WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT THE SPEED OF YOUR E-COMMERCE WEBSITE?
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Remember all those times when you abandoned a website because it was taking way too long to load? Imagine your e-commerce website users in a similar position. Do you think they are going to wait around as your website pages take forever to load? You already know the answer to this question! But, just to put things into perspective, let’s go over a useful infographic that has been put together by a renowned analytics service provider, Kissmetrics, in regard to the impact of website loading time on user behavior. 47% of users expect a web page to load within a maximum of 2 seconds. 40% of users are likely to leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. More than 50% of online shoppers emphasize quick website loading time as an important factor in their loyalty for the website. Even a delay that seems as innocuous as 1 second in page response can reduce conversions by 7%. For an e-commerce website that’s earning $100,000 in a day, a delay of 1 second in page response could potentially mean losing $2.5 million in sales in a year. 79% of shoppers who leave disgruntled with the website performance may never return to the website.
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These statistics emphasize what we all already know, whether an e-commerce website is viewed on desktop or mobile, users expect the website speed to be everywhere. The takeaway is simple, patience levels run low in today’s average online user/shopper. They are easily put off by websites that take too long to load; they’ll simply abandon the website and move on to the next one. You need a fast website, the faster the better, to stay competitive in the e-commerce market. Keeping page response time under 2 seconds is good, under 1 second is even better. If your website is taking 5 seconds or more to load, that’s bad news for your conversions. Ideally speaking, you should try to make your website as fast as reasonably possible. Don’t try to keep enhancing the website response time at the cost of other equally essential aspects, like customer experience.
SOURCE: BLOG.KISSMETRICS.COM/LOADING-TIME/
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HOW DOES HAVING A FAST WEBSITE HELP YOUR BUSINESS? As seen above, a slow e-commerce website can harm businesses in more ways than one, whereas a fast e-commerce website can benefit businesses in plenty of ways. Here we discuss a couple of reasons why having a fast shopping website pays off in the long run:
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BUILDS CUSTOMER TRUST
For a customer to begin trusting your website, they need to start spending time on your website browsing it. How is that going to be possible if they leave the website quickly after just arriving to it? Something that a slow loading website may prompt the user to do. While any slow loading page of your website is enough to annoy the user, the situation becomes dire when the pages in question are the checkout pages. Slow loading and overly complicated checkout pages make customers second-guess their decision of buying from you. More often than not, they’ll end up doubting and dropping their purchase decision. Whereas, fast loading websites give customers enough time to get comfortable with the website. It encourages them to engage with the website for longer sessions, while making them more confident in the website with each step. This is the kind of dynamic that you’re looking to create between your website and your customers, the one that can help set the foundation of customer trust in your website.
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PROTECTS WEBSITE REPUTATION The Kissmetrics infographic also shares that 44% of online shoppers are likely to talk about their bad online experience with people they know. This means every time your slow website disappoints a user, it’s not just that one user you need to worry about. That one user is likely to share their disappointing experience with many other people in their social circle. If this were to happen with many users coming to your website, your online store runs the risk of building a negative reputation over time. Who knew a slow website could wreak such havoc on a store’s image?! With a fast website, you can avoid falling into the cycle of bad word-of-mouth publicity related to the performance of your website. Users are more likely to leave happy and satisfied. In fact, the positive experience may even prompt them to spread a good word about your online store to others. It’s true that first impressions are long lasting and a high-performing website is the key to making a long-lasting fantastic impression.
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BUILDS CUSTOMER TRUST For a customer to begin trusting your website, they need to start spending time on your website browsing it. How is that going to be possible if they leave the website quickly after just arriving to it? Something that a slow loading website may prompt the user to do. While any slow loading page of your website is enough to annoy the user, the situation becomes dire when the pages in question are the checkout pages. Slow loading and overly complicated checkout pages make customers second-guess their decision of buying from you. More often than not, they’ll end up doubting and dropping their purchase decision. Whereas, fast loading websites give customers enough time to get comfortable with the website. It encourages them to engage with the website for longer sessions, while making them more confident in the website with each step. This is the kind of dynamic that you’re looking to create between your website and your customers, the one that can help set the foundation of customer trust in your website.
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AVOID DEMOTION IN SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS Search engines prefer fast websites over the slow ones because their objective is to offer users with the best options for their search query. Website loading speed is one of the ranking factors, in addition to many other factors, like authority and relevance, that search engines use for ranking the website. If your e-commerce website is slow, then it might receive a blow in the search engine rankings.
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PROMOTES WEBSITE CONVERSIONS AND SALES What are the factors that contribute turning a casually browsing user into a customer? From how the website looks and runs to the website’s discount offers, there are many things that shape the thinking process of a user. One thing’s for sure, even the best discount offers and the best-looking website won’t be enough to keep users interested if the website isn’t fast enough. A large fraction of abandoned shopping carts can be attributed to a painfully slow checkout process. For your store to have high conversion rates and sales, it has to be fast-loading.
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MAGENTO 1 VS MAGENTO 2: WHICH RUNS FASTER?
If we’re talking about website performance, Magento 2 does seem to have an edge over Magento 1. Supported by advanced technology stack, faster checkout process, major framework enhancements, convenient image optimization, better cache management, and more‌ Magento 2 offers more possibilities for improving the website performance. If there’s a comparison between the performance benchmarks of Magento 1 and Magento 2, you should know that: Page loading speed is 50% faster in Magento 2 than Magento 1. For a home page that takes 2.25 seconds to load in Magento 1, it will load in just 1.06 seconds in Magento 2. A simple product can take 2.40 seconds to load in Magento 1, but Magento 2 can load in 1.24 seconds. A category page that loads in 2.54 seconds in Magento 1 can load in 1.26 seconds in Magento 2. Checkout process is 38% faster in Magento 2 than Magento 1. Customer checkout can take up to 8.22 seconds in Magento 1, but the same takes only 5.89 seconds in Magento 2. Guest checkout can take up to 6.50 seconds in Magento 1, but the same takes just 4.00 seconds in Magento 2. As far as performance is concerned, Magento 2 is a clear winner over Magento 1, making it one of the many reasons why upgrading to Magento 2 is worth your time. Resource SALT CITY DIGITAL
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