Keynote offers customized load testing for e-tailers

[February 12th 2002]

Keynote Systems has introduced a load-testing program targeted directly at retail Web sites to maximize online revenues and eliminate shopping cart abandonment due to poor site performance.

Keynote Testing for Retailers helps assure site performance and availability with load tests specifically for retail site functionality including account login and registration, product searches, shopping cart/checkout, credit card authorization and order tracking. The results provide retailers with solid recommendations on how to optimize performance for peak visitor loads when launching a new site or promotion, as well as evaluate the impact of site changes as part of routine maintenance year-round. Retailers can choose from on-demand self-service or full-service load test options, or a combination of both, to determine and validate user load, stress test a site's breaking point, and discover a site's threshold for concurrent sessions.

"Keynote Test Perspective has taken the nervous jitters out of launching a new site or promotional campaign," said Conrad Varblow, Director of Quality Assurance at Chelsea Interactive. "We discover the high-water mark before the launch instead of afterwards, so we are confident that the site will handle the traffic load. We also use Keynote Test Perspective throughout the development and QA processes, as well as for on-going maintenance to ensure the reliability of our customers' sites." Chelsea Interactive, an affiliate of Chelsea Property Group, a real estate investment trust that operates factory and premium outlet shopping centers throughout the United States, provides retail brands with an outsourced e-commerce platform to operate their online stores.

During the 2001 holiday shopping season, the same transaction (an item search) ranged from approximately 3.0 seconds to over 16.0 seconds on a set of popular retail sites measured by Keynote; and performance on individual sites varied significantly from week to week, by as much as 35 percent, underscoring the broad need in the retail industry for Web site testing to maintain performance under load.

Zona Research, in its "Need for Speed II" report issued in May, 2001, calculated that $25 billion in Web business is lost annually due to poor transaction performance. The report, based in part on transaction performance data provided by Keynote, studied the economic impact of Web performance and abandonment of multi-page transactions, and cites Savoia's Law, which states that users abandon sites based upon demerits, or "dissatisfiers," accumulated as users wait beyond their patience threshold. Zona's report observes that consumer Web sites, particularly retail sites, have actually increased latency times, or user wait, by over 20% over the previous year, based in part on heavy graphics and dynamic banner ads. It concludes that transactional latencies will eventually become the dominant factor in Web site abandonment.

Keynote Testing for Retailers can help retailers avoid the transactional latencies that result in site abandonment and its consequent reduced revenue. Designed specifically to test the functionality of retail Web sites, the service measures the ability of the site to support user load for transactions throughout the online purchase process, helping to assure initial customer acquisition through ongoing customer loyalty. Retailers using Keynote testing services can quickly, easily and cost-effectively test multiple transaction variations without the difficulty and expense of creating hard-coded scripts or maintaining testing systems, unlike using traditional software tests. Retailers using Keynote Testing for Retailers will receive a customized load test plan provided by Keynote with scripts designed to test key retail site functionality, including: Account login and registration; product searches; Shopping Cart/Checkout; Credit Card Authorization; and Order Tracking; as well as training, if applicable. Keynote testing consultants are available to help design more advanced test scripts.

Links
Keynote		http://www.keynote.com