Looks like most of the consumers are turning away from e-commerce apps that don’t buffer quickly.
A new study found that over 60 per cent of the consumers leave an app midway if they experience buffering for longer than 10 seconds.
“About 20 per cent of the respondents said that they wouldn’t tolerate more than five seconds of buffering before they abandoned or switched apps. Apps freezing or crashing, as well as misleading app descriptions, were also primary concerns,” the study conducted by New Relic, an observability platform, said.
The State of Ecommerce in India report surveyed over 2,000 online shoppers in the country.
“As attention spans continue to drop and app marketplaces become more crowded, buffering is a key consumer concern that must be addressed by ecommerce providers seeking to gain market share,” Prasad Rai, New Relic Vice-President Sales for India, said.
Also read: E-commerce firms gear up for winter sales
The study found that consumers faced various issues with mobile apps, such as multiple notifications (41 per cent), slow buffering/loading times (38 per cent), and draining batteries (34 per cent). Multiple notifications were particularly bothersome for Android users (41 per cent) compared to iOS users (34 per cent).
Long loading time was one of the major reasons for consumers to disengage midway (34 per cent), or even delete it (25 per cent), indicating that addressing delays and buffering is critical for technology teams.
“It becomes even more problematic during online sales such as Black Friday, with outages having the potential to impact reputation and revenue,” the study said.
Also read: Indian e-commerce companies sold 23% more this Black Friday: Report
Nearly half (46 per cent) of respondents noted that a key reason to download a shopping app is its ability to offer a better or faster user experience compared to the website equivalent.
About half of the respondents noted that instant updates and notifications (42 per cent) and seamless payment functionality (41 per cent) are desirable features of a mobile shopping app.
