How New Devices, Networks, and Consumer Habits Will Change the Web Experience

How new devices, networks, and
consumer habits will change the web
experience
By Amy Cravens
January 22, 2013

This research was underwritten by Akamai.

Mobile

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive summary ................................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 6

The challenge........................................................................................................................................ 7

Poor experiences equal lost sales ......................................................................................................... 8

Factors impacting web experience: Device ............................................................................................... 9

Factors impacting web experience: Browser ........................................................................................... 11

Factors impacting web experience: Network ........................................................................................... 13

CDN placement ................................................................................................................................... 13

IPv6 ..................................................................................................................................................... 14

Factors impacting web experience: Web design ..................................................................................... 15

Page-size bloat ................................................................................................................................... 15

Native apps vs. web apps.................................................................................................................... 16

Case studies ........................................................................................................................................... 18

Financial Times ................................................................................................................................... 18

CHALLENGE ...................................................................................................................................... 18

PHILOSOPHY ..................................................................................................................................... 18

MULTI-DEVICE STRATEGY .................................................................................................................. 19

MOBILE STRATEGY ............................................................................................................................ 19

Wal-Mart ............................................................................................................................................. 21

CHALLENGE ...................................................................................................................................... 21

PHILOSOPHY ..................................................................................................................................... 21

MULTI-DEVICE STRATEGY .................................................................................................................. 21

MOBILE STRATEGY ............................................................................................................................ 22

Meeting the challenge ............................................................................................................................. 24

How new devices, networks, and consumer habits will change the web experience 2

About Amy Cravens ................................................................................................................................ 26

About GigaOM Pro .................................................................................................................................. 26


Executive summary
Delivering a positive web experience has become exceedingly more complex as the access environment
has shifted from a desktop-centric vision to one that is increasingly focused on mobile devices — and with
potential for other consumer devices in the near future. Website owners must now consider the customer
experience across both desktop and mobile devices and their browsers, a reality that is alarming for many
companies. As the access environment has evolved to include mobile devices in addition to desktop ones,
it has created pain points in delivering a web experience from the network to the device to the browser
and finally to the web design itself. Mobilizing web design is a catch-22; adjusting to design challenges is
costly, but not adjusting is equally costly, because a poor mobile web experience results in a loss of
revenue.

This report will examine what drives content consumption today and illustrate what the changing
consumption of content has meant to the development and delivery of web and mobile content. It will
also examine the evolution of the web experience and explore the challenges of content delivery to both
mobile and desktop devices with a focus on four primary areas: device differences, browser distinctions,
network variations, and application performance. Through case studies, the report will provide detailed
analysis of individual company experiences and next-generation strategies for dealing with these
challenges.

Key issues the report will address include:

 How the multi-device environment has increased the complexity of delivering web content
 How website owners, while struggling to assimilate multiple devices and browsers, are trying to
maintain a consistent user experience
 How browser fragmentation, a result of the current multitude of browsers, creates an opportunity
for optimization
 The necessary balance between delivering the best experience for a given device and managing
overhead costs
 Multiple mobile experiences that incorporate both the mobile web and native apps
 The company’s desired relationship with its customers as an important consideration in
determining its mobile strategy
 How an innovative multi-device strategy will be disruptive to the status quo


 How a quality mobile experience can advance customer relationships and how a poor experience
can terminate relationships


Introduction
The web, and how we experience it, is very different from what it was a decade ago. While the web
experience has become more sophisticated with the heavier incorporation of graphics and multimedia
elements, its performance is faster because of the advancement of networks as well as of content-delivery
and optimization techniques. However, perhaps the single biggest shift in the web experience over the
past decade has been in how we access it. What was delivered just a few years ago over a fixed network to
the desktop is now just as likely to go over a mobile network and be consumed on any number of
connected devices.

