Shoppers consult three websites on average before making a purchase and poor website performance causes the shopper to go to a competitor, according to an extensive Harris Poll survey on website performance and mobile shopping sponsored by Riverbed Technology.
A majority of US adults (68 percent) expect to shop online for gifts this upcoming holiday season. Over 40 percent of US adults who shop online evaluate their purchase with a local retailer before buying online, a practice known as showrooming. The survey results highlight the importance of creating a positive online shopping experience for shoppers who visit stores to try out the product then make the purchase online.
Today, an increasing number of shoppers are using mobile phones and tablets to make purchases.
The survey found that:
- 67 percent of shoppers said they would stop using a website if pages were loading slowly on their smart phone.
- 29 percent of shoppers using a mobile device would buy from a brick-and-mortar store after experiencing website issues, such as slow speed and reliability.
- 22 percent would buy from a competitor’s website after experiencing website issues and 20 percent would abandon the purchase all together.
Further emphasizing the importance of a positive shopping experience, nearly three quarters (70 percent) of online shoppers would buy from a store if they had a previous positive experience even if they knew they could get the item cheaper elsewhere.
"We've just completed one of the most extensive surveys to date on website performance and online shopping behavior and how consumer decisions are influenced by factors other than price," said Jeff Pancottine, SVP and GM of the application delivery business unit at Riverbed. "The results are very clear – maintaining fast website performance is increasingly important. In fact, 70 percent of consumers said they would buy from a retailer they have had a previous positive shopping experience with knowing they could get the item cheaper elsewhere.”
In order to avoid losing customers once they visit a website, Riverbed recommends making sure a website is high performance and scalable to take peak loads over the holiday season.
In addition to spending time optimizing prices and shipping, ecommerce sites need to optimize their websites so shoppers do not leave because the site cannot deliver pages fast enough. It is important to measure performance and improve both website speed and performance of integration with the back office systems.
This survey was conducted from June 25 to 27, 2013 online in the United States among 2,074 adults ages 18 and older by Harris Interactive on behalf of Riverbed.
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