The load times of the top 2000 online retailers is down 22 percent in the past year, according to a study released today by web app delivery and security provider Radware.

And the more money you make, the slower you are.

“This is a massive drop in performance,” Radware VP Joshua Bixby said in a statement. “If this slowdown rate goes unchecked, we will see median load times of 9 seconds or more, which is simply unacceptable for online shoppers.”

The median or most common load time for retailers’ home pages was 7.25 seconds, which is up from 5.94 seconds in the previous year’s study. Those slow speed can cost retailers up to 9 percent of their traffic and as much as 13 percent of sales, says Radware. And the top 100 e-tailers’s web pages loaded in an even slower 8.23 seconds.

Why?

Radware says that pages webpages are getting bigger. In December 2012, the average page was over a megabyte — 1163 kB — while in December 2010, the average page was only 665 kB. That’s 75 percent bigger, and at this rate, web pages will be over two megabytes by the end of 2014. Internet access speeds aren’t keepin gup.

In addition, web pages are getting more complex, with dynamic elements, multiple scripts, and resources pulled from multiple servers in multiple locations from multiple vendors. Radware says that the average top retailer site contains seven third-party scripts for services such as analytics, social media, and ad engines. Each of them can slow down a website.

Three simple things can improve performance drastically, says Radware: using a content deliver network (CDN) to deliver pages from geographically-distributed servers, enabling keep-alives to reduce handshake time between browsers and servers, and compressing text to send data quicker. But 75 percent of the top 2000 retailers do not use a CDN, 13 percent don’t use keep-alives, and 22 percent don’t compress webpage resources.

Interestingly, despite getting a bad rep for its big pages, Amazon is a top retailer that is reversing the trend of slower pages. Amazon.com loads in 3.26 seconds, faster than last year and in the top ten retailers for speed.

Top 10 retailers by site speed:

1. CVS.com (1.02 seconds)
2. Polo.com (1.9 seconds)
3. eCrater.com (1.95 seconds)
4. Abebooks.com (2.05 seconds)
5. BHPhotoVideo.com (3.03 seconds)
6. JCrew.com (3.15 seconds)
7. Amazon.com (3.26 seconds)
8. ShopAtHome.com (3.74 seconds)
9. Etsy.com (3.88 seconds)
10. Gamefly.com (3.94 seconds)

And more data, in visual form:

photo credit: ….Tim via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Mick Jagger can’t get no satisfaction, but apparently a lot of 14-year-old boys can. So too, fortunately, can Apple, Amazon, QVC, and NewEgg clients.

While Amazon took top honors in customer experience firm ForeSee’s latest mobile shopping satisfaction index and Apple came in second, the big surprise was Victoria’s Secret. The hot lingerie retailer took a top-five position for the first time. (See the full list of the top 25, below.)

So is lingerie shopping on-the-go the new new thing, I asked ForeSee chief executive Larry Freed?

“Either that or there’s a lot of 14-year-old boys on mobile devices,” he joked. ”Actually, though, we see a lot of people in-store taking pictures and sending them to a friend for an opinion, or checking size and color availability.”

Amazon also leads in online retail satisfaction, and perennially does well. Apple put in a strong showing after sliding in last quarter’s online retail numbers, and home shopping giant QVC, electronics retailer NewEgg, and — of course — Victoria’s Secret rounded out the top five.

The secret of Amazon’s success, it turns out, is fairly simple.

“Both in the web and mobile they do a great job of being focused on the customer,” Freed says. “They offer great selection with competitive — not the best, but competitive — prices.”

There’s a lesson in that for other m-commerce retailers. While overall customer satisfaction with mobile stores is getting better, retailers who want to improve their stores need to focus on four key areas: price, merchandise, functionality, and content. Price needs to be reasonable, sure, but scope of merchandise available is also an opportunity to delight customers, as too many retailers present too few of their product selection on their mobile sites. Functionality and features of your mobile store also matter (more is better, as long as usability is maintained), and accessibility to content about the products is also critically important.

[Editor's Note: Mobile commerce, and how to be more successful at it, is one of the themes of our upcoming Mobile Summit in Sausalio. Find out more here.]

And your mobile site needs to work with and be integrated into all your other channels.

“A lot of times customers are starting on the web,” Freed says. “But sometimes it’s the store. It’s worth remembering that today’s consumer is not only multi-channel but also multi-device … moving from a work computer to a home PC to a mobile phone to a tablet … and consumers expect that to be seamless.”

That’s a tough job for retailers, particularly for non-logged-in users. But as fast as mobile commerce is growing — and it does have significant amounts of growing to do — the expectations are rising even quicker, Freed says.

And what about every bricks-and-mortar retail’s favorite bugaboo, showrooming?

