For the month of November, QVC and Newegg emerged as the top performers in Gomez?s monthly U.S. Retail Mobile Site Performance Index, with Amazon, Dell and Walmart rounding out the top five. 

QVC and Newegg were also the top mobile site performers according to Gomez?s Performance Satisfaction Index, which tracked the aggregate performance of the top 15 mobile sites in retail during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday period.

Mobile Marketer interviewed Matthew Poepsel, Lexington, MA-based vice president of performance strategies at Gomez. Here is what he said:

What trends are you seeing with regards to the mobile Web in retail, and mobile applications? 
Many of the companies that regularly appear as top mobile site performers on Gomez?s monthly U.S. Retail Mobile Site Performance Index experienced slight response time degradations from October to November.

But overall November performance was strong across all of the mobile sites, a sign that these retailers aggressively addressed mobile site performance optimization heading into the all-important online holiday shopping season. 

Many of the retailers have been delivering mobile site performance that meets or exceeds performance during non-peak periods. 

This includes Green Monday (Dec. 13), which so far stands as the second highest online spending day on record, just behind this year?s Cyber Monday.

On the mobile applications side, Target and Amazon delivered the fastest download speeds of less than one second each. 

Promotions on mobile phones encourage impulse purchases, and knowing the specific location of shoppers lets merchants deliver coupons and offers to users when they are most likely to spend. 

With this in mind, the speedy mobile apps of Target and Amazon are helping them drive mobile sales and reach customers before the competition.

What trends are you seeing with regards to the mobile Web in banking?
In November, the top mobile site performers in banking according to Gomez?s U.S. Banking Mobile Site Performance Index included: Branch Banking & Trust, Capital One, Huntington, KeyBank and JPMorgan Chase (for the Oct.31 ? Nov. 14 period); and Huntington, Branch Banking & Trust, KeyBank, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Bank (for the Nov. 14 ? 28 period).

Unlike the retailers, the banks did not experience response-time degradations and their average speeds across the four major mobile platforms have been very consistent, or in some cases have even improved.

However, the banks measured continue to exhibit slower mobile site performance than retailers. This is perhaps an indication of the level of functionality that banks must continue to support, including advanced security and authentication features. 

According to a recent consumer survey, visitors to mobile sites in retail regard speed as more important than functionality in assessing the overall quality of experience, while visitors to mobile sites in banking view speed and functionality as equally important. 

In order to meet customer expectations, many banks are not willing to make compromises on key functionality to improve speed. 

Retailers on the other hand seem to have more flexibility when it comes to streamlining features and functions to help enhance the user experience.

What are your recommendations?
Prepare for peak traffic conditions. The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicted 7 million people would use a mobile device for Cyber Monday shopping this year, nearly double the estimated four million who shopped that way last year. 

Although mobile commerce is still considered an emerging market, user expectations are already high. If large mobile Web traffic volumes lead to unbearably slow load times, revenues, brand image and customer relationships are on the line. 

Like traditional Web sites, businesses must now carefully ensure their mobile sites and infrastructure can handle peak traffic conditions when user expectations are at their highest, such as the online holiday shopping season or when leveraging a mobile ad network to drive increased traffic to your site. 

Even if you are using a third-party to host your mobile site, you must also verify their ability to handle heavy traffic, because if not, visitors see your brand and will hold you accountable for any poor performance, regardless of any underlying vendor arrangement.  

Leverage the same techniques used to optimize ?fixed? Web site performance in the mobile Web realm.

Mobile site performance can be enhanced using the same tools as the traditional Web; load testing is one example. 

By leveraging established metrics, technologies and best practices, you can obtain operational efficiencies while proactively optimizing performance for your mobile site. 

This capability becomes all the more critical in a ?one Web world? where users demand superior Web experiences regardless of their mode of access, and where highly satisfying, convenient, on-the-go mobile site experiences are the expectation.

Measure performance from the only perspective that matters ? your customers. It is impossible to truly understand how your mobile Web site and applications are performing unless you have direct insight into your customers? experiences around the world. 

There are a large number of variables ? both within and beyond your direct control ? that can impact what your customer ultimately experiences, including ISPs, carriers, devices, browsers and application designs.

Only the customer perspective holistically encompasses all of this complexity and enables businesses to proactively identify and address performance bottlenecks wherever they may lie.

Optimizing mobile site performance must begin with a true view of the customer experience across your highest-priority devices and geographies, and under various size traffic loads. 

By seeing first-hand which customer segments may be impacted by poor performance, you can take the proper steps to isolate and address any performance-impacting issues ideally before your mobile users are aware that an issue exists.