The UK trails behind Germany in terms of mobile retail website speed, according to recent research.

The study, carried out by internet and cloud monitoring specialist Keynote Systems, ranks Next as the fastest performing UK mcommerce site, but German traders dominated the top five.

Loading times for OTTA, a German mail order company, averaged 4.49 seconds, compared to Next's 5.5 seconds. Marks & Spencer had the most reliable UK site, with an average availability of 99.91 per cent.

Keynote Systems' lead solutions consultant Robert Castley told the Retail Gazette that website speed and availability has become increasingly important, especially given the take-up of smartphones.

"It is no longer acceptable for retailers to expect mobile shoppers to navigate around a web site that is not configured for their mobile device," he added.

A recent study from Screen Pages found that a tenth of visits to ecommerce websites come from mobiles.

Author:  Paul Burn