The average response time of a mobile retail site is 6.9 seconds, according to data from Compuware. This lags far behind desktop performance, which sees a response time as low as half a second on the fastest sites.

In Compuwares tests, 12 retailers beat the average time. Surprisingly, its not the big brands which perform best, with price comparison sites Shopping.com (2.50secs), Nextag (2.51secs) and Ciao (2.80secs) taking the top three spots, though this might be down to them having less content to frontload.

Which retailers fared best?
Of the traditional retailers, Tesco is fastest, with a response time of 2.81secs – and its also the only retailer to appear in the top five both on mobile and desktop. However, it performed less well in the availability section, with the site functioning 99.1 per cent of the time, falling just below the average.

In the fifth and sixth spots are Maplin (3.43secs) and Halfords (3.77secs) respectively, with New Look, Carphone Warehouse and Toys R Us also clocking in above the average response time.

Amazon, despite its digital roots, appears at the bottom of the top 10, with a time of 4.51secs – though it beats competitor Play.com (24.9secs) by quite a margin. Its performance was highly consistent, however, with response time varying by a standard deviation of 4.03secs, putting it fourth overall in this category.

The 12 brands with faster-than-average response times, according to Compuware, are listed below:
1 Shopping UK – 2.500
2 Nextag – 2.511
3 Ciao UK – 2.801
4 Tesco – 2.811
5 Maplin – 3.436
6 Halfords – 3.766
7 Twenga – 4.111
8 Newlook – 4.463
9 HP UK – 4.500
10 Amazon UK – 4.514
11 Carphone Warehouse – 4.792
12 Toys R Us UK – 5.323