We integrated a rewards program and developed several personalized and sophisticated marketing automation flows for an e-commerce client that dramatically increased their revenue.
As we continued to watch users flow from the emails through conversions, we identified several issues with their hosting and platform that were significantly impacting site speed – frustrating their potential customers and driving abandonment rates upwards – especially on mobile devices.
Why Page Speed Matters
It’s great to work on marketing acquisition, retention, upsell, and increasing average order value automation for e-commerce… but unless your site speed and the shopping experience are outstanding, you’re not maximizing your return on marketing investment. As well, your e-commerce site has to be tested a number of different ways to ensure speed is consistently good:
- Is your e-commerce site consistently fast on all browsers?
- Is your e-commerce site consistently fast on all mobile devices?
- Is your e-commerce site consistently fast on all desktop devices?
- Is your e-commerce site consistently fast in all geographic regions you serve?
- Is your e-commerce site consistently fast when you have a lot of visitors on your site?
Segmenting your site’s speed performance and measuring conversion rates throughout these segments is critical and can point to some glaring issues that will impact conversion rates.
Bounce Rates by Page Speed
There’s no question as to the overall impact of page speed when it comes to abandonment rates:
Mobile E-Commerce Site Speed
Consumers no longer have any apprehension at shopping on a mobile device as they once did. Mobile e-commerce is quite finicky… if your visitor is watching another screen or in a conversation and shopping on their mobile device, your speed, and conversion path have to work effortlessly, or else they’ll bounce altogether or abandon the cart they’ve started. Take a look at the dramatic behavioral differences between devices:
- A mobile visitor is more than twice as likely to bounce from a site than a desktop visitor.
And how does that translate to mobile e-commerce shopping behavior? It’s huge:
- A 100-millisecond improvement increases retail conversion rates by 8.4%
- A 100-millisecond improvement increases retail average order value (AOV) by 8.4%
- A 100-millisecond improvement increases luxury brand page views by 8.4%
In fact, here are 4 case studies on the impact of mobile e-commerce page speed:
- Amazon would lose $1.6 billion per year if it’s site speed slowed by 1 second.
- Stables saw a 10% increase in conversion rate when it reduced its median home page load time by 1 second.
- Walmart saw a 2% increase in conversion rates for every 1 second improvement in page load times.
- AliExpress reduced page load time by 36% and saw a 10.5% increase in orders and 27% increase in conversions for new customers.
- Aldo found that mobile users who experienced faster render times brought in 75% more revenue than average and 327% more revenue than those experiencing slow render times.
How Important is Web Speed for E-Commerce?
- 88% of visitors choose online retailers that deliver a high-performance website experience.
- $18 billion is lost annually because of abandoned shopping carts.
- Customers remember online loading times as being 35% longer than they actually are.
We’ve written extensively on the factors that impact page load times and I’d encourage you to work on page speed before you begin bringing people to your site.
These statistics and graphics were provided in
Website Builder Expert’s newly launched guide Website Load Time Statistics – Why Speed Matters in 2020. Utilizing detailed statistics, sleek design assets, and professional case studies, the guide highlights the vital need for a fast-loading website to keep online consumers satisfied and loyal to efficient e-commerce stores.
Read Why Speed Matters in 2020
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