For most online shoppers, their first visit to a web store is a make-or-break experience. Just as they may be impressed by the catalog, design, and prices, they can also be discouraged by poor website performance, a clunky interface, or a lack of
Magento 2 upgrade. The dangers of poor website configuration are great: just imagine losing half of your visitors due to page loading issues, or making $840 of sales per day when you could be making $1000, just because of an outdated shopping cart. We dive into the statistics below.
While there are a multitude of choices that contribute to a Magento site’s success, we want to focus on speed, because it plays such a critical role on the first visit and beyond. Whenever users encounter slow loading time on a web store, this becomes a harbinger for revenue loss and other negative consequences.
What are the dangers of a slow website?
As experts in Magento optimisation and development, we have encountered many stores and businesses on this platform faring poorly, with speed being the main cause in a significant share of them. Slow website speed is disastrous for all eCommerce websites, with losses of up to 20% costing them both clients and revenue. These numbers (16-20%) are very detrimental to big businesses, and can be outright fatal for new and small businesses. Here are some reasons why it happens:
1. Losing 1 in 5 customers in mere seconds
Imagine that you are visiting a website for the first time after clicking on one of many search results. You wait a few seconds, then a few more seconds. After that, you probably leave the website, which is in line with a trend examined in a recent
study: roughly half of users leave a web store if they need to wait more than 3 seconds to load, and the number increases as more seconds pass. Mobile users are especially impatient, so sites that are slow or not optimized for mobile suffer quick abandonment.
2. Slow shopping cart = Countless customers leave forever
Even after you get visitors to wait for the homepage to initially load, they can quickly leave if they face a slow and unsatisfying shopping experience. It is
estimated
that about 16% of online shoppers will abandon their shopping cart and look for products/services elsewhere if the order processing pages load slowly. The worst part is, these users almost never return to the website.
3. Dissatisfaction with speed brings fewer conversions and sales
As a direct result of the first 2 points and any other speed-related issues, companies start seeing their profits wither. This is due to the fact that customer dissatisfaction has a direct effect on conversion, meaning fewer sales and less revenue. On the other hand, web stores that shorten loading time by even one second through
Magento performance optimization can see a 7% boost in conversion over a month.
4. Ruined reputation
Customer dissatisfaction with loading speed is already a detriment to healthy sales, but it gets even worse when it becomes tangible and visible to all. We are talking about negative feedback and reviews, as well as penalization by Google, which hurts the SEO standing of websites that users have a negative experience with.
Top 4 tips to boost website speed
Losing business and revenue due to slow speed often feels like something beyond your control, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Several solutions are available to
speed up Magento websites.
1. Invest in efficient data solutions
It is no secret that a choice of hosting provider and CDN has a tremendous impact on website speed. Thus, investing in high-speed hosting solutions and a powerful content delivery network can work wonders for loading time and consequently boost your business.
2. Try optimization and website audit
When a Magento website loads slowly, it is often at least partly connected with how it is built – its code, active plugins, and themes. Such issues are rarely obvious, so we recommend opting for a thorough Magento 2 optimization to counteract elements of lag.
3. Modify images and files where needed
Sometimes, webpages are just bulkier than they need to be, so they load slowly on account of large file size. You can take small steps to change this by compressing images and making certain files (like thumbnails) smaller.
4. Prioritize mobile users
Even if mobile users contribute a small fraction of your total fraction, you should not neglect their experience. If you make the same
Magento speed optimization for your website’s mobile versions as for desktop, you may even see the number of mobile users skyrocket.
Takeaways
The negative repercussions of running a slow website are well documented, but not all business owners understand the connection between poor sales and loading time. Hopefully, looking at the facts and dangers will prompt them to take a closer look at how their web store is running. As for those who don’t believe they have any issues with speed, they may want to try some of the listed solutions anyway, given that they can improve already-strong sales.
Magento website audit is a favored approach for boosting speed, and SOFTLOFT is a company that you can count on for such needs. We have extensive experience with
Magento optimization, audit, and Migration, as well as a number of other services connected to this branch of eCommerce. If you give us a chance, we will rev up the engine of your website and make it take off, firing on all cylinders.
