More than half (56%) of consumers who spend more than two hours per week shopping online have cancelled an order due to an error or slow response time.
Cloud and web monitoring business Monitis found that almost three-quarters (74%) of all online shoppers said that they would switch to a competing online vendor if they could find a better user experience and faster website than the one they currently use.
Frequent online shoppers are even less tolerant of slow e-retail websites, with the majority (86%) of consumers who spend two or more hours shopping each week say that they would abandon their chosen online vendor if they found a faster competitor.
If your website takes more than 30 seconds to load then be very afraid, as nearly three quarters (61%) of all online shoppers said they would leave a web page and search for a competing vendor if it took longer than 30 seconds to load.
Additionally more than half of all respondents (56%) also indicated that website usability is an important factor when comparing one retail website to another, coming in just behind price and reputation.
"Simply avoiding downtime is often the primary goal for web developers and designers when maintaining websites, but as the holiday rush has shifted to online stores, success depends less on the minimum threshold of uptime and more on meeting the various other expectations of shoppers, to keep them coming back," said Hovhannes Avoyan, General Manager at Monitis. "Consumers turn to online vendors for convenience, so it's critical that e-retailers ensure a positive shopping experience by focusing on website usability and speed."
