Performance analysis in eCommerce

Marco Fabbri – 27th June 2014

The load speed of a website is crucial in online shops, and has

a huge impact on its sales.

Speed matters

“2-second delay in

load time during a

transaction resulted in

abandonment rates of

up to 87%”

Source: [How a 2-Second Improvement in Page Load Time

More Than Doubled Conversions]

http://blog.radware.com/applicationdelivery/applicationacceleratio

noptimization/2013/05/case-study-page-load-time-conversions/

A website’s performance is based on its funnel’s efficiency and

its layer’s correct configuration.

Performance Analysis

Source: [Mastering DynaCache in WebSphere Commerce]

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247393.pdf

The funnel and its layers

Our Performance Review analyses the performance of each layer,

starting with what is closer to the user.

1. Data Analysis of the most visited and slowest web pages

2. Loading information of the most visited sites

3. Best practices setting up HTTP servers

4. Best practices setting up application servers

5. Suggestions based on reports from WebSphere Application Server

Performance Tuning Toolkit

6. Analysis of the most common errors on application server logs

Performance Analysis

Layer by layer

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

The system’s performance is analysed layer by layer, starting

with the closest layers to the user.

Analytics softwares such as Google Analytics enable us to

find the slowest web pages, among the most visited ones.

85% of the visits to retailers’ online shops is to online

catalogues. In this case, we focus on non-transactional

traffic.

Analytics data

Network Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

Analytics data - Report

Network Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

By analysing the slowest web pages among the most visited

ones we discover the first weaknesses.

Analytics data - Details

Network Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

With the plugin PageSpeed we can evaluate our site’s

performance by simply surfing the main catalogue pages.

Closer to the user – Web pages load speed

Network Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

We should always have in mind our site’s performance on

mobile devices. PageSpeed gives us feedback and

recommendation on how to improve it.

Closer to the user – Web pages load speed on mobile devices

Network Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

Best practices setting up the applications’ servers

Application Server Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

A WAS administrator helps us improve our site’s performance

with the report automatically generated by this tool.

WebSphere Application Server Performance Tuning Toolkit

Application Server Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

Application servers’ log exceptions

Application Server Tier

NETWORK TIER

APPLICATION SERVER TIER

Every

recommendation on

how to enhance each

of our site’s layers

performance is in this

report.

It also includes an

action plan with time

estimation and the

benefits attached to it.

Final report with suggestions

Performance Analysis