Poorly performing websites are costing retailers as much as £5.65 billion per year in online sales according to a joint press release from by Hostway and Zeus Technology where they detail research they have commissioned. The research reveals ongoing user frustrations with slow loading multimedia website content

The survey used the abandon rate, which is where a customer starts to make a purchase but then fails to complete it, to calculate the £5.65 billion figure of online loss. The 2,033 consumers revealed an average abandon rate of 5.5 online transactions per person surveyed over the last 12 months. Recent sales figures have which showed UK consumers spending an average £30 per transaction and UK online sales increasing over 12% for 2009. 

Website Traffic To Continue Growing

“Online traffic will continue to grow, so it’s important that retailers ensure that their websites are scalable enough to cope with large visitor numbers and large amounts of multimedia content. The latest traffic management solutions can help ensure that retailers are able to provide the best possible online experience, even allowing them to inspect and route traffic based on visitor type and profile. All of which can improve the speed and responsiveness of their websites,” commented Graham Moore, e-retail specialist at Zeus Technology.

Although the £5.65 billion is probably higher than the actual figure lost through abandoned transactions the survey brought up some interesting statistics regarding the use of large video and image files as part of the website design. 70% of the people surveyed said they were frustrated by how long it takes many websites to load images, and by the start stop nature of multimedia web content. When asked what was the biggest user frustration when visiting websites, ‘web pages taking too long to load’ (46%) was cited at the biggest complaint. This was followed by ‘online advertising’ (24%), ‘poor website navigation’ (16%) and ‘bad web links’ (13%). 

The research also revealed that a massive 82% of consumers said that if a business’ website performed badly it would dissuade them from buying goods from that organisation on the web or even in store. This clearly demonstrates the importance of having a good online perception and the need for retailers to ensure their online customer experience is a positive one.

Finally a cost for bad webite design

As we have discussed in a recent blog article about making websites more effective, substance over style should not be considered good website design. This research seems to not only support this view but puts a multi billion pound price tag on good design.

The online survey of 2,033 British consumers was commissioned by Hostway and Zeus Technology and was conducted by independent research company TNS.