Report containing synthetic web performance metrics for Black Friday Brazil 2013 taken from data center, last mile and mobile devices. Data is from 49 e-commerce sites in Brazil.
3. Key take away points
32% average page load time increase during Black Friday Brazil 2013.
Average homepage page load times by network access technology:
Data Center (Backbone)
Last Mile (Cable, DSL, Wi-Fi)
Mobile cellular (3G)
9 seconds
15 seconds
22 seconds
32% Baseline average page load time increase between Black Friday Brazil 2012 & 2013
96% availability during Black Friday Brazil 2013 Last Mile:
24 seconds peak third party content (Facebook) Slowest state: Amapa 30 sec.
Fastest state: Acre 8.5 sec.
Some sites implemented wait queues during peak usage times, using custom error screens
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
6. 32%
cumulative
Black Friday seems to have started
earlier this year, registering a spike
on Monday November 25th.
average
increase in
response time
increase in average page
load times on Nov 29
from previous week
range: 22 November 9AM through
30 November 9AM 1 week prior
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
7. 35%
Reduction in page peak times:
2012 peak of 80 seconds
2013 peak of 52 seconds
Black Friday 2013
range: Back Friday 2013 and
3 days before, 3 days after
Black Friday 2012
was November 23rd
range: Back Friday 2012 and
3 days before, 3 days after
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
8. 32%
Increase in average baseline
Page load times
2013 average
(+3 days before/after Black Friday):
7.800 seconds
Black Friday 2013
The peaks are lower but the baseline
is higher by about 2 seconds
2012 average
(+3 days before/after Black Friday):
5.871 seconds
Black Friday 2012
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
The peaks are higher by
about 3 seconds but the baseline is
lower
9. 22sec.
Mobile
average
response time
Remember, users are expecting the same
response times for mobile as for PCs
range: 28 Nov 9AM - 30 Nov 2AM @ 30min interval
range: 28 Nov 9AM - 30 Nov 2AM @ 1hr interval
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
11. Backbone vs Last Mile vs Mobile comparison:
single site homepage avg. response time
range: 28 Nov 9AM - 30 Nov 2AM @ 1 hr interval
single site homepage page weight
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
12. 24sec.
3rd Party peak
response time
Third party components: FACEBOOK
(including Akamaized content)
range: 28 Nov 9AM - 30 Nov 2AM @ 30min interval
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
13. Detail Friday November 29, starting 28 Nov 9AM through November 30 2AM
Backbone
First peak: midnight Nov 29
Wait queues implemented
between 1 and 8AM
cumulative
average
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
Last peak 9PM Nov 29
range: 28 November 9AM through
30 November 2AM @ 30min interval
14. CROWD Control
implementation of wait lines queues
page weight changed during maximum utilization
displaying wait in queue messages
availability drops at the same time
response time
availability
page weight
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
15. Mobile average response time & availability
response time by carrier
one mobile formatted site web page (not native app) in S達o Paulo
Availability by carrier
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
17. Server errors
Screenshots of errors encountered by different sites during Black Friday, this is what the end
users would have seen. Providing custom error screens with better explanations can help.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
18. Server errors
Screenshots of application exception errors encountered during Black Friday on different sites.
These errors can be further analyzed and prevented with an internal APM monitoring tool.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
19. Network errors:
Screenshots of what users would see on their browsers when
encountering network errors, like DNS and timeouts. These
were captured during Black Friday.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
20. Error Messages
Instead of generic (or none) error messages like this:
or minimalistic like this:
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
21. Error Messages
Some sites provided visitors with informative custom messages:
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
22. complete web page image
RICARDOELETRO
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Page was not displayed correctly, showing just text and images with
no style sheet.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
23. complete web page image
WALMART
.com.br
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Many product images loading at the same time.
When theres low response time this will make the page
seem empty, users might hesitate taking next step.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
24. complete web page image
LEADER
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
After several seconds the page still shows loading message.
