Speed Sells for Retail Internet Sites
Online retailers face a double whammy: At the same time as consumers expect more rich features on e-commerce sites, they also want those sites to be faster than ever. Even as retail sites have added bandwidth-clogging features like video, zoom and animated content in recent years, consumers have become less willing to wait for pages to load.
While most online shoppers said in a 2006 survey they would wait 4 seconds for a site to load, when the survey was repeated this summer 47% said they grow impatient when web pages take more than 2 seconds to load.
A site crash is usually a disaster, but some large retail chains intentionally crash their sites in the months leading up to the holiday season. They just do it in the middle of the night when few people shop. The point is to understand the capacity of the site, and to make sure crucial features will stand up to heavy loads.
