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2015 Holiday Shoppers Demand High-Performing Websites

Ann Ruckstuhl

What attributes do consumers expect from shopping sites? It's a question of critical importance to Internet retailers. At this time of the year, retail and ecommerce businesses are bracing for 15% more holiday shoppers than last year. What can they do to ensure that they get a generous slice of the holiday pie?


With the holidays on the horizon, SOASTA has released the results of a survey gauging the extent to which consumers' online behavior would be affected if websites had performance grades.

According to SOASTA's survey, website performance will strongly influence how Americans do their online holiday shopping. In fact, 70 percent of Americans' browsing and online shopping habits would be influenced by website performance grades, including how and where they would do their online holiday shopping.

Millennials' Need for Speed

Millennials in particular push holiday ecommerce performance. Among survey respondents, a whopping 75 percent of Millennial men and 81 percent of Millennial women said their browsing behaviors would be affected if websites had performance grades (compared to the 70 percent of the general American population cited above). Fifty-three percent of Millennial women said they would skip online shopping sites with poor grades, and 56 percent said they would do more shopping on sites with good grades.

Women are Santa's #1 Helpers

When asked in which situations Americans most rely on websites, 46 percent of American women said "online holiday shopping" as did 32 percent of American men. However, no other demographic group shops online as often as Millennial women. While the average American finds a website most important for online holiday shopping, 58 percent of Millennial women report that online holiday shopping is the most important use of a website.

Are Most Internet Retailers Failing Shoppers?

When asked which websites are generally best performing, Americans are hard-pressed to name any that are top performing, suggesting that for most sites, there is room for improvement. Only 19 percent said that consumer product sites are generally the best performing, and only 17 percent praised big box store sites.

The Importance of Getting an A on Your Report Card

So, going back to my original question — what shopping site attributes do consumers value most? Our survey findings make it clear that only the top-performing sites will earn their business, by offering superior:
■ Ease of navigation

■ Speed

■ Reliability

The reality is that no one wants to shop online for the holidays at a retail site that received a failing, or even average, grade in website performance. These findings suggest that Internet retailers with lower scores could benefit significantly by improving the performance of their websites.

Holiday shoppers are pressed for time, in a hurry to complete dozens of tasks on their holiday to-do lists. They just don't have the time to wait around if a site is slow, for example. And if they move on, they won't make purchases and, perhaps more importantly, will likely not return.


Ann Ruckstuhl is CMO of SOASTA.

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2015 Holiday Shoppers Demand High-Performing Websites

Ann Ruckstuhl

What attributes do consumers expect from shopping sites? It's a question of critical importance to Internet retailers. At this time of the year, retail and ecommerce businesses are bracing for 15% more holiday shoppers than last year. What can they do to ensure that they get a generous slice of the holiday pie?


With the holidays on the horizon, SOASTA has released the results of a survey gauging the extent to which consumers' online behavior would be affected if websites had performance grades.

According to SOASTA's survey, website performance will strongly influence how Americans do their online holiday shopping. In fact, 70 percent of Americans' browsing and online shopping habits would be influenced by website performance grades, including how and where they would do their online holiday shopping.

Millennials' Need for Speed

Millennials in particular push holiday ecommerce performance. Among survey respondents, a whopping 75 percent of Millennial men and 81 percent of Millennial women said their browsing behaviors would be affected if websites had performance grades (compared to the 70 percent of the general American population cited above). Fifty-three percent of Millennial women said they would skip online shopping sites with poor grades, and 56 percent said they would do more shopping on sites with good grades.

Women are Santa's #1 Helpers

When asked in which situations Americans most rely on websites, 46 percent of American women said "online holiday shopping" as did 32 percent of American men. However, no other demographic group shops online as often as Millennial women. While the average American finds a website most important for online holiday shopping, 58 percent of Millennial women report that online holiday shopping is the most important use of a website.

Are Most Internet Retailers Failing Shoppers?

When asked which websites are generally best performing, Americans are hard-pressed to name any that are top performing, suggesting that for most sites, there is room for improvement. Only 19 percent said that consumer product sites are generally the best performing, and only 17 percent praised big box store sites.

The Importance of Getting an A on Your Report Card

So, going back to my original question — what shopping site attributes do consumers value most? Our survey findings make it clear that only the top-performing sites will earn their business, by offering superior:
■ Ease of navigation

■ Speed

■ Reliability

The reality is that no one wants to shop online for the holidays at a retail site that received a failing, or even average, grade in website performance. These findings suggest that Internet retailers with lower scores could benefit significantly by improving the performance of their websites.

Holiday shoppers are pressed for time, in a hurry to complete dozens of tasks on their holiday to-do lists. They just don't have the time to wait around if a site is slow, for example. And if they move on, they won't make purchases and, perhaps more importantly, will likely not return.


Ann Ruckstuhl is CMO of SOASTA.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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