Slow Ecommerce Site Speeds

The average ecommerce website takes 10 seconds to load according to a new report from front-end optimization solution provider Strangeloop.

The 2012 Annual State of the Union: Ecommerce Page Speed and Website report reveals that while the average site is 10 percent faster now than it was a year ago, it is still to slow for the ideal load time of two seconds. Additionally, many top-ranked sites are actually slower than other sites due too bigger pages with more objects.

And bigger pages are becoming a trend. According to the study, the average home page contains 98 page objects, which is a 13 percent increase from last year, and a huge increase from 1995 - when the average home page contained only 2.3 objects.

A surprising statistic from the study is that IE9 outperformed other browsers, with a 4-5 percent faster load time compared to Firefox and Chrome browsers.

"The question everyone should be asking is: what do these findings mean for me and my site?" says Jonathan Bixby, CEO of Strangeloop Networks. "The key takeaway here is that the pursuit of faster websites is a neverending race. As pages continue to grow in size and complexity, many site owners are barely managing to stay ahead. Newer browsers help somewhat - as does using a content delivery network to cache your content closer to your visitors - but only somewhat. Site owners who want to do more than keep their heads above water need to expand their acceleration toolkit."