Download speed rating online stores

Speed ​​still matters to online stores. Two years ago, we conducted a study on the websites of leading online stores, banks and insurance . The results were not very happy, but about a quarter of the sites could be attributed to the "fast". Now we decided to repeat the study, because if the connection speed of the main audience of the Internet shops did not change much (all the same unlimited with a bandwidth limit of 5-10 Mbit / s), then the number of mobile users increased significantly (according to recent measurements, now each the fourth user uses the smartphone to view the site). And it was interesting to find out what criteria the marketing team of leading online stores considers effective, how many seconds a successful online store should open.

The study showed that 85% of online stores open up to 4 seconds, while 23% open up to 2 seconds. This guarantees both minimal dependence of site efficiency on speed (speed is almost as high as possible) and good site performance for mobile users (the site opens quickly enough for them).

Technique

During the week, for 26 online stores from top100 , the response time from the server side (excluding network delays) from 2 points - Moscow and St. Petersburg was checked. The opening time of the main store page in Google Chrome browser from Moscow and St. Petersburg was also measured (onload event). Measurement of the server response time was carried out with a frequency of once a minute, page opening time - once an hour. All measurements were taken during the week, this ensures an accuracy of the order of 1% for the opening time and 0.02% for the server response time. Connecting the testing nodes to the network was limited to 10 Mbps, which corresponded to the average user computers.

For the response time from the server, the full connection time to the server and downloading the response were taken, but only a part of it that is directly responsible for waiting for the response (in the network model: DNS request - Connecting to the server - SSL check - Waiting for the response - Downloading the response) reduced by the time of the ping (almost always - this is the time to connect to the server), which gave the server the cost of servicing the request, and not the actual time to connect to it from any geographic point.
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According to the measurement results, the following results and the final table were obtained (the stores are sorted by the average time of site opening).

Distribution of online stores by opening time (in seconds)

Distribution of online stores by opening time (in seconds)

Summary table

Score	Server Response Time (ms)	Site loading time (s)
club-sale.ru	thirty	0.77
exist.ru	22	1.57
www.komus.ru	233	1.69
www.ozon.ru	94	1.79
www.wildberries.ru	9	1.8
www.eldorado.ru	18	1.99
www.mvideo.ru	197	2.03
www.aromat.ru	57	2.06
www.utkonos.ru	210	2.4
www.planetashop.ru	464	2.78
www.kupivip.ru	14	2.88
www.ulmart.ru	275	2.9
www.citilink.ru	221	2.91
www.pleer.ru	85	3.08
vasko.ru	1444	3.1
utinet.ru	516	3.11
holodilnik.ru	535	3.37
www.svyaznoy.ru	9	3.63
www.softkey.ru	568	3.84
www.otto.ru	23	3.92
www.vseinstrumenti.ru	490	3.94
www.digital.ru	295	3.98
www.mtonline.ru	1250	4.59
www.dostavka.ru	135	5.57
www.sotmarket.ru	191	6.52
www.boutique.ru	225	10.21

findings

1. If you develop a successful online store (or develop to create one), then the main criterion for opening time is no more than 4 seconds. Otherwise, more successful competitors will bypass you. Moreover, if two years ago the distribution was rather normal (it was an equal number of both fast and slow)
   
   now it is impossible to distinguish some kind of “medium-good” value, 2 to 4 seconds of site opening time, the tested stores are distributed almost evenly, with some “seals” in the region of 3 seconds and 4 seconds.
2. Not all online stores in the top are designed for high attendance (server response time is over 200ms), some of them clearly have problems with the influx of users. To avoid such problems in advance, you can use load testing tools, for example, Load Impact , good free test results for up to 50 users guarantee stable operation of the site for up to 10,000 users per day (with an average visit time of no more than 3 minutes).
3. It is not possible to single out any regularity of the site’s speed from the turnover of the store. This only confirms the basic hypothesis: if you have a fast site (it takes up to 4 seconds), then everything will be fine with sales.

Additional Information

Among the most acute problems of online shopping performance are the following:

1. A large number and size of images. Images now make up from 50% to 80% of the volume of web pages. On average, all images can be optimized without loss of quality by 10-15%.
2. A large number of different domains used to load objects. Usually these are 2-4 main domains of the site + 1-5 third-party domains (statistics, advertising). With the increased speed of the channel, each DNS query costs even more, the relative time for DNS queries when the site loads is already 5-20%.
3. Using third-party widgets. Partially, the problem of online stores is solved by removing the load of everything that is not directly related to the content of the site, for the onload event (the so-called delayed loading of objects), but for most stores (in particular, this is why boutique.ru at the end of the rating) third-party content ( objects) significantly slow down the speed of the site. The time spent on third-party widgets can be up to 50% of the total site load time.

If we compare it with Western quality parameters, then the figure “up to 2 seconds” has been around for a long time, and Russian online retailers are successfully approaching this indicator.