Valentine's Day Performance Analysis

Let's face it. We've all probably shopped at the last minute for practically every holiday and Valentine's Day is no exception. In fact, Amazon even created a category on their site for this very thing. Studies show that two-thirds of Americans do not begin planning their shopping until one week or less. 

On February 13, buyer urgency is sky-high and online retailer performance must keep up or else shoppers will abandon and go elsewhere to purchase their last minute gifts. Around 16% of Valentines Day presents were expected to be purchased online this year, and these online shoppers spend 31% more on average than in-store shoppers. Performance matters, especially during Valentines Day.

Methodology

• Date: 2/13
• Sites Measured: 27
• Measurements Times and Locations: Multi-Hour from various US locations
• Time Zone: Eastern Standard Time
• Reported Metric: Geometric Mean

Please Note: Each time stamp represents an hour's worth of measurements. Example: 7:00pm measurements represent all measurements between 7:00pm and 7:59pm.

Performance Overview

• Worst Performing Site: Avon.com - 9.16 sec avg page speed
• Top Performing Site: BlueNile.com - 1.93 sec avg page speed
• Worst Performing Industry: Beauty - 4.70 sec avg page speed
• Top Performing Industry: Specialty - 3.0 sec avg page speed
• Overall site speed slowed by 9% between midnight and 5am and by 5% between 3pm and 10pm.

Industry Overview

Valentines Day shopping is dominated by the Jewelry, Specialty, Greeting Cards, Flowers, and Beauty industries. Here is their performance in greater detail:

Jewelry Industry

Blue Nile had the fastest site (1.94 sec), and Kay Jewelers had the slowest. (4.41 sec)

Specialty Industry

Personalization Mall had the fastest site (2.19 sec), and Yankee Candle had the slowest. (4.0 sec)

Flowers Industry

Nectar Flowers had the fastest site (2.23 sec), and FTD had the slowest. (5.84 sec)

Beauty Industry

Estee Lauder had the fastest site (2.99 sec), and Avon had the slowest. (9.16 sec)

Greeting Cards Industry

American Greetings had the fastest site (2.63 sec), and Shutterfly had the slowest. (8.40 sec)

Performance Matters

Performance directly impacts user experience and revenue. Here at Blue Triangle, we quantify where and how much page speed impacts online businesses. We recently helped Microsoft Store grow revenues by 30% in just one year. Find out more about what we do and how we do it!