Thanksgiving 2020:  The Fastest and Slowest Retail Websites

FastCompany recorded a $3.7 billion spend online during the 2018 Thanksgiving holiday. In 2019 Thanksgiving sales beat the previous year with $4.2 billion spent, a 14.5% increase over 2018. This year the trend continued, according to TechCrunch Thanksgiving sales jumped 21.5% coming in at $5.1 billion.

With COVID on the rise a number of major retailers kept stores closed this Thanksgiving, but continued to run sales on or even before Thanksgiving. This makes online retail more important than in past years, and site performance extremely important so retailers can avoid outages. 

Blue Triangle retailer customer traffic 11/26 2:00am - 11/27 12:am

Outages and slow experiences result in lost sales. Below we see how conversion rate drops as users experience a slower and slower web page.

Methodology:

This year we are focusing on two critical web performance metrics - Page Load Time and Time to Interactive.

Page Load Time

The amount of time required for the server to load the page completely, including content, images, JavaScript, CSS, and other external files.

Time to Interactive

The amount of time it takes for the web page to become fully interactive. This is a Google Lighthouse metric, and is weighted heavily in Google's PageSpeed Score (v5) calculation. The below report is based on Home Page measurements run by Blue Triangle's Synthetic Monitoring, taken from 5 US locations.

Leading Retailers

Time to Interactive

Site 11/25 11/26 Delta % Change Site: Nordstrom Wed 11/25: 0.85 Thanksgiving: 0.86 Delta:.01 % Change: 1.17% Site: Apple, Inc. Wed 11/25: 1.42 Thanksgiving: 1.50 Delta:.08 % Change:5.6% Site: WalMart Wed 11/25: 1.95 Thanksgiving: 2.48 Delta:1.16 % Change:27.2% Site: Amazon Wed 11/25: 2.27 Thanksgiving: 3.11 Delta:.84 % Change:37.0% Site: Staples Wed 11/25: 2.79 Thanksgiving: 3.28 Delta:.49 % Change:15.6% Site: Dell Technologies Wed 11/25: 3.87 Thanksgiving: 3.36 Delta:-.51 % Change:-13.2% Site: Wayfair Wed 11/25: 4.16 Thanksgiving: 3.62 Delta:-.54 % Change:-13.0% Site: Lowe's Wed 11/25: 3.65 Thanksgiving: 3.63 Delta:-.02 % Change:-0.5% Site: Macy's Wed 11/25: 3.48 Thanksgiving: 3.67 Delta:19 % Change:5.5% Site: The Home Depot Wed 11/25: 3.74 Thanksgiving: 4.01 Delta:.27 % Change:7.2% Site: Walgreens Wed 11/25: 4.12 Thanksgiving: 4.86 Delta:.74 % Change:18.0% Site: Newegg Wed 11/25: 3.79 Thanksgiving: 4.09 Delta:.3 % Change:8.0% Site: Best Buy Wed 11/25: 3.67 Thanksgiving: 4.27 Delta:.6 % Change:16.3% Site: Williams-Sonoma Wed 11/25: 3.50 Thanksgiving: 4.54 Delta:1.04 % Change:29.7% Site: Office Depot Wed 11/25: 5.08 Thanksgiving: 4.93 Delta:-.15 % Change:-3.0% Site: Nike Wed 11/25: 4.95 Thanksgiving: 4.97 Delta:.02 % Change:0.4% Site: Target Wed 11/25: 5.22 Thanksgiving: 5.13 Delta:-.09 % Change:-1.7% Site: PetSmart Wed 11/25: 4.98 Thanksgiving: 5.18 Delta:.20 % Change:4.0% Site: Kroger Wed 11/25: 5.88 Thanksgiving: 5.33 Delta:-.55 % Change:-9.4% Site: Estée Lauder Wed 11/25: 22.22 Thanksgiving: 22.84 Delta:-.62 % Change:-2.8%

Page Load

The Fastest Digital Commerce 360 Top 500 Retailers

Time to Interactive

Site TTI (sec) Site: Shoplet.com TTI(sec):0.30 Site: Summit Racing Equipment TTI(sec): 0.67 Site: J. Hillburn TTI(sec): 0.83 Site: Nordstrom TTI(sec): 0.86 Site: Performance Bike TTI(sec): 0.96 Site: Bissel TTI(sec): 1.00 Site: Adore Me TTI(sec): 1.02 Site: 123Stores TTI(sec): 1.04 Site: CARiD TTI(sec): 1.06 Site: RockAuto TTI(sec): 1.11 Site: Buy Costumes TTI(sec): 1.13 Site: Tactics TTI(sec): 1.17 Site: Skinit Acquisition LLC TTI(sec): 1.23 Site: Graze TTI(sec): 1.25 Site:Karmaloop.com TTI(sec):1.26 Site:JetPens.com TTI(sec): 1.29 Site: CabinetParts.com TTI(sec): 1.43 Site: VIN Check Pro TTI(sec): 1.47 Site: School Outfitters TTI(sec): 1.48 Site: Apple TTI(sec):1.50

Page Load

Site Page Load Site: Performance Bike Page Load(sec):0.35 Nordstrom Page Load(sec): 0.43 Site: PetFlow Page Load(sec): 0.51 Site: Sennheiser Electronic GMBH Page Load(sec): 0.59 Site: BaubleBar Page Load(sec): 0.84 Site: Spreadshirt Page Load(sec): 0.85 Site: Dollar Tree Inc. Page Load(sec): 0.85 Site: Away Page Load(sec): 0.87 Site: Under Armour Page Load(sec): 0.89 Site: J. Hillburn Page Load(sec): 0.90 Site: Moosejaw Page Load(sec): 0.90 Site: Rock Auto Page Load(sec): 0.91 Site: CabinetParts.com Page Load(sec): 0.91 Site: Autotrader Page Load(sec): 0.92 Site:Alibris 0.93 Site:Indochino Page Load(sec): 0.95 GNC Holdings Page Load(sec): 0.97 Site: ShoeMall Page Load(sec): 0.98 Site: MidwayUSA Page Load(sec): 1.06 Site: Road Runner Sports Page Load(sec):1.08

The Slowest Digital Commerce 360 Top 500 Retailers

Time to Interactive

Site TTI (sec) Site: Estée Lauder TTI(sec):22.84 Site: Duluth Trading Company TTI(sec): 12.29 Site: MM.Lafleur TTI(sec): 8.59 Site: GlassesUSA TTI(sec): 7.35 Site: The Children's Place TTI(sec): 7.21 Site: Buckle TTI(sec): 7.12 Site: Miles Kimball TTI(sec): 7.27 Site: Chicos TTI(sec): 7.02 Site: Hanes Brands TTI(sec): 6.97 Site: School Specialty TTI(sec): 6.68 Site: Hot Topic TTI(sec): 6.53 Site: Casper TTI(sec): 6.51 Site: Databazaar.com TTI(sec): 6.50 Site: Ulta TTI(sec): 6.47 Site:HP TTI(sec):6.22 Site:Sundae Muse TTI(sec): 6.09 Adidas 5.98 Site: Brownells Inc. TTI(sec): 6.05 Site: Fresh Direct TTI(sec): 6.02 Gemvara TTI(sec):6.01

Page Load

See where the top US retailers stack up weekly: Access the Retail US Benchmarks