Online retailers are becoming good at building sites that appeal to shoppers, but they need to improve site performance, according to a new study from Keynote Systems, reported Internet Retailer. "The visual appeal of online retail websites is equal in impact to price satisfaction for consumers considering an online purchase," says Bonny Brown, Keynote director of research and public services. However, "the industry appears to be sacrificing speed and reliability to provide visually appealing web pages," she says.

Another Keynote spokesperson reported that "several of the sites had major load-related issues, a result of detailed page designs and did not easily facilitate the check-out process." Keynote reported that the checkout process "is the least reliable online shopping activity."

Keynote examined the site performance and measured the customer shopping experience of some two dozen well-recognized web retailers. In site performance, the highest rankings went to Williams-Sonoma, WalMart, Eddie Bauer, Staples, Circuit City and Best Buy. Keynote said that Office Depot and Staples had the best average T1 line response, while Staples, Office Depot and Costco Wholesale had the best average dial-up response.