Since the iPhone launched, smartphone shipments have skyrocketed. GigaOM Research expects
shipments to have reached 528 million units globally in 2012. Currently 40 percent of adults have a
smartphone; that number will likely reach 70 percent in a few short years. Add to these numbers the
growing tablet market, with an expected 118 million units to have shipped in 2012 (up from just 60
million units in 2011), and the enormity of the mobile web becomes evident. Growth in the smartphone
and tablet markets has caused a significant disruption in the web experience, so those along the web-
delivery chain must rethink and revise their strategies.

Table 1. Global smartphone and tablet shipments in millions, 2010–2012
2010 2011 2012
Tablet shipments (in millions) 17 62 118
Smartphone shipments (in 270 447 528
millions)
Source: GigaOM Research

Complexities in delivering and managing the web experience extend beyond the growth in mobile.
Companies are also faced with new challenges in the desktop environment, including browser
fragmentation, network evolution, and client-side technologies, so they must invest now to maintain a
quality web experience in the desktop environment as well as to create an optimized experience for the
very distinct mobile market. Otherwise, they risk losing business to competitors who have made this
investment.


The challenge
Although users access the web in many ways across a wide range of conditions, performance expectations
across these varying situations remain fairly consistent. Variable conditions and static expectations have
created a significant challenge in the delivery of web content.

Sites are using richer media and connecting to other applications like Facebook, Twitter, and analytics
monitoring. Although content is becoming more dynamic and less cacheable, consumers still want it fast.

 Akamai, a provider of internet content-delivery technologies, notes in its August 2012 “State of the
Internet” report that the global average connection speed is 2.6 Mbps. The report found that
mobile data traffic, which doubled from the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012,
ranges in average connection speed from 322 Kbps to 6.0 Mbps, a variance that can have a
significant impact on mobile web performance. Despite the variances in connectivity rates,
consumers often expect mobile web experiences to emulate, if not improve upon, desktop web
experiences.
 Tealeaf, an IBM company focused on customer-behavior analysis, found that consumers expect
mobile transactions to be easier than they are offline (51 percent) or on a desktop computer (50
percent).
 Gomez, now a division of Compuware, found in 2011 that 71 percent of mobile phone users expect
websites to load as quickly on their mobile phones as on their desktops, up from 58 percent in
2009.
 An e.Digital benchmark study found that customers expect the same brand experience and
product choice they would find on desktop sites and that they also expect the same features.
 Google reported in its “New Multi-Screen World” graphic that 90 percent of consumers begin a
task on one device (typically a smartphone) and then complete it on another device. Of those
using multiple devices sequentially, 98 percent move among devices within a given day.
Smartphones are the most common starting place for online activities, while desktops are the
most common starting place for more complex activities.


Poor experiences equal lost sales
Businesses cannot afford this inconsistency in customer experience. Consumers expect always-on
connectivity with nearly zero latency on a mobile device as well as on a desktop, an expectation that is
often unmet. Multiple studies link poor mobile and website performance with lost revenue and damaged
brands:

 Wal-Mart has shown a sharp decline in conversion rate as average site-load time increased from
1 second to 4 seconds.
 Amazon has found that every 100-millisecond improvement in page-load time led to a
1 percent increase in revenue.
 Torbit, a provider of web analytics, has found that as the seconds it took to load the first page
increased, so did the bounce rate, with the steepest incline between 2 seconds and 6 seconds (the
bounce rate increased from 30 percent to 40 percent over that timeframe).
 Research from Econsultancy (2011) shows that out of those consumers who conducted a mobile
transaction, 83 percent experienced a problem. Of those experiencing a problem, 16 percent
became more likely to buy from a competitor.
 Gomez found that 60 percent of mobile web users had a problem when accessing a website on
their phone. Furthermore, if dissatisfied with website performance, more than 40 percent of
smartphone and tablet users are unlikely to visit the site again and more than 25 percent are less
likely to purchase from that company across all channels.
 Strangeloop Networks reported in its “2012 State of Mobile Ecommerce Performance” that the
average load time for DSL was 7.1 seconds compared to 11.5 seconds on an iPhone (over 3G
connection).
 Mobile commerce-platform provider MoPowered found that 79 percent of respondents felt
shopping on a mobile device was slow and difficult to navigate and that 30 percent abandoned a
transaction because the experience was bad.
 Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association found in research conducted during the first quarter
of 2012 that while email-open rates had increased since the previous year and the previous
quarter, click-through rates had declined, likely because emails are abandoned after consumers
open them on mobile devices and discover the messages are not optimized. Click-through rates
decreased 0.5 percentage points from the last quarter of 2011 and 5.2 percent from the first
quarter of 2011.


