A study conducted by Jupiter Research finds that the average online shopper will only wait 4 seconds for a page to load before abandoning the site, according to ecommerce-guide.com. While the study may have been issued by Akamai Technologies, whose business is, surprise surprise, speeding up load times for web sites, there are some interesting findings:

* The consequences for an online retailer whose site underperforms include diminished goodwill, negative brand perception and, most importantly, significant loss in overall sales.
* Online shopper loyalty is contingent upon quick page loading, especially for high-spending shoppers and people with more online shopping experience.
* JupiterResearch recommends that retailers make every effort to keep page rendering to no longer than four seconds.

The article also goes on to point out the size of websites, finding the average size of website homepages is around 175 kb. They also point out that Google is only 13 kb, the smallest of the 300 websites tested by Corante. A quick look around the web finds Amazon comes in at around 500 kb, YouTube at about 240, and Yahoo at 390, showing the size of the the site is not the only consideration you must take when looking at load times. The server your site is located on will likely have much more of an effect than a few extra pictures, and you must pay attention to the demographic your site serves. Visitors to Yahoo, Amazon and YouTube are expecting a lot of images/videos and will put up with more to load the page than a visitor to Akamai Technologies would.