4 Seconds Loading Time Is Maximum For Websurfers

nieske writes "Of course we all want webpages to load as fast as possible, but now research has finally shown it: four seconds loading time is the maximum threshold for websurfers. Akamai and JupiterResearch have conducted a study among 1,000 online shoppers and have found, among other results, that one third of respondents have, at one point, left a shopping website because of the overall 'poor experience.' 75% of them do not intend ever to come back to this website again. Online shopper loyalty also increases as loading time of webpages decreases. Will this study finally show developers of shopping websites the importance of the performance of their websites?"

Comments

tabs

[Kuciwalker]

It takes a lot longer than 4 seconds for a Slashdot story to load, particularly with the new AJAXy discussion system. I usually open up several things at a time in different tabs, which decreases the average loading time since I can read one thing while another loads. What browser were these people using?

Re:tabs

[From A Far Away Land]

There ought to be a lot more consideration given to dialup users this study finds. Bling might draw people back to the site, but only if it takes a second to load.

Re:tabs

[wgaryhas]

I guess you have never wanted to have the descriptions of several items up and compare them? In my experience, it is only linear when you are ready to pay; searching and comparing products benefits greatly from tabs.

Who is conducting that study?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that Akamai has a vested interest in this study. They would like to encourage more businesses to use their technology so that their sites load faster.

I am not saying that the study is biased, but one should at least consider that it is in Akamai's best interest to convince every site owner that they will lose customers if their site is not fast enough.

Great

[UbuntuDupe]

Now that this research is in, I predict that all website designers will realize the futility of flashy designs and instead remake their sites to be more like Craigslist or Google. I'm predicting an end to Flash and Javascript.[/naivete]

I call bullshit

[Deagol]

If the hyper-caffeinated, sugar-popping, MTV-watching, blipvert-desensitized ADD kids of today can tolerate the glacially loading site known as MySpace, I'd bet dollars to donuts that the slightly older, credit card-holding demographic of online shoppers gladly tolerate more than 4 seconds on we sites, and do so without much prejudice.

Either the summary is totally off, or this 'research' is total bunk.

Re:I call bullshit

[ScentCone]

I'd bet dollars to donuts that the slightly older, credit card-holding demographic of online shoppers gladly tolerate more than 4 seconds on we sites, and do so without much prejudice

I think it all comes down to what the site is doing, and how readily available another, virtually identical site (or range of merchandise, at similar prices, etc) actually is. The more sites there are that present and transact the same things in essentially the same way, the more that things like raw speed differentiate one from another. The more unique something is (niche merchandise, a blog with a particular perspective), the more patience people will have. Those things are nearly impossible to quantify, and thus you get largely BS, context-less reports like the one being discussed. I think that the larger conclusion ("people are less patient than they used to be") is valid - but pretty hard to nail down, in terms of specific seconds, for specific demographics, on particular platforms, across particular pipes, under certain seasonal circumstances, blah blah blah.

This survey was sponsored by...

[MagicM]

How convenient for Akamai. A survey done by them shows that webpages need to load faster or you could lose money. And you wouldn't want that, now would you?

About Akamai
Akamai® is the leading global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online. Thousands of organizations have formed trusted relationships with Akamai (...)

Disturbing...

[rasmusneckelmann]

One of the main reasons why I'm considering upgrading my 233-MHz laptop, is not because it's slow at doing heavy calculations (like Matlab, etc), but because it will soon to be impossible to surf the 'net. Not only are webpages growing larger and larger kB-wise, but they're also using increasingly more CPU resources when loading. Why is it necesary for my poor laptop to run at 100% CPU usage for a long time, just because I want to view a website? When gmail just came out it worked perfectly fast on my computer, but more and more javascript have been stuffed into it, so now it's almost useless for me. The tendency is same for many, many websites.

Poor Layout

[COMON$]

I think poor layout is more of the problem than loading times. In the late 90s and up to 2003 or so, websites were aweful from an artistic standpoint, but many sites have gotten better.

But for me the ability to sort through goods is the #1 priority. Yes I like to have a pretty site to look at but if I cannot find what I am looking for with a few simple queries then I am gone. Newegg is a fine example of a site where I can find what I want quickly. Tigerdirect is getting better. Dell is the worst. I have a theory that Dell is like many supermarkets, they rearrange stuff and make searching difficult so you see the maximum number of items before finding what you are actually looking for.

Web designers, if you want business, make it easy. I dont really think most people go to sites just to browse. Most of the time we are there with a purpose and as an ADD generation we want it quickly or we will move on.

Why I leave..

[nolife]

Wow, a web caching company has determined that customers abandon a site that is slow.

That is not an issue for me. My highest chance of leaving is determined by when in the buying process, the site provides total price including all shipping, handling, taxes, and acceptance of coupons codes. If they need my name and address I may leave depending on if they have a shipping link or general shipping info somewhere on the site that I can reference first. I will ALWAYS leave if they require CC or payment information before providing the total price or even a hint of shipping costs.
I guess they need my address prior to calculating shipping and handling charges if they do not have flat rates but a place to enter my just my zip code should be enough IMHO.

For a good example of providing a good experience is NewEgg. They includes the shipping costs right next to the product descriptions without even having to go to a cart first.

I view the delay or confusion of shipping and handling charges to be an attempt to hide a total cost or get you to get so far that they figure you will not back out. I will back out and take my business elesewhere.
Almost like the the Ebay sellers that charge $20 to ship a motherboard (at least they are up front about it though).

FlashBlock

[Midnight Thunder]

This is one tool I really find useful for Firefox:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/433/

If you can't stand flash, then its for you.

Re:AJAX completely lacks performance.

[Bogtha]

AJAX suffers from some severe performance problems.

This is a nonsensical thing to say. It all depends on what you are doing. Ajax can significantly increase performance too. Remember when GMail was first launched? The #1 thing everybody said was that it was fast. Why? Because it used Ajax.

We looked into using several AJAX-based Web forum systems, from several different vendors. After trying them all, those of us who were working on the project were quite disappointed. The performance of the AJAX-based products was absolutely terrible.

Without mentioning what those systems were using Ajax for, there is zero useful information there. It's certainly possible that Ajax decreased performance in these cases, there's plenty of people throwing Ajax at things where it just isn't useful just because it's the buzzword du jour. On the other hand, there's also plenty of people using it as just another tool, and getting decent performance and usability improvements out of it.

In short: "Ajax completely lacks performance" == stupid. "Ajax harms performance when used to do [x], [y] or [z]" == useful information.

Not developers

[Angst Badger]

Will this study finally show developers of shopping websites the importance of the performance of their websites?

Developers already know this. But at the end of the day, we're paid to implement the ill-considered plans of marketers and designers.