Netflix delivers fastest internal performance in July

How fast a web shopper can access an e-commerce site is an important factor in gauging the overall performance of a web retailer.

But an equally important measure is internal performance, specifically how long its takes a shopper to use an internal search engine to find the product she is looking for and place the item into a shopping cart. Using a new series of measurements, Gomez Inc. notes that it takes a shopper an average of 13.63 seconds to enter a word or phrase into the site search box on a Top 50 retail site and then move the item into the shopping cart.

In July the web retailer turning in the fastest internal performance was Netflix with 5.13 seconds. Netflix was followed by Overstock (5.88 seconds), Office Depot (6.36 seconds), J.C. Penney (6.54 seconds), Circuit City (6.59 seconds), Newegg (7.12 seconds) Apple (8.1 seconds), Dell (8.62 seconds), Avon (8.69 seconds) and HSN.com (9.39 seconds).

The Top 50 retail sites also are providing consistent internal performance, Gomez says. Internal search engines were available 98.36% of the time in July. Apple had the highest consistency rate at 99.1%.

Retail GPI Benchmark July 1, 2006 - July 31, 2006 00:00 - 24:00, excluding the hours from 3:00 - 6:00 EST Response Time Rating Rank Site Response Time (sec) 1 Netflix 5.13 2 Overstock 5.88 3 Office Depot 6.36 4 J C Penney 6.54 5 Circuit City 6.59 6 Newegg 7.12 7 Apple 8.10 8 Dell 8.62 9 Avon 8.69 10 HSN 9.39 11 Best Buy 9.52 12 Target 11.02 13 LL Bean 11.21 14 Amazon 13.20 15 Sears 13.50   Benchmark Average 13.63 16 Quixtar 14.79 17 Williams-Sonoma 15.73 18 Sony 15.85 19 Staples 16.23 20 Walmart 16.92 21 CDW 17.32 22 QVC 20.18 23 HP 20.23 24 Office Max 27.43 25 Gap 45.16 Success Rate Rating Rank Site Success Rate (%) 1 Apple 99.91 2 Office Max 99.78 3 CDW 99.64 4 Williams-Sonoma 99.45 5 HSN 99.44 6 Dell 99.42 7 Circuit City 99.39 8 Sony 99.31 9 Best Buy 99.28 10 J C Penney 99.22 11 Walmart 99.14 12 Newegg 99.07 13 Office Depot 99.06 14 Overstock 99.03 15 Target 99.00 16 Amazon 98.78 17 Quixtar 98.39   Benchmark Average 98.36 18 Netflix 97.81 19 LL Bean 97.63 20 QVC 97.39 21 Gap 96.93 22 Avon 96.88 23 Staples 96.60 24 Sears 94.28 25 HP 94.10 CopyrightŠ 2006 Gomez, Inc.