Yottaa,
Inc., the leading Cloud platform for accelerating eCommerce, today
announced the publication of a new research report titled, “2019
Retailer Website Performance Evaluation: Are Retail Websites Meeting
Shopper Expectations?” The research, which was conducted by Retail
Systems Research (RSR), evaluates 80 major retail websites on page speed
performance and shopper experience, and includes survey results from
1,300 consumers to provide their perspective on eCommerce site
performance.
Retailers evaluated in this year’s report include: American Eagle
Outfitters (NYSE: AEO), Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY), Crate &
Barrel, Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS), Express (NYSE: EXPR), Levi
Strauss (NYSE: LEVI), Pier 1 (NYSE: PIR), Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL), Tory
Burch, Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ: ULTA), and 70 more.
RSR, an industry market intelligence firm that helps retailers make more
strategic decisions about the role of information technology in their
enterprise, conducted the study from April to May of 2019. In keeping
with the methodology used in its previous two reports on this topic, RSR
assembled a list of 80 top retail sites, and then tested the speed at
which each retailers’ desktop and mobile sites loaded, evaluated the
ease with which a shopper could shop their channels, and analyzed what 3rd
party technologies (product reviews, recommendations, personalization,
chat features, etc.) were provided to improve the shopper’s journey and
increase online sales. The retailers were then ranked from 1 to 80 based
on the collected data. In order to provide a broader look at eCommerce
site performance, in this year’s report RSR expanded the scope of its
research to include consumers’ opinions through interviews with 1,300
US-based shoppers.
“Every year RSR’s report on eCommerce site performance evaluates
retailers based on their website speed and shopping experience. But we
never actually asked shoppers what they think about it,” said Steve
Rowen, Managing Partner, Retail Systems Research (RSR). “This year we
surveyed over 1,000 shoppers on the topic and found that 90% of
consumers will abandon a shopping session just because it is slow. And
when they get frustrated by a slow site, shoppers’ actions are damaging
to a retailer in every possible way: they leave, they buy from a
competitor, and they likely won’t be coming back to the site.”
Below are key findings from the report that illustrate the performance
challenges that many eCommerce sites face today. The full RSR report,
which was sponsored by Yottaa, can be downloaded here
or at www.yottaa.com.
Shoppers Won’t Wait For Retailers –This year’s report clearly
demonstrates that consumers will not only abandon an eCommerce site
merely because it’s slow, but they will also take definitive actions
after leaving the site, such as buying from a competing retailer,
complaining on social media, or worse, never returning to the brand. This
was supported by the following shopper survey results:
-
90% have left an eCommerce site because it did not load in the time
expected -
57% have left a slow eCommerce site and then bought from a similar
retailer -
53% stated the biggest issue they had with slow retail sites is that
they are wasting their personal time -
40% have left an eCommerce site because it is slow and then bought
from Amazon - 23% never returned to a brand’s website due to slow page performance
-
22% were concerned that a slow retail site might lead to a security
risk of their personal information -
14% have taken to social media to complain about a slow loading retail
site
Average Retailer Scores Are Still Too Low (47%) – Even in
removing some of the subjective scoring from its criteria, RSR found
retailers’ scores are too low. With the highest score in the class at
68%, something is very wrong. And as RSR’s consumer data demonstrated,
shoppers are not willing to grade on a curve – they want to act now, and
they are more than willing to leave for someone who can provide that.
Third Party Requests Are STILL Slowing Down Sites – Consumers are
clear that they want rich functionality built into both the desktop AND
the mobile site. In fact, when asked to identify the top 2 online
features that make shopping online most enjoyable, product
ratings/reviews and the ability to compare similar products top the
list. However, RSR’s results also show that retailers’ sites just aren’t
fast enough and this is largely due to heavy pages from 3rd
party technologies. This is consistent across home pages and product
detail pages, mobile and desktop. In fact, only a handful of retailers
scored maximum points in the “percent of load time from 3rd
parties” category.
“The annual Retailer Website Performance Evaluation Report from Retail
Systems Research has become the industry benchmark for evaluating how
retail websites are engaging customers and driving online revenue,” said
Rich Stendardo, CEO of Yottaa. “After two years of focusing strictly on
retailers, this year’s report goes to the next level by directly adding
the shopper’s expectations. The interviews RSR conducted with consumers
augment its evaluation of the 80 retail sites profiled in the report and
validate Yottaa’s mission to optimize digital experiences by making
eCommerce sites faster and more profitable.”
Click here
to download the full RSR report “2019 Retailer Website Performance
Evaluation: Are Retail Websites Meeting Shopper Expectations?”
About Yottaa
Leading retailers, brands and publishers, such as Carter’s, The
Container Store, Hallmark, eBags, Jockey, JoAnn Fabrics, and Rockport,
rely on Yottaa’s Cloud platform to accelerate and optimize the loading
of 3rd party eCommerce technologies, high resolution images,
and other website elements, resulting in up to 60% web performance
improvements and up to 20% increases in online conversion. To learn more
about how Yottaa can accelerate your eCommerce site and increase
conversions, please visit www.yottaa.com or
follow @yottaa on Twitter.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190613005173/en/