Mobile websites took over twice as long to load throughout the online discounts and offers.
While Cyber Monday showed record breaking mcommerce performance for sales, the tremendous number of smartphone and tablet shoppers that swamped the mobile web generated delays that considerably slowed down site loading times.
Some of the delays faced by smartphone and tablet users mirrored the lineups on Black Friday.
The average load time on Cyber Monday was 18 second longer than it would typically be. This, according to the Keynote Mobile Commerce Index. The web and mobile monitoring company produces regular data regarding site load times and other performance statistics. The delay meant that the load time was approximately twice as long as it would usually be.
Moreover, the mcommerce load times were about seven times slower than traditional PC websites.
Almost one out of every five shoppers expressed frustration regarding the slow loading times of mcommerce pages. According to the IBM Digital Analysis Benchmark, 18 percent of consumers used a mobile device to visit the website of a retailer. When compared to 2011, the number of people who used these devices for shopping purposes on Cyber Monday increased by 70 percent.
These devices are becoming a central element of the overall shopping experience. Customers are not only making mcommerce purchases over the devices, but they’re also bringing their smartphones into retail stores so that they can have a look at what is available, and then check to see what reviews the product has had, and whether or not better deals are available online.
When it came to shopping over the Black Friday weekend, and particularly on Cyber Monday, the results was a significant considerable to mcommerce websites and, according to Keynote, this is placing “significant revenue at risk”.
The Keynote mobile and web performance manager, Aaron Rudger, said that “The amount of holiday shopping now taking place on smartphones has simply grown too large for retailers to ignore.” He said that customers typically are unhappy if they are required to wait any longer than 3 seconds for a mobile site to load. Delays risk having an impatient customer head to a competitor’s website.
