New Relic Study Reveals Delivery Speed a Primary Concern in India, as 60% of Consumers Abandon Apps Over Buffering

New Relic announced findings from its State of Ecommerce in India report. The independent survey of more than 2,000 Indian online shoppers reveals that 60% of respondents said they would leave an app mid-engagement if they experienced buffering for longer than 10 seconds, and 20% said that they wouldn’t tolerate more than five seconds of buffering before they abandoned or switched apps. Apps freezing or crashing, as well as misleading app descriptions, were also primary concerns.

“As attention spans continue to drop and app marketplaces become more crowded, buffering is a key consumer concern that must be addressed by ecommerce providers seeking to gain market share,” said New Relic Vice President Sales for India Prasad Rai. “Observability solves these challenges by providing insights into why particular systems are experiencing lag and pinpoints issues before they impact the digital customer experience. Observability is a game changer for engineering teams because it allows them to proactively analyse and optimise their systems based on logs, metrics, and traces to provide a real-time view of collated data.”

Key findings from the State of Ecommerce in India report include:

Multiple notifications lead to churn:

– Consumers faced various challenges with mobile apps, such as multiple notifications (41%), slow buffering/loading times (38%), and draining batteries (34%). Multiple notifications were particularly bothersome for Android users (41%) compared to iOS users (34%).
– Although 72% of survey respondents said they most often use mobile apps for online purchases, 59% used less than three mobile apps for their daily online shopping. This finding indicates that while consumers download and actively use shopping apps, they are selective about which apps they use.

Speedy apps and delivery times lead to greater customer satisfaction:

– A slow loading time was one of the biggest reasons for consumers to stop using an app mid-engagement (34%), or even delete it (25%), indicating that addressing delays and buffering is critical for technology teams. It becomes even more problematic during online sales such as Black Friday, with outages having the potential to impact reputation and revenue.
– Survey respondents expressed the importance of a speedy user experience, both in terms of app responsiveness and product delivery time. Nearly half (46%) of respondents noted that a key reason to download a shopping app was its ability to offer a better or faster user experience compared to the website equivalent.
– Consumers also expected product delivery times to be swift, which was reflected in their uptake of 15-minute delivery services. More than half (55%) said they use instant online grocery delivery apps that deliver in 15 minutes or less at least once per week.

Consumers seek a personalised experience and regular promotions:

– More than half (59%) of the survey respondents said they use less than three mobile apps for their daily online shopping, indicating that online retailers need to develop brand loyalty by finding new and innovative ways to capture consumer attention.

Consumers have a strong desire for secure online payments:

– Nearly half noted that instant updates and notifications (42%) and seamless payment functionality (41%) are desirable features of a mobile shopping app.
– When asked about their top three concerns regarding digital payment methods, survey respondents most frequently cited security and privacy (54%), followed by payment failure (50%) and problems processing refunds (45%).