Big Ecommerce Sites Losing Out To Smaller Rivals As Load Times and Downtimes Rise

Online retailers are struggling to cope with the demands of rapidly growing site traffic and an increasingly sophisticated consumer.

According to NCC Group, the average load time on sites run by the top 50 UK web retailers hit 7.3 seconds as traffic volumes increased over the busy festive period. It compared with a 3 second target that most ecommerce firms regard as optimum.

There was a noticeable increase through the year and the poor performance compared with 6.6 seconds in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, average downtime increased to 6 hours 3 minutes compared to 4 hours 32 minutes in Q3.

Bob Dowson, director at NCC Group’s website performance division, said: 'Customers won’t think twice before abandoning their basket and going elsewhere if a website is down or takes too long to load. etailers should invest more in their most valuable asset because better website performance increases customer loyalty and, most importantly, boosts sales.'

He continued: 'The shift to online shows no signs of stopping, so there’s a massive opportunity. But if e-retailers are to take advantage of this, they simply must prioritise website performance. The relatively poor performance of the top etail sites suggests that much of that growth is going either to a few top performers in that group or to competitors outside the top 50.'