Mobile Web Performance: Load Testing And Performance Management

And this year more than any before, retailers showed that they recognize how important performance is across all of their online channels. While there were a few notable outages and site slowdowns, absent were the spectacular failures that have been seen in past years. Overall, retailers appeared to be well-prepared, both on the wired Web and to a lesser extent, on mobile, for the shopping frenzy that is as much a part of the Thanksgiving tradition as turkey, football and pumpkin pie.

Because websites are living things that are constantly changing and evolving, load testing and performance management are ongoing tasks. It may be possible (though not likely) to lock down code during the few critical weeks of the holiday, but the rest of the year sees a string of changes large and small.
Retailers still struggling with their mobile strategy have yet another factor complicating their task: the near-lightening-fast adoption of tablet devices by consumers. As noted above, the Apple iPad was the second most-used mobile shopping device during the holiday weekend, with conversion rates notably higher than other devices.

For retailers and indeed for just about any business this means the only truly competitive strategy is a three-screen strategy: desktop, smartphone and tablet. And if mobile (smartphone) is experiencing growing pains, on tablets its even worse.

Dell and Sears were the top performers according to Keynote data, with home page load times averaging less than four seconds, rivaling desktop performance. Dells speed, however, can be attributed to a lean splash page that directed visitors to the app store to get the Dell app, or to the full mobile site. Not everyone was so fast, though. Of 30 top retailers measured by Keynote, seven averaged home page load times greater than 15 seconds, and five took an excruciating 20+ seconds to load.

The big challenge that mobile sites face thats different than the desktop Web in addition to the inherent slowness of over-the-air (OTA) signals is the plethora of devices, operating systems, and carriers. A mobile site or app has to be vetted in all the major configurations that ultimately control what is displayed in the users hands.

Economists and retail analysts arent breaking out the party hats based on Thanksgiving holiday performance. Many are worried that consumers still hurting from the bad economy will not spend more this season, but are merely shifting their spending earlier to take advantage of aggressive Thanksgiving weekend deals. The good news, though, is that retailers online were able to reap the benefits of record early-season spending without major failures.

The takeaway is that now more than ever, people need to pretest their mobile strategies, and monitor their performance over the airand stay diligent and do load testing every time they change their site. The cautionary tale is that, any time you make changes to your architecture or even your content, you could face a critical failing point in terms of your ability to scale, both on desktop and mobile. Youve got to have a regular regimen of load testing to prove that what youve done hasnt broken things.