The UK’s top e-tailers suffered costly periods of downtime and poor download speeds during the first quarter of 2011, according to a new study.
The Site Confidence Quarterly Online Retail Report found that the UK’s top 50 online retailers had an average of two hours and 44 minutes of downtime, causing missed revenues and damage to retailers’ reputations.
The Site Confidence report analysed website performance from leading online retailers from 1st January and 31st March. With many leading e-tailers using this period to launch website updates, the research highlights the importance of year-long maintenance of website performance. In contrast, the average outage for e-tailers was only 35 minutes during the busy festive period.
The report also analysed download speeds for the websites of the UK’s top e-tailers. Average download speeds were found to be just under 12 seconds, significantly slower than the e-tailers’ 6 second target, and 2 seconds slower than the 10 second average recorded over Christmas.
Bob Dowson, director at Site Confidence, part of NCC Group, said: “During periods of peak traffic, website performance is often given much more attention, and this is reflected in positive results from the winter period. However, evidence from our monitoring in the first quarter of 2011 suggests this focus is not maintained throughout the year. This approach to website maintenance can be dangerous for online businesses, as consumers will often switch to rival websites if they are unsatisfied with the service.”
Statistics show consumers wait an average of only four seconds before leaving a site, and poor website performance can cause substantial damage to both finances and reputation.
Bob Dowson continued: “It is essential for companies to ensure effective, year-long strategies are in place for maintaining website performance, as even at times of relatively low traffic volumes, these are necessary to avoid problems. This strategy should allow for changes to the system, and be flexible enough to maintain performance when these updates are being made.
“Rigorous load testing should be carried out before the launch of new sections of a website, and repeated throughout the year to ensure the website has capacity to cope with high traffic volume. Extensive monitoring must also be sustained 24 hours a day, to ensure problems are dealt with before they can develop into costly outages.”
Performance data (top 50 UK e-tailers)
01/01/2011 – 31/03/2011
Average downtime: 2 hours 44 minutes
Average speed: 11.82 seconds
25/12/2010 – 12/01/2011
Site Confidence found that outages over the festive season and January sales period were kept to a minimum, with average downtime between 25th December and 12th January stable at around 35 minutes, and download times recorded at an average of just over 10 seconds.
www.siteconfidence.com/