'Poor' Website Performance Revealed Among Fashion Retailers

H&M and Next have the fastest and most reliable sites, according to a study, but most fashion retail sites fall short of benchmark response times.

Four out of five sites failed to measure up to the 'ideal' response time of under two seconds with pages on some sites taking an average more than five seconds to down load.

The research by Keynote, designed to gauge the experience of busy Christmas shoppers, measured 17 fashion sites for the responsiveness and for availability during the week ending December 19.

The best overall, with 100 per cent availability and response times - the time it takes pages to load - of 0.93 seconds and 1.44 seconds respectively, were H&M and Next.

A total of 16 sites had improved their response times from the previous week but only three retailers including H&M, Next and Size had average load times of less than two seconds. Only five in total, including River Island and Urban Outfitters had average load times of less than three seconds.

TopShop, Burton, Miss Selfridge, Uniqlo, New Look and All Saints, in descending order of responsiveness, all had response times of between four and five seconds and Monsoon narrowly made its way under four seconds with a response time of 3.94 seconds.

'When considering the performance of the high street stores online compared to other industries, however, the average response times are relatively poor. Only three out of the 17 sites managed to load in under the ideal two seconds and some sites took nearly five seconds – far too long for most consumers,' said Robert Castley, performance management expert at Keynote.

'High street stores need to remember that while their direct competitors are other fashion retailers, the likes of supermarkets are increasingly diversifying and if they offer a speedier and more reliable site, consumers won’t hesitate to switch,' he said.

Of the 16 that improved their response times over the previous week, Office, Dorothy Perkins and French Connection showed the biggest gains.

Ten of the 17 sites also scored 100 per cent for availability with only one, footwear retailer Size, below 99 per cent at 98.24 per cent.

Castley said despite responsiveness issues, it was 'great to see high street stores becoming faster week after week and maintaining their reliability' meaning customers were 'more likely to return'.