Yottaa, Inc., the leading cloud platform for accelerating and securing eCommerce digital experiences, announced at eTail West the publication of the latest version of the company’s annual index on the performance of 3^rd party technologies used on online retail and brand websites. The “2022 eCommerce Technology Index” is designed to help retailers research new innovative features for their sites and understand the impact 3^rd party technologies can have on site performance and digital experience. Yottaa, a sponsor of eTail, where the top minds in retail meet, collaborate and learn about what’s disrupting the industry today and what’ll change tomorrow, can be found in booth 311 in the eTail expo hall.

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“With granular and aggregate visibility of 3^rd party performance impact, usage data, and violations, eCommerce brands and 3^rd party technology vendors alike can lean on this report to help guide improved digital experiences.”

Accelerated by the rise of digital engagement during the last two years, eCommerce is finally meeting a new era of technology adoption. Innovative 3rd party technologies, such as live chat, ratings and reviews, and personalization, enable brands to make their sites more experiential and more profitable. However, all this innovation does have a cost: 3^rd party technologies, without optimization, slow down page loads leading to higher bounces, lower conversions, and poor digital experiences.

The 2022 eCommerce Technology Index examines the site performance impact of close to 1,000 of the most widely adopted eCommerce 3^rd parties. The data in this report was collected over the course of a month (January 2022) representing 4 billion page views, and more than 788 billion 3rd party resource timing events

from the 1,500 eCommerce sites using Yottaa’s digital experience optimization solutions. As part of its platform, Yottaa’s 3rd Party Knowledge Base is a comprehensive repository of 3rd party data that grows with every page view, adding hundreds of millions of real shopper data points every day.

Through this knowledge base, Yottaa has deep visibility into site performance data from all the 3rd parties used by its customers. The Yottaa platform also detects site performance violations of individual 3rd parties. These violations are used to create Performance Impact Ratings (PIR). Using these PIRs, Yottaa assigned a color code of red, yellow, and green to each 3^rd party evaluated in the index across the most frequently adopted eCommerce technology categories. Slower loading 3^rd parties are labeled red, neutral are yellow, and faster loading technologies are green.

“The eCommerce Technology Index is an excellent resource for retailers looking to make informed, data-driven decisions on which 3^rd parties to invest in,” said Andrew Leibowitz, Senior Vice President, Client Success, Astound Commerce. “With granular and aggregate visibility of 3^rd party performance impact, usage data, and violations, eCommerce brands and 3^rd party technology vendors alike can lean on this report to help guide improved digital experiences.”

“Fast website performance is no longer a “nice to have” metric, but a critical part of your shopper experience,” said Roman Fayzullin, Software Engineer, Gorgias. “When we found out our chat widget had started negatively impacting our customers’ Google Lighthouse scores — an important site performance metric — we immediately started searching for a solution. Live chat is a notoriously resource-intensive category, but we were able to cut our entry point bundle in half, resulting in reduced Lighthouse scores and an improved PIR score from Yellow to Green. Using the eCommerce Technology Index from YOTTAA helps technologies and brands understand the role they play in providing the best shopper experiences through optimal site performance.”

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Below are some of the key findings from the 2022 eCommerce Technology Index:

• eCommerce is Officially a Grown-up – Brands and retailers have real expectations of their digital stores to contribute a significant share of overall seals and even an outsized share of growth. As a result, a thriving eCommerce technology ecosystem has emerged to deliver innovation across dozens of technology categories covering the entire shopper journey.

• Site Innovation Comes with a Price – Brands must weigh an important trade-off when it comes to 3^rd party technologies: the promised experience or operations gains will come at a site performance cost. Understanding the potential page load delay from 3^rd parties is central to this consideration. The eCommerce Technology Index enables brands to quickly determine the site speed impact for 3^rd parties on their sites.

• The Value of 1 Second – The report findings show that 1 second slower page loads due to slow loading 3^rd party technologies increase bounce rates by 12% and reduce conversion by nearly 6% on mobile. For 3rd parties that have a negative site performance impact, the promises of shopper experience gains are softened by slower page loads. On the other hand, those 3rd parties that deliver site performance improvements should be celebrated.

• Optimization is Key – When 3^rd party eCommerce technologies are optimized and sequenced, brands can deploy any 3^rd party regardless of site performance impact and still provide great digital experiences. For example, optimizing 3^rd party performance helps improve page load times by 27%.

“Now more than ever, brands need to optimize digital experiences to better serve their customers and drive online revenue,” said Rich Stendardo, CEO of Yottaa. “The 2022 eCommerce Technology Index provides brands with valuable insight into how the 3^rd party technologies they add to their sites impact shopper experience as well as conversion.”

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