The digital performance company observed this global phenomenon and notes websites are seven percent slower than last year.

The company tracked the homepage response times of 300 leading retail sites in the UK, US, France, Germany, China, Australia, Spain and the Nordics, testing every 10 minutes for the last 12 months. Over this period, the company found new design trends and functionality expectations has slowed response times.

Separate research indicates that consumers expect a website to load within three seconds or less and over that results in 46 percent of consumers abandoning the page. This damages relationships with users and can have a detrimental impact on revenues.

When it comes to websites – less is more and bigger isn’t better. The best performers had small page sizes, smaller object counts, and fewer third party hosts.

What are your thoughts on increasing website response times? Let us know in the comments.