Web-site performance turns into a non-event this holiday shopping season

Online retailers have learned well the lessons of Christmas past, reports web performance management and testing company Keynote Systems Inc., which monitors a number of e-retailing sites, including those of such major brands as L.L. Bean and Victoria’s Secret. "We have not seen significant issues overall nor do we see performance fluctuations," says Leslie Gaillard, Keynote’s product manager for vertical indices.

Availability of sites has been at 98% or better most of the time this holiday shopping season and download times have been generally no longer than 6 seconds and many are loading in 2-3 seconds. As important as the speed was also the consistency, she says, with few retailers showing wild swings in the time it took their pages to download.

The high level of performance was generally due to better planning, says Roopak Patel, Keynote’s product manager for brand marketing services. "Retailers are getting much smarter about preparing for their busy time of year," he says. "They’re getting ready not just two months out but as early as June and July. A lot of forethought went into turning performance issues into a non-event."

Besides earlier planning, another reason performance has been strong and consistent is that many retailers have outsourced their web sites to companies that specialize in such services, Patel says. Those companies improve performance because they can make larger technology investments and leverage those over a number of operations.