Compuware Provides Recommendations for Online Retailers to Save the Remainder of the 2011 Holiday Shopping Season

New Report Offers Analysis of Top Retailers' Web and Mobile Performance for Black Friday Through Cyber Monday

| Source: Compuware Corporation Compuware Corporation

DETROIT, Dec. 12, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Compuware Corporation (Nasdaq:CPWR), the technology performance company, today issued five recommendations for struggling online retailers to improve web and mobile site performance for the remainder of the 2011 holiday season. Compuware's recommendations are included in its newly published report that analyzes online shoppers' estimated satisfaction with top U.S. retailers' web and mobile site performance from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.

Download the report (no registration required).

Compuware's in-depth assessment uses a combination of its Gomez Performance Satisfaction Index data,which measured performance using Gomez Last Mile, and dynaTrace's PurePath Technology® to analyze transactions, to determine why some retailers performed well and others did not.

An overwhelming majority of e-commerce sites saw their users' estimated satisfaction with web and mobile performance drop during Black Friday through Cyber Monday. Compuware's analysis found that, despite months of preparation by retailers, 86 percent of the top 50 U.S retailers experienced declines in shoppers' estimated satisfaction with website performance compared to non-holiday baseline levels. Additionally, many retailers had web page load times of 10 seconds or more – well beyond the two seconds expected by users. Every additional second of delay can mean millions of dollars in potential revenue lost.

Poor performing sites had similar problem patterns in common, including being overloaded with third-party content or heavy on JavaScript and not leveraging browser caching. Based on Compuware's analysis of both the strong and poor performers, the company issued the following recommendations that struggling retailers should implement immediately (additional details on these best practices are available in the full report):

  1. Check your third-party content: Third-party content, (e.g. ads, social media plug-ins, images) is necessary, but check on what the impact is and whether there is an alternate solution to embedding it.
     
  2. Check the content you deliver and control: Check the content size and number of resources by content type. Reduce the size of images where possible. Combine, minify and compress text files such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS files to reduce roundtrips and download time.
     
  3. Check your JavaScript executions: JavaScript is a big source of performance problems. Use updated code libraries and coding practices. Analyze the impact of JavaScript performance across the major browsers – not just the browsers you use in development.
     
  4. Check your redirect settings: Many sites still use a series of URL redirects even before the first HTML page is displayed to the user. Proper redirect configuration can save unnecessary roundtrips, eliminate the display of blank browser windows and speed up page load time.
     
  5. Check your server-side performance: Dynamic pages, e.g. containing location-based deals, your shopping cart or a product search result page, require server-side processing. When servers get overloaded with too many requests and when the application doesn't scale properly, performance problems cause slow page load and update times.

"A few top performers certainly made the most of this year's increased online and mobile holiday traffic by providing shoppers with good online experiences throughout the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period. Unfortunately, a large percentage of retailers failed to maximize their online sales potential," said John Van Siclen, General Manager of Compuware's Application Performance Management (APM) Business Unit. "However, there's still time for these retailers to implement the best practices outlined in our report to improve their site performance for the remainder of the 2011 holiday season."

A bright note in Compuware's report revealed that, while many retailers' websites failed to meet the performance expectations of shoppers, they were better prepared for the increase of shoppers using smartphones and other devices this holiday season. A majority (60 percent) of the retailers experienced double digit percentage improvements in shoppers' estimated satisfaction with mobile site performance compared to non-holiday baseline levels.

Compuware will continue to analyze shoppers estimated satisfaction with top U.S. Retailers web and mobile site performance throughout the remainder of the holiday season and will publish the complete results in January 2012.

Download the report (no registration required).

Compuware Corporation

Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, provides software, experts and best practices to ensure technology works well and delivers value. Compuware solutions make the world's most important technologies perform at their best for leading organizations worldwide, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. websites. Learn more at: http://www.compuware.com.

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