Factors impacting web experience: Device
The broadening device landscape is the most tangible of the four pain points in the evolution of delivering
a web experience. Just as screen size impacts how information is consumed, environmental context
guides the type of information being sought. While desktop and tablet users often search for deeper
information, the mobile user is often seeking small snippets of easily consumed information compatible
with the context.

Figure 1. Current web content-viewing landscape and environments

Former Web Content Emerging Web Content
Environment Environment


When mobile-device users access websites dependent on Flash or Ajax, common problems they
encounter include usability hindrances, navigation paradigm clashes, and screen real-estate management
issues.

Those companies with available resources are now developing multiple web experiences — at minimum, a
standard and mobile-optimized website. Figure 2 provides an example of a traditional and mobile-
optimized website as they each appear on a typical smartphone. However, some companies lack the
budget to manage multiple web experiences; others are unwilling to allocate the resources.


Figure 2. Comparison of standard and mobile websites as they each appear on a mobile device


Solutions that allow for better performance of a single website across multiple devices are emerging,
though still at a cost to website owners. Capabilities such as responsive design, a web-design technique in
which a site is crafted to provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices, improve
the cross-device functionality of a single site. Responsive design reduces resizing, panning, and scrolling
so that reading and navigation are improved on smaller screens. It also utilizes media queries and
breakpoints along with other tools to aid in adapting content to different screen-form factors.

Site-rendering for multiple-device viewing is spurring a new field that has given rise to several startup
businesses. Netbiscuits, for example, is a small company specializing in tools such as an XML-coding
optimizer, which helps developers build pages that will display optimally on any device.

Improving the viewing experience for smaller screens is important, but screen size is only one element
that differs on devices. Operating systems, processing power, and memory also affect web performance.
Device variance is highlighted in a study from the third quarter of 2012 conducted by website-
optimization provider Strangeloop Networks. The company tested 200 leading retail websites over 3G
and LTE networks using six Android and iOS devices: the iPhone 4, iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S
smartphone, Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone, iPad 2, and Samsung Galaxy tablet. The results show that
pages loaded 9 percent faster on the Samsung Galaxy S3 than on the iPhone 5 (over LTE) and that pages
loaded 22 percent faster on the iPad 2 than on the Samsung Galaxy tablet (over 3G). Again, these
variances in performance can have a significant impact on the consumer’s level of satisfaction with a web
experience.

Some companies are adapting the web experience to the device model. In other words, they are serving
the full site to iPad 2 users but a mobile version to Galaxy tablet users. Device-specific website
management is cumbersome and will become increasingly so as the tablet market continues to diversify.


Factors impacting web experience: Browser
Browser diversity amplifies the complexity of a broadening device landscape. Websites could once be
optimized for just one or two browsers, but now most are viewed on as many as 10 different browsers and
platforms.

These variances are evident even within a device category; for example, Google Chrome performance on a
Mac desktop is different from Internet Explorer (IE) performance on a Windows desktop. Each website
creates a profile based on the browser used by the visitor, creating unique performance characteristics.
These variances are even more significant when comparing desktop and mobile experiences. Figure 3
illustrates the average page-load times across multiple desktop browsers versus browsing speeds on
multiple mobile browsers.

Figure 3. Average page-load times across leading desktop and mobile browsers

12
Desktop Mobile
10

8

6

4

2

0

Source: Torbit


In early 2011, Mozilla announced it would adopt a significantly shorter development cycle for Firefox
browser releases so that it can accelerate browser development and avoid losing further market share to
Google Chrome.