Is the page ready?
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
25. complete web page image
FAST Shop
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Same issue as seen in other pages, no style sheet, just raw images
and text. Makes site appear longer than it really is, more scrolling
needed by user to find items.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
26. complete web page image
EXTRA
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Page missing style sheet, just showing images and text.
This forces the user to reload page, retry later.
Most will not scroll down this very long page.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
27. complete web page image
DI SANTINNI
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Another example of missing style sheet, site just showing images
and text, forcing user to reload page. Theres a risk of the user
actually abandoning the page and going elsewhere.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
28. complete web page image
POLISHOP
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Heavy content like videos takes much longer to load and
will give the appearance of the page not being ready.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
29. complete web page image
COLOMBO
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Heavy flash content takes longer to load.
Take into account size and load time of this type of
Component, is it really worth the hit in performance?
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
30. complete web page image
CASA E VIDEO
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Some images missing at the bottom of the page,
in this specific example nothing significant lost.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
31. complete web page image
PONTOFRIO
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Too many item images loading at the same time
if the server where these images reside is slow, it
will slow the entire page. This can make a user
abandon the page, check response times for
image components.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
32. complete web page image
AMAZON.com.br
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Application accessing visitor history, potential
bottleneck that can slow down page load time.
Is it really needed if youre not logged in yet?
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
33. PASSARELA
sample error screen captured of site during Black Friday
Blank space, nothing displayed
takes too long to load
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
35. Purchase transaction steps
Just measuring the performance of an e-commerce homepage will not give you a complete
picture of the user experience. Thats why a full purchase script was recorded for 5 top sites
that would give us more insight into specific steps, for example the login where the site
has to check the user db, authenticate it via SSL/HTTPS this touches different elements of
the infrastructure.
Site A
Site B
Site C
Site D
Site E
Number of steps
10
9
9
8
8
Typical steps are:
Homepage
Search
View product detail
Purchase / warranty info
Login
Confirm ship-to address
Payment method
-
Back to shopping cart
Empty shopping cart
Exit
( the last three steps are necessary to replenish product stock )
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
36. Average response times from last mile
For all steps of purchase script from last mile locations in all of Brazil:
Average response time for login step (different step # on scripts)
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
37. Average response time for step 1 on all sites, homepage
Average response time for step 2 on all sites, search for same product
Average response time for step 3 on all sites, show product detail
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
38. Average response time by Brazil state, homepage only
Last Mile measurements
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
39. Average throughput by Brazil state, homepage only
Last Mile measurements
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
41. Network component times
cumulative
As expected, First byte times are the major contributor to the increases in response times.
This is the time it takes the infrastructure of the site to send the first byte of content back to
the client, this includes Web, App and Database servers as well as network devices.
Proper load-testing can help identify weak areas within the infrastructure prior to a big
calendar event. Ideally, 1st byte response times should remain flat even with increased load.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
42. Other network component times
cumulative
DNS times increased slightly after initial peak
Network connection times stable
throughout the day, ISPs did a good
job by providing sufficient bandwidth
SSL encryption connection times
were also stable.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
43. Page weight
# of Hosts
Extremely heavy pages, 4MB and 3MB!
Some sites had as many as 70 hosts just on their homepage, this means a lot of
third party content and tags that slow down page load times.
BRAZIL BLACK FRIDAY 2013 web performance metrics
44. BLACK
BLACK
Y
FRIDA
FRIDA
metrics collected using Compuware synthetic monitoring
Backbone: Terremark / Verizon (SP), Level3 (SP), Alog (RJ)
Last Mile, over 1K agents available throughout Brazil
Mobile 3G networks: Claro, Vivo, Oi, TIM
purchase transactions recorded using the Compuware Gomez Recorder
error screens captured using SCoE (Screen Capture on Error)
Ricardo Aguilera, December 2, 2013
for more information contact: simone.lopes@compuware.com