Big online retailers score better consistency rankings in July

The largest web retailers did a better job of delivering a consistent web performance in July, says Gomez Inc.

30 retailers achieved a consistency rating of excellent in July, compared to 11 with “good,” 7 with “fair” and two with “poor.”

The consistency ratings take into account differences in the speed of web page delivery across multiple visits and the frequency a retail site is unavailable because of downtime. The variability of response time and the number of minutes out are combined to create each retailer’s consistency rating, Gomez explains.

The variability of response time is key and the amount of time a site is accessible is crucial to achieving a top ranking, Gomez says.

Top 50 Web Site Consistency Benchmark June 1, 2006 - June 30, 2006 Retailer Consistency Rating Variability (Seconds) # of Errors Zappos Excellent 16.38 96 Office Depot Excellent 18.62 100 Office Max Excellent 15.50 109 FTD Excellent 18.38 141 Dell Excellent 11.08 157 Scholastic Excellent 20.08 153 Drugstore Excellent 23.01 179 Cabelas Excellent 17.94 186 Macys Store Excellent 20.78 184 J. C. Penney Excellent 21.58 187 Williams-Sonoma Excellent 20.34 192 Wal-Mart Excellent 24.07 190 Gateway Excellent 21.21 194 Barnes and Noble Excellent 23.03 205 L. L. Bean Excellent 21.73 208 Eddie Bauer Excellent 22.23 211 Netflix Excellent 18.06 219 Amazon Excellent 24.94 213 HSN Excellent 22.61 220 HP Shopping Excellent 18.15 238 Nordstrom Excellent 20.72 240 Staples Excellent 21.58 240 Chadwicks Excellent 23.71 253 Neiman Marcus Excellent 21.45 272 QVC Excellent 26.49 278 Avon Shopping Excellent 22.10 285 CompUSA Excellent 22.58 287 Footlocker Excellent 17.37 295 Quixtar Excellent 19.57 295 Victoria Secret Excellent 25.21 295 CDW Good 22.44 326 Circuit City Good 27.80 344 Peapod Good 22.76 360 Apple Store Good 29.22 388 Sears Good 27.89 406 PC Connection Good 25.23 415 Benchmark Average Good 24.43 427 Overstock Good 28.56 459 1-800 Flowers Good 26.69 462 Costco Good 26.64 485 Buy.com Good 29.73 533 Toys R Us Good 29.44 607 Musicians Friend Fair 29.51 685 The Home Depot Fair 29.28 724 Oriental Trading Fair 29.69 767 Newegg Fair 31.33 893 Tiger Direct Fair 30.88 945 Best Buy Fair 31.54 1,361 Sony Style Poor 32.37 2,077 Gap Poor 28.10 2,364 Copyright © 2006 Gomez, Inc.                                       www.gomez.com Consistency = A qualitative representation of consistency ratings that are created with the lowest total score (Variability + Errors) being normalized to 100. Above 98 = Excellent, above 95 = Good, above 85 = Fair, and below 85 = Poor. Variability = The range between the high and low values of one standard deviation from response time. # of Errors = Test failures or timeouts caused by site unavailability.