Key trends in browser evolution and their impact on delivering a web experience include:

 HTML5, largely driven by Google and Apple support:


o Application-caching makes applications accessible without an internet connection by
allowing web applications to be cached locally on a phone. Application-caching increases
speed because cached resources load faster, and it reduces server load by only
downloading updates or changes from the server.
o HTML5 enables local storage of page data within the user’s browser. Web storage is faster
and more secure than cookies.
o Supported by HTML5, web worker is a JavaScript that runs in the background
independently of other user-interface scripts without affecting the performance of the
page.
 CSS3 support enables further programming options for web fonts, animations, gradients, and
shadows.
 Performance improvements engendered through upgrades support faster JavaScript processing,
parallel download of JavaScript scripts, more parallel connections, resource pre-fetching, and
multi-threading in JavaScript.


Factors impacting web experience: Network
User interactions with web content require new strategies in content delivery network (CDN) placement.
Furthermore, the industry is encountering capacity issues as online activity continually increases. This is
spurring a gradual but necessary transition to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

Discrepancies in mobile networks have a significant impact on end-user experiences. In building out the
LTE network, carriers promise mobile connectivity up to 10 times greater than 3G, but a Strangeloop
Networks study indicated that web content loaded only 27 percent faster on LTE than on 3G. In addition,
4G/LTE is an all-IP-based network that passes information between phone and carrier as efficiently as a
web browser communicates with the internet.

One important trend in carrier-network capacity management is offloading mobile devices to Wi-Fi
networks to decrease the drain of data traffic on the cellular network. Even so, hotspots have not been
fully utilized as a carrier-network offload option, due to the complexity of differing logins and difficulty
connecting. Efforts such as the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Passpoint program, which removes the multiple-login
barrier and turns hotspots into roaming networks, aim to improve usability of Wi-Fi as a mobile offload
network.

Network performance is also affected by the efficiency in routing traffic across the network. Latency, the
speed at which network components talk to one another, is higher for wireless connections and grows
with distance. Table 2 provides a comparison of average bandwidth and latency across network types.

Table 2. Average bandwidth and latency with cable, 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi

3G 4G Wi-Fi Cable
Download speed (Mbps) .5 to 3.0 3 to 10 5 to 600 25 to 100
Upload speed (Mpbs) .5 to 1.5 1 to 6 5 to 600 2 to 8
Latency (ms) 110 to 120 20 to 40 31.9 20 to 30

CDN placement
With an increasing density of users and high-bandwidth traffic, CDNs emerged to help websites ensure
that pages are delivered efficiently, typically by caching popular pages closer to likely users. CDNs and
their strategic placement in the network can have a significant impact on website performance on both
mobile and desktop devices.


IPv6
A final factor impacting network performance for wired and wireless networks alike is the need to
transition to IPv6. The internet is quickly running out of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, an
addressing scheme created 40 years ago based on 32-bit addresses and supporting 4.3-billion connected
devices. IPv6, a newer addressing scheme, uses 128-bit addresses and can support a virtually limitless
number of devices.

IPv6, however, is not backwards-compatible with IPv4. Some carriers and web content providers are
using translation mechanisms such as carrier-grade NATs and IPv4 address-sharing to be able to support
both protocols without significant additional cost; however, such translations could slow performance,
resulting in the deterioration of a user's web experience.


Factors impacting web experience: Web design
Site developers must consider the type of content and how it will appear across environments when
deciding whether to create multiple unique websites for each device or optimize a single site and even to
determine if a website is ultimately the best means for delivering web content. How developers and
website owners create a site affects performance just as the network, hardware, or software do.

Page-size bloat
As website owners and designers increase the complexity of pages with images and third-party scripts like
analytics, ads, and social-sharing buttons, the size of the average page has grown to nearly 1.3 MB,
according to November 2012 stats from HTTP Archive. This page-size bloat has disproportionately
impacted mobile users. Downloading 1.3 MB pages can rapidly deplete a mobile user’s monthly data
quota (that would be roughly 1,600 page views for a 2 GB plan or 50 page views per day, which does not
account for any video or audio consumption). Bloated pages also take longer to download, which is both
frustrating to the user and costly to the website owner.

