(Source: Business Wire)Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leader in powering video, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today released key findings from a commissioned study (www.akamai.com/2seconds) conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Akamai examining eCommerce web site performance and its correlation with an online shopper's behavior. The most compelling results reveal that two seconds is the new threshold in terms of an average online shopper's expectation for a web page to load and 40 percent of shoppers will wait no more than three seconds before abandoning a retail or travel site.

Additional findings indicate that quick page loading is a key factor in a consumer's loyalty to an eCommerce site, especially for high spenders. 79 percent of online shoppers who experience a dissatisfying visit are less likely to buy from the same site again while 27 percent are less likely to buy from the same site's physical store, suggesting that the impact of a bad online experience will reach beyond the web and can result in lost store sales.

In 2006, Akamai conducted a similar study (www.akamai.com/4seconds) to understand consumer reaction to a poor online shopping experience. The 2009 study is a follow up to examine how customer expectations around online shopping have evolved in the past three years.

Based on the feedback of 1,048 online shoppers that were surveyed, Forrester Consulting concluded the following key findings:

Consumers become impatient when pages take longer than two seconds to load. 47 percent of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less, representing a significant evolution in consumer expectation over the 2006 study, which showed customer expectations at four seconds or less. Forrester found that 40 percent of consumers will wait no more than three seconds for a web page to render before abandoning the site.

Online shopper loyalty is contingent upon quick page loading, especially for high-spending shoppers. 52 percent of online shoppers stated that quick page loading is important to their site loyalty, up 12 percent from the 2006 study.

Shoppers often become distracted when made to wait for a page to load. 14 percent will begin shopping at another site, and 23 percent will stop shopping or walk away from their computer.

Retail and travel sites that underperform lead to lost sales. 79 percent of online shoppers who experience a dissatisfying visit are less likely to buy from that site again, up 17 percent from the 2006 study.