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Does Your Online Store Cause Web Rage?
Online shopping is still growing quickly,
but frustration with poor or broken sites is
causing “web rage”, leading to some online
buyers heading back to the high street.
 Website
testing specialists SciVisum have found that
78 per cent of online shoppers complained
that frustration with website performance
has led them to turn off their computer. One
in three online shoppers refuse to give even
their favourite website more than a second
chance, before trying out the competition or
turning back to the high street.
The most common cause of web rage (54%) is
the inability to ask questions by telephone.
Complicated registration processes and
website crashes during use (both 47%) are
also common causes; along with the inability
to find information (46%) or amend orders
(45%).
“Web rage is a burgeoning online
phenomenon,” said Deri Jones, CEO, SciVisum.
“With less than half of online shoppers
prepared to give their favourite website
more than two chances to get it right, the
message to ‘eTailers’ is very clear. Online
shoppers are showing zero tolerance to poor
performance – and ‘eTailers’ must follow
this lead if they’re to avoid losing their
customers to competitors or the high
street.”
Based on the findings, SciVisum have made a
number of recommendations to improve your
online store performance (though you may
need to pass the more technical of these
onto your website staff/company!):
1. Simply checking a few pages will not
prove your site is working properly. To be
sure you need to run tests that mimic the
journey a buying user might make. (E.g.:
Homepage, search, product page, add to cart,
checkout, etc)
2. Review the key actions of your website
(E.g.: ‘Add to Cart’) to ensure that the
load on the server and database is kept to a
minimum. Try to send/receive only essential
data, and avoid adding or changing cookies
or session ID’s during the crucial latter
stages of the purchase process.
3. Do your servers or database have a limit
on how many users can add a line (E.g.:
Adding products to a cart) at the same time.
This can produce errors well below the
actual capacity of your online server.
4. Although your site may work well in one
off tests, it may fail under heavy loads or
stress. Testing and simulating these
conditions can help you to identify
underlying issues that basic testing cannot
spot.
5. Whether you manage your site in-house or
externally, it is likely to be evolving and
changing all the time to add new products,
meet demand and add capacity/performance.
However, these changes can often cause
reliability issues or damage the user
experience. You need to make sure that you
have an ongoing and regular system of
testing to deal with any issues quickly;
this will also provide evidence to help you
decide upon future changes and upgrades.
These tests should include functional
monitoring, stress/capacity tests (up to
twice a year), and yearly trouble shooting
audits.
Find out more about online and IT topics in
our Internet and Technology portal here.
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