Figure 4. Average page size in kilobytes (KB), December 2010 to September 2012

Average Page Size
1200
1068
1000 965 1098
1008
784
Page Size (KB)

800 726 831
600 735

400

200

0

Source: HTTP Archive


Native apps vs. web apps
In the mobile environment, website owners must consider whether they will deliver content through the
mobile web or through a native app. Native apps can provide a richer experience than the mobile web, but
they are often limited in functionality, costly to develop, and unwieldy to maintain for multiple platforms.
The mobile web, while offering cross-device flexibility, does not afford as rich of a user experience.
Website owners must consider a variety of factors, including user experience, performance, and cost,
when determining which path to take (see Figure 5).

A company’s decision about which path to take can have significant implications on consumer
perceptions. Facebook, for instance, whose iPhone app was exceedingly slow and prone to crashing,
received terrible reviews on the iTunes App Store, which adversely affected general user perceptions of
the company. Facebook has revamped the app with a focus primarily on increasing speed, converting
from an HTML5-based app to one written primarily in Objective-C.

But increasingly, website owners do not have to simply choose between an unresponsive mobile web
strategy or an unwieldy app strategy. New technologies, including responsive design, HTML5, and hybrid
apps, are introducing new flexibility in delivering a mobile web experience.

 Responsive design. The responsive design process optimizes the user experience by
reformatting content to adapt to each screen. Performance tests run by WebPagetest indicate that
sites implementing responsive design supported similar load times across screen resolutions
spanning from 320x480 to 1600x1200. However, responsive design does not alter the amount of
data delivered based on the device type; a mobile user has to download a page that is in desktop
proportions on a constrained device across a high-latency/low-bandwidth network, resulting in a
poor user experience.
 HTML5. HTML5 affords website owners and developers a “write once, run everywhere” strategy.
The promise that HTML5 will function the same on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone is not yet
reality because HTML5 is still in development. However, HTML5 can be utilized to better
optimize a mobile website, or it can be merged with mobile apps to create a hybrid app.
 Hybrid apps. A growing opportunity for app design is the hybrid app, a half-browser, half-native
app. Hybrid apps are developed in HTML5 and then “wrapped” with native code and deployed to
app stores. Hybrid apps maintain the cross-platform capabilities of the mobile web approach
(because they are written using web technologies), but they also have access to native APIs, run
locally (offline potential) on the device, and have app store distribution.


Figure 5. Comparison of native apps, mobile web, and hybrid apps

Apps Mobile Web
Pros Pros
 Richer experience  Cross-platform capability
 Access to native APIs/resources  Discovery--limited engagement
 Long-term relationship  Bite-size, timely, topical information
 One-touch access  Short time to market
 Device-specific look/feel  Performance optimization approaches
 Faster graphics performance  Centralized updates
 App store distribution/monetization  Written with web technologies
 Runs locally, supports offline  Open standards
 Native access to phone's data  No dependency on app store

Cons Cons
F  Expensive to develop for multiple  Limited functionality
U
N
Apps 
platforms
Difficult to build and maintain


No access to most native resources
Performance optimization difficult to
 Monetization complicated master
C  Need to maintain backwards  Device testing a challenge
T compatibility  No marketing through app store
I  Long time to launch/approval ques
O  Increased support costs

N
A Hybrid Pros
Hybrid

L  Cross-platform capability
I  Lower cost for multi-platform
 Written with web technologies
T
 Access to native APIs/resources
Y Mobile  Runs locally, supports offline
 App store distribution/monetization
Web
Cons
 Decreased user experience for mobile
web delivered content
FLEXIBILITY  Offline access for mobile web screens
 Multi-platform wrapper requires native
and mobile web technology know-how



Case studies
Table 3. Case studies overview

Financial Times Wal-Mart

Develop a multi-device strategy that Leverage the web across multiple
Challenge creates a unified experience for devices; provide the best online and
subscribers in-store shopping experience

