believe its a c mbina-

ti n several act rs:

e-retailerS inveSt the

moSt in web performancebut have SloweSt SiteS


4/16

4

Rapi gr wth in e-c mmerce tra c means that reality utstrips pr jecti ns;an the sites have n reliable means tracking this.

E-c mmerce requires m re c mplex, ynamic, user generate c ntent anlatency in ucing back-en calls - than ther types websites.

E-c mmerce websites may simply have a higher awareness these issuessince per rmance ailures irectly impact sales statistics.

C nclusi n: E-retailers are m re sensitive t an invest m re in per rmance thanther gr ups. Yet e-c mmerce websites are, as a categ ry, the sl west an even they

rate their wn per rmance as ina equate. W rst all, it is m re c mm n re-c mmerce sites t rep rt l sing m ney ue t per rmance than it is r n ne-c mmerce sites.

The Load Impact TeamJune 2013


5/16

5

brief Sixty-eight percent all survey resp n ents experience performance or

stability problems with their website last year. Lack res urces was the mainreas n r these pr blems, b th am ng e-c mmerce sites an ther websites.

Thirty-nine percent e-retailers claime they l st m ney last year ue tper rmance r stability pr blems. In c mparis n, nly 24 percent the n ne-retailer resp n ents claime they l st m ney.

Sixty percent verestimate their sites capacity t han le tra c acc r ingt their l a testing results. This level verc nf ence was similar acr ss allwebsite categ ries.

Ninety-eight percent e-retailers th ught sub tw -sec n resp nse time wasesirable. H wever, l a time r e-c mmerce sites analyze excee e this re-

sp nse thresh l by a wi e margin. The average was 7.9 sec n s - higher thanr n n e-c mmerce sites.

Low latency , while imp rtant r all websites is crucial for e-retailers . Als

e-c mmerce sites are m re likely t pr actively analyze an pre ict resp nsetimes.

Even th ugh it is c mm n t epl y m bile versi ns sites it is uncommon toload test of mobile versions sites.

METHodoLoGY

Base n analysis L a Impact test ata r m ver 5,400 in epen enttests in 118 c untries.

Base n 538 user survey resp nses. Tests an survey c n ucte September oct ber 2012.


6/16

6

failure to perform:poor performance and itS effect on revenue

68 %

Yes

No

32 %

Sixty-eight percent o all respondents claimed to have experienced per ormance or stability problems withtheir sites in the last year. The response o e-retailers was not signi cantly di erent rom non e-retailers.

Sixty seven percent o e-retailers responded that they had problems during the last year.

Q: Have you experienced any per ormance or stability problems on your site in the last year?


7/16

7

The most common reason or per ormance problems were lack o resources, and unexpected events.

0 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

OtherProblemwith

a cloudservice

Unexpectedevents

BugsLack ofinformation

on theexpectednumber

of visitors

Lack ofinformationabout the

sitescapacity

Lack ofresources

46 %

27 %26 %

35 %37 %

16 %

6 %

Site ownerS all categorieS

Q: What are the major reasons behind per ormance problems on your website?


8/16

8

Lack o resources was less common among e-commerce sites as compared to other categories. However itremained the most common reason or per ormance problems, with bugs coming in a close second.

0 %

5 %

10 %

15 %

20 %

25 %

30 %

35 %

40 %

OtherProblemwith acloud

service

Unexpectedevents

BugsLack ofinformation

on theexpectednumber

of visitors

Lack ofinformationabout the

sitescapacity

Lack ofresources

40 %

26 %

29 %

39 %

29 %

13 %

7 %

Site ownerS e-commerce

Q: What are the major reasons behind per ormance problems on your website?


9/16

9

E-commerce sites say they lose revenue due to per ormance or stability problems ar more o ten thanother sites. Thirty-nine percent o e-commerce site owners claimed they lost money in the last year.

In comparison, only 24 percent o the other respondents claimed to have lost money.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Don't knowDidnt losemoney or customers

Lost moneyor visitors

53 %

15 %

28 %

33 %

25 %

E-commerce

Other

48 %

Q: Have you lost money or visitors due to poor per ormance or stability on your siteduring the last year?


10/16

10

When analyzing the l a tests in the survey we i entife a tren we came t callthe verc nf ence act r. The verc nf ence act r escribes sites that makeinc rrect assumpti ns regar ing their capacity. It is pr uce by l king at h wmany c ncurrent users a l a test was c nfgure t simulate, an c mparingthat t the l a level at which page l a time ha increase by 100 %.

falSe confidenceovereStimating capacity iS prevalent

58 percent o owners had overcon dence in their sites capacity. The overcon dence was airly eventhroughout the eld, but media sites stood out as being slightly more realistic about their site capacity - only 50 % o media sites overestimated their capacity.

0 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

0 %

50 %

60 %

70 %

80 %

TotalOtherOnlineservice

MediaE-commerceCorporate,product

and interest

Campaignand event

56 %

61 % 62 %

50 %

61 %58 % 58 %

How many have overcon dence in thecapacity o their site to handle trafc?


11/16

11

reSponSe time

Analysis o results rom 5,240 load tests show that average initial (i.e. with no simulated trafc on the site)page load time or e-commerce sites is 7.5 seconds much higher than other websites. This contrasts withthe e-retailer sentiment that acceptable response times are 2 seconds or less.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

OtherOnlineservice

MediaE-commerceCorporate,product

and interest

Campaignand event

4.8 4.8

7.5

4.8

4.2 4.3 S e c o n

d s

User load time on average by category


12/16

12

Pro essed tolerance or load times seems to correlate with industry latency /conversion data which showsa dramatic all o in conversion a ter 1 sec page load times

0 %

5 %

10 %

15 %

20 %

25 %

30 %

35 %

Over 4 sec2 4 sec1 2 sec0.5 1 sec0.25 0.5 secUnder0.25 sec

8 %

4,3

17 %

22 %

31 %

21 %

2 %

R e s p o n s e p e r c e n

t

Q: Whats an acceptable load time onan e-commerce site?


13/16

13

0 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

Very importantImportantLess importantNot important

1 %

4,2

0 %

6 %3 %

42 %

37 %

52 %

59 %

R e s p o n s e p e r c e n

t

E-commerce

Other

Q: How important is a short response time?

Short response times are important to everyone, but especially so or e-retailers.


14/16


15/16

15

d wnl a this an uture rep rts atloadimpact.com/readiness

Even though it is common to deploy mobile versions o sites it is uncommon to load test these. However, the

e-commerce site owners tend to test more o ten (17 % ) when compared to other site owners (13 %).

going mobile

Q: Do you per orm load tests on the mobileversion o your site?

0 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

We don't havea mobile version

Don't knowNoYes

17 %

E-commerce

Other

13 %

50 %

55 %

4 %2 %

29 % 30 %


16/16

E-commerce

Other

50 %

55 %

about load impact

L a Impact is the w rl s largest cl u -base ,n- eman l a testing t l, with m re than

800,000 l a tests execute since the servicewas launche in 2009 . L a Impact has earnethe trust ver 50,000 users wh c ntinu uslyuse the service t ensure the quality their

nline presence. This all ws each rganizati n tall cate the appr priate am unt in rastructureres urces, an t sp t p tential per rmancepr blems be re they bec me an issue, pr vi ingan accurate, scalable an pr actively ptimize

service r the en user.L a test y ur site at loadimpact.com

Documents

State of Web Readiness Report 2013