More than half of travel sites too slow for visitors
Over 50 percent of travel sites take so long to load that they lose the attention of customers who will go off to the next site. SAS, Ryanair and Travelpartner are among the slowest, according to a study of more than 30 popular travel sites performed by Cybercom using American Keynote Systems’ leading monitoring services.
“How long it takes for consumers to load a web site is crucial for whether customers make a purchase or move on to a competitor’s site,” says Roger Kervén, Nordic manager at Keynote Systems, a leading mobile and Internet cloud monitoring firm. “One of three customers disappears due to poor performance only.”
This is particularly true for e-commerce and travel sites. Visitors begin to lose interest after only two seconds, and after three seconds, 40% of customers leave the site, according to Forrester Consulting’s latest analysis of online purchasing behaviour.
Cybercom has therefore studied how long it takes for a consumer to load some 30 popular travel sites. In this study, over half of the sites, 19 of 34, take more than three seconds to load. And differences between sites are massive. Solresor, the slowest, clocks in at almost 9 seconds. SAS, Ryanair, and the popular Travelpartner also rank among the slowest, while Flygpoolen and Allaflygbiljetter are amid the fastest. After just one second, these sites have loaded and visitors are ready to start shopping.
“The big differences between sites for travel consumers are mainly because many of the sites have not optimized their content for quick response times,” says Per-Anders Rangsjö, the web performance expert responsible for the Cybercom study. “On several sites we also see a capacity problem. Response times increase during peak visiting times during the day.”
Cybercom measured the average loading time from five locations around the Nordics. Measurements were taken continuously at 15-minute intervals between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. during a three week period in May with monitoring services from Keynote Systems.
“We see that visitors require sites to be faster to stay and shop,” says Mats Frisk, business area manager for Internet Services at Cybercom. “Meanwhile, the web is becoming an increasingly important sales and communications channel.”
To find out more, contact:
Per-Anders Rangsjö, web performance expert, Cybercom +46 706 63 94 02
Mats Frisk, business area manager Internet Services, Cybercom +46 706 200 324
Roger Kervén, Nordic manager, Keynote Systems +46 735 17 70 02
Anna Trane, Press and PR manager, Cybercom Group +46 708 84 74 69
About Cybercom
The Cybercom Group is a high-tech consultancy that offers global sourcing for end-to-end solutions. The Group established itself as a world-class supplier in these segments: security, portal solutions, mobile services, and embedded systems. Thanks to its extensive industry and operations experience, Cybercom offers strategic and technological expertise to these markets: telecom, industry, media, public sector, retail, and banking and financial services. The Group employs 1,800 persons and runs projects worldwide. Cybercom has 25 offices in 10 countries. Since 1999, Cybercom’s share has been quoted on the NASDAQ OMX Nordic Exchange. The company was launched in 1995. Find out more at: www.cybercom.com.