Build a subscription model that Integrate in-store and online retailing
Philosophy provides multi-channel distribution and create continuity between
and supports new devices channels

“One customer, one access” Multi-device strategy seeking to
Multi-device
experience; direct relationship with enhance and unite online, mobile, and
strategy
readers in-store shopping

Marry the convenience of online with
“One Wal-Mart” experience,
the relation of flipping through a
Mobile strategy embracing mobile’s disruptive nature
newspaper; create a dynamic, fully
by leveraging it to enhance the in-store
automated offering with cross-device
experience
support

Financial Times
CHALLENGE

The challenge for the Financial Times (FT) is to devise a multi-device strategy that creates a unified
experience for subscribers and allows for simple incorporation of new platforms and devices.

PHILOSOPHY

The Financial Times’ overriding strategy for the delivery of web content in a multi-device environment is
to build a subscription model that provides multi-channel distribution and allows for the assimilation of
new device types.


MULTI-DEVICE STRATEGY

The FT bases its unified multi-device strategy on creating a “one customer, one access” experience. With
readers accessing content across multiple devices, the FT’s systems must work across platforms and
devices. Consumption patterns do differ by device type (bite-size information delivered on mobile, more
in-depth information on tablets and desktops), and content should be targeted to those patterns. The FT
works to achieve a balance between delivering the best experience for a particular device type and
managing overhead, so it has created sophisticated APIs and a web app that reduce the editorial overhead
of packaging content for different devices.

The second element of the FT strategy is maintaining a direct relationship with its readers, which is
crucial in developing customers and selling digital subscriptions directly to the consumer. Publishers
essentially must become internet retailers and maintain those communication and sales capabilities with
customers. The need to maintain these capabilities was key in determining FT’s mobile strategy.

MOBILE STRATEGY

The FT’s mobile strategy is “the pleasure of leisurely newspaper browsing with the immediacy and
interactivity of a website." The publisher seeks to provide an experience that feels tailored to the device.
To create this experience, the FT thinks of mobile in buckets of screen size: small, medium, large, and
large-wide. It then structures content for delivery on one of the four screen types.


Figure 8. Financial Times mobile strategy grid

FT
Positioning

Type of offering Print facsimile Fully dynamic offering

FT
Positioning

(Not sure what this is?) Editorially lead Fully automated

FT
Positioning

Deployment model Fully native Native hybrid Mobile CSS Responsive design

FT
Positioning

Platform support Android/iOS only Full cross device support

FT
Positioning

Business model App store—paid for Cross device—paid for Ad supported Free


The FT strives to create a dynamic, fully automated offering with cross-device support and the ability to
maintain a direct relationship with the reader. The client relationship was the foundation for the FT’s
mobile-strategy shift. In June 2011, the FT introduced a web app to replace the original native iOS app.
Driving this shift in strategy was a new iTunes App Store policy that assumed control over all user
relationships of apps within the store. The primary reason the FT launched an HTML5-based web app
was to maintain a direct relationship with its customers. The FT valued the ability to continue to offer
customers flexibility and freedom of choice with access to content. The web app, accessible at app.ft.com,
offers an excellent user experience and drove an increase in iOS traffic of 70 percent after the transition.
The often-mistaken notion of discoverability issues with web apps did not prove true for the FT, which
reported 3.4-million users accessing their content via the web app as of November 2012.

The FT has also leveraged its iOS strategy on other devices through a hybrid strategy that involved
creating an app that is 90-percent HTML with a thin wrapper, a move that extends the FT footprint
across all three major tablet platforms: Windows, Apple, and Android. This allows a quick and cost-
effective launch on new devices, giving the FT an advantage in adapting to a rapidly evolving mobile-
device landscape. This flexibility is increasingly important for the FT and other publishers as mobile


activity continues to grow. The FT reports that mobile generates 25 percent of all traffic on FT.com and 15
percent to 20 percent of new digital consumer subscriptions each week.

