Study shows slowdown in response time of global retail homepages

Over the past year, the global average homepage response time has risen as retailers stuff them with more images and third-party plug-ins.

by Helen Leggatt

According to digital performance software firm Dynatrace, the global average retail homepage response time has risen 7% in the past year to 4.5 seconds. The results come after a year of tracking the response times of more than 300 retail websites in the US, UK, Australia, China, Germany, Spain and the Nordics.

The reason for the slow-down, says Dynatrace, is the increase in images and objects, as well as third-party plug-ins to social media sites.

With consumers expecting websites to load in 3 seconds or less, it's important for retailers to stop site abandonment by minimizing homepage load time. As it is, Australia was found to be the worst response time with an 8.2 second wait, while Spain had the fastest at 3.3 seconds. Response time in the UK rose from an impressive 2.9 seconds in 2015 to 3.9% in the past year.

"Every digital moment and every touch point is vital to retailer businesses if they are to succeed. While lags in performance are concerning, they also present a big opportunity to measure response times more closely and link it back to revenue," says Dave Anderson, VP marketing EMEA and Asia Pacific, at Dynatrace. "Take a leaf out of Nordstrom's book - it has measured that a mere 0.5 second slow-down in site load time equates to an 11% reduction in site conversion. This is precisely where retailers need to focus internal conversations: looking at site performance and how it impacts revenue. Otherwise, they're choosing to leave money on the table."