Europe is dominating mobile retail web access by load times, figures from Keynote Competitive Research show.
In July the top six mobile retail sites were based in Germany, UK and France, with average load times of six seconds or less. In contrast, the top six non-European sites took at least ten seconds to load. The boot time numbers come amid an overall improvement in the performance of websites in July compared to June – with a total average load time of 15.68 seconds in July versus 20 seconds in June.
Robert Castley, lead solutions consultant at Keynote, says the performance of European sites shows that retailers in the region understand “the importance of those first few seconds users arrive onto a website.” He notes consistency in the performance of websites is a key element in building customer loyalty “especially when you consider how easy it is to switch from one website to another on a mobile device.”
The firm assesses retailers’ mobile website performance with a web-based smartphone browser, which measures sites in Europe, US, Japan and Australia on an hourly basis.
Castley argues the mobile sites are now as crucial as in-store experience in terms of building customer loyalty. “User experience can make or break a reputation and customers need to be talking about your mobile website for the right reasons. This is something that the non-European companies in the table need to remember.”
While Europe tops the charts in terms of load time, Japan took the honors in terms of website availability in July, with Amazon’s local site knocking US-based Walmart off the top spot.