Shoppers won't wait for slow online retailers, Yottaa

90% of consumers will abandon an online shopping session just because it is slow. And when they leave, they buy from a competitor, often Amazon, and likely won’t return to the offending site.

That’s according to research conducted by Retail Systems Research (RSR) on behalf of Yottaa, involving the likes of American Eagle Outfitters, Bed Bath & Beyond and Levi Strauss, and 1,300 shoppers.

RSR assembled a list of 80 retail sites and then tested the speed at which each retailer’s desktop and mobile sites loaded, evaluated the ease with which a shopper could shop their channels, and analysed what third party technologies (product reviews, recommendations, personalisation, chat features, etc.) were provided to improve the journey and increase sales. The retailers were then ranked from 1 to 80 based on the collected data. There is considerable room for improvement, with the highest score in the class at 68%.