Short Attention Span for Online Shoppers

How long before your customers get fed up of waiting for your website to load and move on? Four seconds according to a report from Akamai Technologies.

by Helen Leggatt

The report, commissioned through JupiterResearch, examines consumer reaction to a poor online shopping experience.

Of the 1,058 online shoppers surveyed 75% said they would not return to a website if it took more than 4 seconds to load. Only high prices and shipping costs ranked higher in their concerns.

Around 30% of responders formed a “negative perception” of a company with a badly performing website and a third would abandon a site if they were difficult to navigate or had a lengthy checkout process.

"The critical takeaway from this research is that online shoppers not only demand quality site performance, they expect it," said Brad Rinklin, Vice President of Marketing at Akamai. "Four seconds is the new benchmark by which a retail site will be judged, which leaves little room for error for retailers to maintain a loyal online customer base. Site performance becomes even more critical as retailers add more dynamic content and applications to their site."

The report, performed in the first six months of the year, can be downloaded, free of charge, from the Akamai website.