UK mobile retail sites quick to load but unreliable, according to international mobile retail study

UK mobile retail sites quick to load but unreliable, according to international mobile retail study

Keynote Systems, an internet and mobile cloud monitoring provider, has been tracking the mobile site performance of 23 of the top retailers across seven countries.

Results for June show that while mobile retail sites in the UK are quick to access compared to international counterparts, the UK sites struggled with availability, with low average success rates.

Keynote monitored the performance of top retail sites from Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, UK and US throughout June.

UK retailers succeed with speed

The UK sites performed well in the download speed category, with Next, Marks and Spencer, Tesco and John Lewis all ranking in the top half of the index, each with load times of less than eight seconds.

Next’s mobile site was the fastest of the UK sites monitored, coming in second place overall with an average download time of 5.02 seconds for June.

Overall, the sites from Germany, the US and UK outperformed the sites from Australia, France, Japan and Sweden for download speed. However, for availability, the Swedish sites made up four of the top five, with Swedish site Ellos achieving 100% average availability for June.

UK lags behind in performance

British retailers did not perform well compared to other countries in terms of availability with all sites scoring in the lower half of the index. Tesco came in 17th place overall with an average availability of only 97.76%. John Lewis was the best performing UK site this month with a 98.66% success rate.

“All of the UK sites monitored had lower availability rates in June than they did in May this year,” said Robert Castley, Keynote Systems lead solutions consultant. “As more and more people use their mobiles as the first port of call when it comes to shopping online, retailers should really be seeking to improve the performance of their mobile site if they hope to profit from the growing trend of m-commerce.

“While having a quick mobile site is extremely important if retailers wish to retain customers and encourage return site visits, they must also ensure that visitors are able to access their site from their mobile device, regardless of the handset they use or the network they’re on.”

The mobile sites of these retailers were measured using a webkit-based smartphone browser every hour from London, Nürnberg, Paris, San Francisco, New York, Stockholm, Sydney and Tokyo.

“While mobile site performance issues may be linked to the operator, carrier or third party content performance, if customers experience availability issues, they are most likely to blame the brand,” continued Castley.

“Real-time measurement of mobile site performance can help retailers to understand exactly what their mobile customers are experiencing when they visit their site. If a customer is unable to access the information they are looking for, it’s likely that they’ll browse away from that retailer to try again elsewhere. The improved functionality of smartphones has led to consumers expecting the same performance on their phones as they do from their computers. If retailers want to stay ahead of the competition, it’s essential that they are able to spot any mobile performance issues as soon as they happen, before they affect their end-users and potential customers.”