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Supermarkets serve up varied pace online
Sites can't keep up?

By Julian Goldsmith

Published: Wednesday 27 August 2008

As online retail captures a growing share of the consumer spend, customer service on supermarket websites is not following pace.

A wide range in web page loading response times within UK grocer's websites - with the slowest more than three times behind the leader - has been found in a survey by online customer experience specialist Gomez.

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ASDA.com came top with an average response time of 7.8 seconds when tested by more than 40,000 PCs with different dial-up and broadband connections over seven days. In the same test, Tesco.com came close behind with 8.3 seconds and Sainsburys.com's grocery site landed in third at 10.5 seconds. However, Sainsburys.co.uk had a time lag of more than 24 seconds.

A spokesman for Gomez said: "Online sales grew 38 per cent year on year in the first six months of this year. Downtime and inconsistency doesn't just prevent purchasing - they can ruin customer experiences and create lasting harm."