NetFlix delivers the most bytes per second

How much data a retail web site can deliver per second is a key indicator of how effective Internet merchants are in delivering superior performance.

Overall, the web’s 50 largest retailers as ranked by annual sales in The Top 400 Guide are delivering an average of 1.55 bytes of information per second, according to a new weekly performance index by Gomez Inc.

Top 500 Guide

The index shows that NetFlix Inc. delivers the most bytes per second at 22.3 and is followed by Nordstrom Inc. (16.4), Eddie Bauer (10.8), Blue Nile Inc. (9.6) and Zappos (7.5). “Looking at bytes per second is a measure of how quickly an e-retailer can deliver content across multiple connection speeds, including dial up, low broadband, and high broadband, to consumers,” Gomez says.

The Gomez index also measures the Top 50 retailers on how fast customers can access a home page using a blended average that includes high and low broadband and dial-up access. This particular metric helps determine the overall job retailers are doing in delivering content regardless of how the customer accesses the web site, Gomez says. “It is a measure of quality by analyzing in seconds how long a consumer can expect it to take for a home page to load regardless of connection speed,” Gomez says.

The index reveals that Blue Nile provides the fastest combined access at 2.8 seconds, followed by Office Depot (3.1), Costco Wholesale (3.3), Dell (3.4) and QVC (3.8).