A majority - 3 out of 4 - of Europe’s top 400 retail websites take more than 3 seconds to load, failing to meet online shoppers’ performance demands, according to a report by Radware and Level 3 Communications entitled State of the Union: European Ecommerce Page Speed and Web Performance.
Numerous user experience studies have found that most online shoppers will abandon a page after waiting 3 seconds for it to load. Slow pages have been linked to lower conversion rates, revenues, and customer satisfaction. In one well-known study of 158 organizations, a 1-second delay in page load time resulted in 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and a 7% loss in conversions.
The survey’s key findings include:
- The median load time for first-time visitors was 7.04 seconds.
- 1 out of 4 sites took more than 10 seconds to load.
- 1 out of 3 pages contained 100+ resource requests. Page resources - including CSS, JavaScript, and image files - are the content objects in every web page. Each of these resources represents one server round trip that is needed to pull all the page’s resources to the user’s browser. More server round trips typically equal longer page render times.
- 79% of sites did not use a content delivery network (CDN). CDNs cache page’s resources closer to the relevant end users, allowing resources to make shorter round trips and speed up rendering. Yet only 1 out of 5 of the leading online retailers currently uses a CDN.
“These findings are a wake-up call for online retailers in Europe,” said Joshua Bixby, VP, application acceleration, Radware. “In today’s hyper-competitive retail climate, site owners need to know that 7-second load times are simply much too slow, and they need to realize that shoppers are not oblivious to the issue of page speed. When fully three-quarters of sites are disappointing end users, that number can’t be ignored.”
The sites surveyed included those of major retailers from Germany, the UK and France. Tests for the survey were conducted using WebPagetest.org – an open-source third-party online tool that simulates page load times from the perspective of real users using real browsers – in November and December of 2012. WebPagetest.org also measures a site’s adoption of core performance best practices and identifies whether or not a site is using a content delivery network to cache content closer to end users.
Hot Topic
The Latest
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 ...
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 ...
From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...