Ecommerce Vendors Challenge
This month, we elected to look at eCommerce vendors, and also compare not only desktop page speed load times, but mobile as well.* As a benchmark, rather than just using our own website, we decided to run with Google's "Think with Google" website, which we've reported on in the past. As Google is the one "beating the drum" as it were for fast loading mobile experiences, it seems appropriate.
*Page speed load performance is carried out using gtmetrix.com page speed testing software.

At Browserweb, we took a long hard look at AMP when it first came out and yes, it's fast, but in effect it's stripped out HTML, like your reader view on your phone. It takes a lot of customization to make it more visual and with forms on-page. We prefer visuals and interactive designs and, like many, have held off making the switch to AMP.
The more recent PWA seems a better solution, however, we've not delved into PWA. As most of our "challenge" websites below are using responsive designs for mobile, we've excluded PWA and AMP from the results. Hence, any website 12 seconds on under for mobile is currently a good barometer.
You'll see much higher page load times than desktop on mobile devices and as you can see from the results, only Browserweb with 5.6s, Google with 5.9s, and Shopify with 6.2s that came in under our benchmark 12 seconds.
To put that into perspective, only 3 out of 8 websites in our challenge loaded faster than 12s. Mobile page speed is still evolving but over 12 seconds and your conversions will be negatively affected.

Ecommerce Desktop Page Speed Challenge
VOLUSION.COM
AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
9.3s vs 8.6s in July, it's a even slower ecommerce experience at your desk this month. It's been given a speed Grade E.
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
8.6s for a very slow ecommerce experience at your desk.
Ecommerce Mobile Page Speed Challenge
VOLUSION.COM
AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
Try as we have, the speed tool throws out an error for this month's test. It seems the url is on a new beta layout (e.g. "/v2/" trailing directory on the website) and it's causing query issues. So we'll have to leave it at June's 23.3s on mobile.
JUNE 2018
MOBILE
23.3s on mobile. Volusion earns the wooden spoon for the month of June for that result. Shocking.
BIGCOMMERCE.COM
AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
An effort has been made since June's report, we're now recording 7.5s, a nearly 50% improvement. It's a Grade E and still has plenty of work to do.
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
Yikes! 13.5s leaves BC in big lag times. BigCommerce ends up in last place if you review the results of both desktop and mobile.
BIGCOMMERCE.COM

AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
A reversal in luck for mobile, recorded at 28.8s compared to 20.1s in June. Grade F, there's no big promises for mobile commerce here.JUNE 2018
MOBILE
Ouch! 20.1s for mobile and 13.5s for desktop makes BigCommerce a Big "NO" from us. We tested a few of their customer websites last month and shared the report on social media - the customer websites proved to be slow as well.AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
MAGENTO.COM
AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
An even bigger drop is mobile, with 20.0s recorded. Grade E.
JUNE 2018
MOBILE
However, as with Shopify, the mobile website is disappointing at 13.5s load time.
SQUARESPACE.COM
AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
5.4s is an improvement of 2s for SquareSpace over June 2018 results.
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
7.4s means a low score for SquareSpace and it's apparently not managed to totally free itself of Anthony's dorm and go enterprise for page speed.
SQUARESPACE.COM
AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
However, at 18.8s it's slower than June, which is not good news for the Squares mobile first enthusiasts. It's a lowly Grade F speed rank, which isn't a surprise, really.
JUNE 2018
MOBILE
At 16.9s it's consistent at least. Consistently slow.
MAGENTO.COM
AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
Sliding back to 4.3s, from #3Seconds in June. Grade D means some work required.
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
Browserweb used to be Magento developers as it was the new kid on the block and very up-to-date on technology. The issue we had was clients found the administrative area of the website a rather hard and steep learning curve compared to the likes of WooCommerce by WordPress and in those early days, OSCommerce and other open source ecommerce solutions. We are not surprised Adobe has purchased this enterprise commerce vendor, nor that their page load time for desktop comes bang in on #3Seconds either.
WEEBLY.COM
AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
JUNE 2018
MOBILE
SHOPIFY.COM
AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
The desktop has take a little dent, down to 3.0 seconds from 2.2s in June, but it's still in the #3Seconds range.
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
For a cloud-based solution, Shopify is the current market leader and the desktop speed is pretty decent, 2.2s sees this ecommerce platform come under our benchmark #3SECONDS.
SHOPIFY.COM
AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
Shopify obviously has all it's social listening tools in place, they've rapidly improved to 6.2s this month from 13s in June. They've broken out the geek tees and have been chopping the shop to successfully improve speeds. That said, they could tweak a bit more to improve the Grade C.
JUNE 2018
MOBILE
The problem that Shopify has is their mobile speed, it takes 13s to load. Now considering they are the envy of the world with the current preferred partner program with Instagram Shoppable, you'd expect their page speed to have been super-fast on mobile. But alas, they are a C Grade on the mobile page speed report.
BROWSERWEB.ORG
AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
1.7s is the latest and very consistent page speed for Browserweb.
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
1.6s is the latest and very consistent page speed for Browserweb.
THINKWITHGOOGLE.COM
AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
August test speed is 5.9s, which is similar to June's result of 6.0s. Browserweb has improved it's own mobile speed to 5.6s in August, keeping in sync with Google's results.
JUNE 2018
MOBILE
6.0s which, considering the talent, code and engineers at Google, is fair. It's not AMP speed but it's faster than all others, including Browserweb. That said, they don't have sliders or interactive elements on the home page at Think with Google, it's small and static.
THINKWITHGOOGLE.COM
AUGUST 2018
DESKTOP
August tests came in at 1.5 and June was 1.4s, which is on a par with Browserweb.
JUNE 2018
DESKTOP
1.4s which is on a par with Browserweb.
BROWSERWEB.ORG
AUGUST 2018
MOBILE
5.6s is our mobile speed. It's greatly improved since the launch of google's mobile index.
JUNE 2018
MOBILE
9.4s is our mobile speed. It's comfortably under our #12Seconds benchmark for mobile websites.


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