By Aimee Chanthadavong
International retailers have outperformed Australian mobile websites in download speed, according to a study from mobile and Internet cloud monitoring firm Keynote Systems.
Only three Australian retailers made to the top 20 list – Woolworths came in 12th followed by Myer in 13th place and JB Hi-Fi in 17th – on the Keynote Systems mobile index, which examined the mobile download speed and availability of retailers from geographies based outside the US.
Keynotes Australian mobile partner Gomeeki CEO Shaun Dobbin told RetailBiz that Australian retailers are lagging behind its international counterparts.
“The actual sites in Australia are very basic at this stage. I was very surprised that these billion dollar business are representing the brand the way they are. The reason why it is –given all the recent hype and talk around mobile and how quickly its been taken up by consumers – we think Australian retailers are just waiting and seeing what the best strategies to approach this,” he said.
“I hope this draws their attention and that they will be able to develop more efficient mobile websites.”
The study showed the average down speed of Australian websites was between .81 to almost 15 seconds. In comparison, Tesco’s mobile site, the largest of the U.K retailers, boasted an average download time of just 4.39 seconds.
“I think it’s critical to have a fast working website with many retailers talking about the structure of a site being very important. You have companies like Telstra talking about their three step mantra in their application because drop-off rates are so high to have someone wait over 15 seconds they generally give up and the opportunity is lost,” Dobbin said.
“It’s the nature of things now. People are out in the about and they don’t have the time to wait. Often, they’re accessing mobile sites in between certain places or are trying the information on the go.”