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The present study focuses on computer sales sites in China. This business sector has witnessed particularly aggressive competition, paving the way for a whole new ballgame.  

Do the Chinese websites of computer manufacturers operate like clockwork, or can they cause a decrease in turnover?

By way of an answer, ip-label.newtest measured the performance of the websites of the six leading computer manufacturers established in China. Measurements were made in an end-user environment—the way an internet surfer would perceive it—from 12 of the largest Chinese cities⁽¹⁾.

⁽¹⁾ Measurements made from Beijing, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Guangzhou (Canton), Hangzhou, Nanjing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, and Xi’an

Sharp contrast in the performances of online showrooms

The table below is built on a 100-point index on the basis of two indicators: the rate of successful connection, and how fast the homepage of each site loaded.

With 82.5 points, the website of Dell China shows the best performance. The site of this American giant’s Chinese subsidiary has Lenovo following close on its heels.

The differences in performance are very pronounced. 360buy, coming in fourth, has a score barely higher than 70 points. TaoBao and HP, with 59 and 41 points respectively, lag even farther behind.

What is the reason for such poor scores? Even Dell and Lenovo, whose performance outdistances that of their competitors, have been awarded rather mediocre scores.

Complex exchanges

Analysis of each of the five phases required for full downloading of web pages for the main Chinese online computer shops indicates that practically the entire time is spent retrieving objects that make up the page. The phases of connection and first data received barely count at all. Only Dell China, and especially HP China, need more “prep time”. For Dell, the interval between connection confirmation and first data received is relatively long. This phenomenon can be explained by the probable creation of a specific environment designed to save time subsequently, when the visitor browses the site. For HP, on the other hand, the first three phases take a long time. The slowness of the resolution of its domain name (DNS) might be due to poor configuration of data communicated to the domain name resolution servers. As for the connection’s sluggishness, this could be caused by an unfavorable geographical location, or by the choice of connection to a network operator which interconnects poorly with other networks, generating slowdowns in exchanges between the browser and the website. The great number of objects to load amplifies the bottleneck phenomenon.

Getting into the store is good, but can you buy there?

The visitor is naturally not going to content him or herself with the site’s home page, but instead will browse through the virtual store, view detailed information on the products for sale, and compare various solutions. The visitor might even, if the site provides for it, take a dynamic look at the computers, turn them around, zoom in, open and close a notebook, “build” an architecture, request estimates and, of course, place an order.

We simulated the behavior of a Chinese web user connecting to a site and performing the actions involved in ordering a computer. The number of actions carried out obviously depends on the simplicity or complexity of the e-commerce site. It therefore takes four actions to order a Dell computer, and five when using the Lenovo site or Newegg site. We voluntarily limited the simulation to the three sites that showed the best access performance.

The user paths were run once an hour for 2 months from 12 cities covering the great majority of the population of Chinese internet users.

These curves chart performances that are completely different from what might have been imagined with respect to the performance of homepage loading. Newegg comes across as a site that is relatively fast and stable over time. Even if the wait to enter the site is 40% longer than on the Dell site, everything runs smoothly once the user has gained access. The five actions required to select a product, add it to the cart, and check out take only about 20 seconds. The performance curve of Dell’s Chinese website is interesting because it shows the momentous impact of the approaching end-of-the-year holiday season. This observation highlights the defects of a conceptual approach to this site, designed on a worldwide scale with a simple translation into local languages.

In December, the pages were decorated with dynamic objects to attract the visitor to year-end special deals. When the season was over, page designed changed, so that page weight diminished and the number of objects to load decreased. This example clearly demonstrates how directly conceptual choices affect the web user’s comfort. The performance of Lenovo’s site is charted by a curve inverse to that of Dell’s. While it gave an honorable performance in December, changes to the site since then resulted in a gradual deterioration in the time it takes for a visitor to place an order.

Understanding the visitor

China has a complex internet network to operate. Chinese culture favors enhancing the pages of websites with very dynamic objects designed to attract the visitor’s attention like a profusion of electronic billboards. This has a direct impact on the performance experience by web users, who must sometimes summon all their patience to successfully browse the sites. Web designers and technical teams that deploy and operate networks and infrastructures absolutely must become more aware of these constraints and specificities. The time web visitors save on getting out to physical stores may make them more patient on line.

Nevertheless, differences in performance experienced from one site to another will make the visitor want to redirect to the fastest site, to the detriment of less accessible sites or those which respond more slowly to requests. Because the maturity level of Chinese web users is on the rise, e-shops are going to have to do whatever they can to convince the visitor that he or she has made the right choice in walking through the virtual doors of that e-shop.