Additional statistics of interest:

 The FT’s overall digital readership continues to grow strongly, with digital subscriptions exceeding
print circulation for the first time at the end of June 2012.
 FT.com’s tablet audience is up 111 percent year-on-year (YoY) (PricewaterhouseCoopers-assured,
May 2011 to 2012)
 Smartphone audience is up 133 percent YoY (PricewaterhouseCoopers-assured, May 2011 to
2012)
 30 percent of FT.com subscriber page views are on mobile, showing that its core audience is
enthusiastically adopting these channels
 14 percent of the FT’s total audience read the FT on more than one channel, an increase of 27
percent YoY (May 2011 to 2012)

Wal-Mart
CHALLENGE

The Wal-Mart challenge is to leverage the web across multiple devices and environments to provide the
best online and in-store shopping experience.

PHILOSOPHY

Wal-Mart’s web strategy of providing customers anytime-anywhere access to Wal-Mart is driven by an
effort to better integrate in-store and online retailing and to create continuity between channels. Wal-
Mart envisions a seamless experience across environments, whether in-store, on a mobile device, or at
home on a desktop. The company is highly focused on associating intended use with the appropriate
platform and technology in the appropriate context to enhance the shopping experience. This strategy’s
effectiveness is then tested and validated through analytics.

MULTI-DEVICE STRATEGY

Wal-Mart has set online sales targets at $9 billion by fiscal year 2014 and is taking aggressive action in
bolstering its web presence so that it can achieve that goal. The company is taking a multi-device strategy


in seeking to enhance and unite online, mobile, and in-store shopping. Much of the emerging web
strategy is being driven by Wal-Mart Global eCommerce, the Silicon Valley-based team that has been
tasked with developing core technology to propel Wal-Mart into the next generation of ecommerce.

Several innovations – including internal search, social media incorporation, ecommerce enhancements,
and mobile developments – have been introduced over the past year. For example, the company is using
Facebook and other social media to drive in-store sales through campaigns such as customers voting on
which merchandise they would like to see "rollbacks" (temporary discounts) on.

Wal-Mart is well-versed in monitoring the results of these strategies, in web performance in general, and
in understanding the impact that performance has on business. When running performance tests in
January 2012, Wal-Mart discovered that page-load times for the slowest 5 percent of users was reaching
24 seconds, a time that was too slow and causing lost sales. The company was able to shave off 8 seconds
on average load time for the slowest 5 percent, which resulted in increased conversion rates.

Figure 9. Wal-Mart correlation of page-load times to conversion rates

Source: Wal-Mart

MOBILE STRATEGY

Wal-Mart’s mobile strategy unites the online and in-store experience and is poised to be disruptive to
retail. The way people experience a store has not changed in 20 years, but now, more than half of


shoppers walk into the store carrying a smartphone and present the potential to disrupt the status quo.
Wal-Mart is embracing mobile’s disruptive nature by leveraging it to enhance the in-store experience.
Wal-Mart envisions one Wal-Mart that seamlessly blends the power of various channels, including
online, mobile, and in-store.

Wal-Mart has recently enhanced its mobile app to promote this merging of mobile and physical retail.
The new in-store mode feature of the Wal-Mart app enables customers to create shopping lists, view local
ads, and access local store pricing and the aisle location of products. Wal-Mart is the only major retailer
offering in-store mode on a massive scale, with the app functioning across 4,000 stores in the U.S.
Features of the in-store mode include:

 Price checker. Scan product barcodes to check prices and review product details.
 Mobile shopping list. View local pricing and more for mobile shopping list items.
 Aisle location. Find items faster by viewing aisle numbers for all mobile shopping list items.
 QR code reader. Scan QR codes for special offers in Wal-Mart stores.
 Interactive local ad. View local ads for store-specific information, including savings and events.
 What’s new? See new merchandise and rollbacks available in local Wal-Mart stores.