“It’s a glass half full, glass half empty syndrome,” says Freed. “Consumers are using a phone to get more information more often while in a store. But the challenge is to embrace showrooming … to offer a great experience in-store and a great experience on mobile so that they can negate the risk and maybe even turn showrooming into a positive.”

The top mobile retailers by customer experience, according to ForeSee:

photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Retailers are quickly realizing the importance of creating a robust and personal mobile shopping experience for their customers. When implementing a strategic mobile strategy, the first question retailers consider is this: mobile-optimized website, rich downloadable app or both?

While the deployment of a mobile-optimized website designed to reach the broadest audience is necessary in any successful mobile strategy, the most strategic move is to include a rich app for the iPhone/iPod Touch, Android or BlackBerry. It’s the app that allows the retailer to create a meaningful, personal relationship with their most loyal customers, which drives more frequent interaction and higher average transaction values.

Retailers should start with a mobile-optimized website

By offering a unique and elegant mobile shopping experience across all smartphone device platforms, the retailer can create a positive shopping experience for the widest range of customers. The retailer’s mobile site should not be a cut-and-paste of the ecommerce site. Retailers who create a unique experience for mobile, designed specifically for mobile use, can substantially improve sales and customer acquisition.

Brooks Brothers recently launched a website designed to deliver a rich mobile shopping experience when customers visit www.BrooksBrothers.com on their smartphones. The site enables customers to search, browse and buy Brooks Brothers products from anywhere at any time through the use of key features like large, rich product photographs, complete product descriptions, shop by category for men, women, boys and girls, a store locator, email signup, order tracking, complete site search, ratings and reviews, promotional offers, share to Facebook, and email a friend.

Rich apps are the future loyalty card

Rich apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch, BlackBerry and Android are a critical component to a mobile platform as these apps empower retailers to build a closer, more personal relationship with their loyal customers and drive incremental revenue. Retailers should review which mobile device types are already visiting their site to determine which app(s) is most appropriate for their customer base.

Many top retail brands have already adopted branded mobile rich apps, including Toys “R” US, Golfsmith, 1800Flowers, and UGG. Toys “R” Us has implemented a groundbreaking consumer experience through an iPhone/iPod Touch app to bring to life all the requirements that drive awareness, engagement and sales. In addition to the key elements featured on the mobile optimized website, the rich app successfully aggregates many new advancements only available by using the native capabilities of the device, including push notifications, QR code and barcode product scanning, and GPS store locator.

Through these mobile engagements, customers will build a greater affinity to the retailer as they drive more time-sensitive and location-sensitive value, thus building greater loyalty to the retailer’s brand.

Rich apps enhance the in-store mobile experience

Through the deployment of a rich app, retailers engage with customers in the retail store itself. Features specific to apps are already transforming the app into the retailers’ new store loyalty card. Through their own branded rich app, retailers can enhance the in-store experience, drive sales and measure the efficacy of their in-store operation with store locators, store check-ins, use of scanner in-store and store exits.

Whole Foods Market, who has one of the best in-store experiences for consumers, has already started thinking about innovative ways to engage with mobile consumers while in the store through the use of their own branded rich app.

“To date, most consumers’ experiences with mobile relate to e-commerce transactions,” according to Mike Clifford, Chief Information Officer for Whole Foods Market. “However, delighting customers while they are in our stores is critical to Whole Foods Market’s success, and smartphone applications are enabling entirely new opportunities to take this to higher levels.”

Takeaway
It is through the mobile web that consumers will initially interact with a retailer from a mobile device. Mobile web allows customers to benefit from a fast, easy-to-use interface for browsing, searching and buying while on the go. The retailer can then engage and transform the customer from occasional visitor to loyal customer by having them download the app for faster, more frequent and higher value experiences whether they’re in the store or on the move. In doing so, the retailer can drive incremental sales, increase customer loyalty and learn more about consumers’
buying behavior to serve them better in the future.

Dan Lowden is the vice president of marketing at the mobile commerce company Digby.

The company, which can be best described as China’s equivalent of the online retailer Zappos, says it will use the funding to increase its stockpile portfolio and product range. An increased range of products is necessary since variety directly affects the profitability of e-commerce companies, according to the company’s founder Lu Ming. He also notes that OkBuy.com has an experienced buying team. The funding will go towards team formation and warehouse construction as well.

OkBuy.com has already built large storerooms in Beijing and Guanghzhou, and it also plans to set up more in northeast and east China to have five major storage locations by the end of the year.

Sequoia Capital raised $1 billion for two new private equity funds in China earlier this year, and it previously invested $35 million in Zappos before it was purchased by Amazon. (Zappos founder Tony Hsieh said earlier this year that Sequoia pressure directly led to the Amazon purchase.) With OkBuy.com, Sequoia certainly seems to be hoping for repeat success in two major online markets.

The site was founded in 2007, and landed $10 million from Sequoia Capital in its first round of funding.

[via TMCNet]