Victoria business owners, retailers and, in fact, all businesses selling online can learn a lot from the American shopping experience. Software firm Compuware recently released the results of its Black Friday to Cyber Monday research. The findings provide many practical tips to help online retailers maximize their online sales presence. These are findings retailers should take to their web developer and web development company to ensure optimum performance and return.
The Compuware study measured shoppers' estimated satisfaction with web and mobile site performance for the top U.S. online retailers. Once users arrived on site, Compuware then analyzed the activities that happened when visitors load web pages or interact with dynamic elements on the page.
Winning Elements Emphasise Site Performance
Compuware looked at Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Amazon, American Eagle, Apple, Gap, Home Depot, J. Crew, QVC, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sears, Staples, Symantec, Target, Toys “R†Us and Urban Outfitters. According to Compuware, light third-party content, lightweight JavaScript and static images hosted on a separate cache domain helped J. C. Penney stand out as a top performer. Compuware suggested top-performing sites could improve site and page loading time and performance by using CSS Sprites to merge some static images and combine and minimize JavaScript files.
Look for the Bottlenecks
The Compuware study recommends that retailers analyze third-party content, such as social media plug-ins and ads, to see if they are slowing down site performance. Compuware recommends that image sizes be reduced wherever possible, and text files should be combined or compressed to help reduce download time.
Red Flags
JavaScript was a big source of performance problems. The study recommends using updated code libraries and coding practices and analyzing the impact of JavaScript performance across the major browsers and to check server-side performance, especially with dynamic pages.
Pay Attention to Mobile
Numbers indicate that in 2011, mobile shoppers grew to 11% of all sales. IBM recently reported that mobile devices would drive 15% of web traffic over the course of the 2011 holiday season. Retailers have to ensure their web developer has presented a fast and viable shopping experience for mobile customers. Slow loading pages and content will drive away potential customers. A stream-lined experience which features the product and check out components is essential.
What to do?
Read the reports and take the findings to your web developer and web development company to ensure optimum performance and return on your e commerce site.