Retail Systems Research report slams online performance

Retailers’ site performance is embarrassingly slow, especially on mobile, as third party technologies impact page load times, according to a Retail Systems Research report on behalf of Yottaa.

This evaluated 80 major retail websites and ranked from 1 to 80, with the average score being 45%. While many received high marks for “beautiful, intuitive, and shoppable” mobile experiences, almost all of them were penalised for being very slow. A growing desire to build more functionality into their shopping experience is a noble endeavour, it says. However, most of these features are coming from third parties, which are causing slow page loads.

The average number of third party requests for the retailers in the report was 139, representing a 50% growth over last year. In terms of actual third party technologies implemented, most of the sites tested had between 30-40, with Chicos leading the pack with 47 third parties on its site.

“Today, the stakes in online retail have increased as consumers’ appetites for shopping on e-commerce websites only continue to grow,” says Steve Rowen, Managing Partner, RSR. “Yet based on the findings in our report last year, the signs were already in place that retailers were barely keeping up in terms of website performance – let alone staged to handle such a massive e-commerce increase. The findings in this year’s report further validate that retailers need to find ways to improve site performance."