The in-store mode feature was created to incorporate the in-store element without creating an entirely
separate app. The retailer wished to maintain a singular experience with an app that can flip over into in-
store mode to access relevant shopping information and then, with one tap, flip back to ecommerce
mode. Twelve percent of Wal-Mart’s daily sales on the mobile app occur when a customer is actually in a
store and using the in-store mode. The mobile website, which is closer to a traditional online experience,
continues to drive more sales than the app, but this integration of the app with the in-store experience,
bringing context to mobile, is having a significant effect on how consumers shop.


Meeting the challenge
The task of web content delivery is undoubtedly becoming more challenging. The complexities of the
modern access environment, with its multiple device types, networks, and usage scenarios, requires a
heightened level of consideration among all those involved in delivering the web experience. Not only do
companies need to make the leap of faith to invest in mobile web-content delivery, but they also are faced
with the conundrum of how to allocate these scarce resources among the numerous pain points currently
associated with delivering the web experience. New solutions are meeting these challenges, from more
robust and better-designed networks to improved device and browser performance to site-design tools
that will optimize the user experience.

Among the emerging solutions are:

 Analytics. With myriad web-access situations, the need to understand the user’s situation
(device type, network type, and environment) has become increasingly important; being able to
adapt to changing situations dynamically and efficiently will continue to be an important trend for
the industry.
 Browser evolution. While a rapidly changing browser landscape can introduce additional
complexity, it also allows for rapid incorporation of new functionality to improve the web
experience. One example came in the third quarter of 2012 with the launch of the new Nokia
Xpress Browser, which is capable of compressing websites and reducing data traffic by up to 90
percent.
 Front-end optimization. Front-end encompasses all browser processes involved in generating
a webpage, including fetching embedded objects, parsing style sheets, and executing JavaScript.
As applications have become more complex and mobile-device usage has skyrocketed, the
majority of user wait-time for any given page is spent on the front-end. Front-end optimization
aims to reduce the number of requests and the size of the objects required to generate a page
while also accelerating visual rendering. This can significantly improve overall website
performance across browsers, networks, and devices.
 Intelligent traffic routing. Content delivery technologies are being incorporated into mobile
networks and allowing mobile operators to manage and prioritize content delivery on their
networks. For example, Ericsson will integrate Akamai’s CDN technology into its network
equipment, thus allowing more intelligent traffic-routing and introducing edge-caching
capabilities to mobile networks.


 LTE. The transition to 4G/LTE networks will provide an increase in bandwidth for wireless data
traffic, bringing the speeds for mobile data closer to those for landline service and thus narrowing
the performance gap on mobile devices versus desktops (or Wi-Fi-connected tablets).

While these emerging solutions are targeted at networks and devices, website owners must also
implement techniques that improve the functioning of their individual sites. They cannot rely on carrier
networks to deliver a clunky mobile site at desktop speeds. An un-optimized website is not going to
perform as well as one optimized for mobile, no matter what the browser capabilities are.

Web experience is becoming an increasingly important component of a company’s competitive strategy. A
user’s perception of a website is not just based on the speed of a page load but also on how quickly that
page loads compared to other sites the user visits. If a company is not optimizing its site for a specific
context – whether that is the user’s device, location, or intent – it is at a disadvantage to its competitors
and risks losing revenue. The web experience must be tailored to the specific browser, network, and
device combination being utilized to deliver the optimum experience. The diversity of user experiences
has created many moving targets that impact web performance. Emerging products will work to simplify
these challenges and deliver a consistent experience. Going forward, web strategies will be a marriage of
efforts from multiple parties, from carrier adoption of LTE enhanced with CDN and analytic capabilities
to device and browser evolution to website design incorporating capabilities such as responsive web
design or optimization. The complexity of today’s web environment thus requires similar complexity in
solution.


About Amy Cravens
Amy Cravens is a longtime technology market analyst with domain expertise across a number of areas,
including telecommunications, networking, media, software, and hardware. From 2001 to 2003, she was
a lead analyst for In-Stat, helping to pioneer the company’s hotspot and Wi-Fi analysis. Since 2006, she
has been involved in a number of projects for companies and market research vendors as an independent
analyst.

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