How Site Speed Impacts Your E-commerce Business

Bounce rate is the percentage of people leaving your e-commerce site after viewing only a single page. The word "bounce" refers to viewers hitting the back button after seeing the one page.

The average bounce rate hovers from 50 to 60%. However, some websites can experience up to 80% bounces. There are various reasons why people leave your website.

Your site might be challenging to navigate, but poor e-commerce site speed could be to blame. The average consumer won't wait long for your website to load.

Any longer than a few seconds is a potential customer loss. Improving site speed can go far in retaining users to your site.

Your business can't afford to look like an inadequate b2b e-commerce developer was behind its website. Here is how slow speeds hinder your site and what you can do to mitigate the issue.

Why E-Commerce Site Speed Matters

A b2b e-commerce developer's job is creating, designing, testing, and maintaining online stores. Various pieces make a functional e-commerce website, like security and the ability to accept payments are two of them.

No amount of interactivity or security matters if your e-commerce site speed is glacial. We've already discussed bounce rate, but other reasons exist to improve site speed.

Google Search Ranking

SEO keyword optimisation isn't the only factor that determines your page ranking. Site speed is vital because it affects user experience.

Google doesn't award high rankings to websites that make potential customers wait. Site speed is part of an e-commerce site's core web vitals. Core web vitals consist of page speed and user interactions:

• Largest contentful paint
• First input delay
• Cumulative layout shift

Largest contentful paint (LCP) refers to the speed at which your webpage's main content loads. "Main content" refers to the initial web page's largest image or text block.

LPC measures the time it takes for this content to load relative to when the page itself began loading. The first input delay measures when users initially interact with your site and when the browser responds.

Another way to think of the first input delay is how quickly people can use your e-commerce website immediately after they visit.

The last of the core web vitals - cumulative layout shift - is how much a webpage "shifts." Shifting, in this context, means the page "moves" from what a user wants to click on, and they accidentally select something else.

Conversion

Customer conversion is when someone performs a desired action on your e-commerce site. Conversion is key in turning a would-be customer into a paying one.

Business goals differ between companies. Your conversion actions may range from registering on the website to providing their email addresses.

Something to remember: you won't keep that potential customer with a sluggish e-commerce site speed. E-commerce sites that load in a second see higher conversion rates than those that don't.

Keep your page load time low, and you'll have more chances to make sales.

Customer Loyalty

Website navigability is a large part of retaining customer loyalty. Not only will slow loading times put customers off, but it also makes you look unprofessional.

A slow website gives the impression you or your b2b e-commerce developer didn't optimise the website to the best of your abilities. Customer retention matters because it's cheaper to retain old buyers.

You have a 70% chance of getting an existing customer to purchase your products. The likelihood of new customers buying your goods ranges from 5 to 10%.

Dissatisfied customers are likely to leave your website. The more people click away, the higher your bounce rate becomes. Improving site speed is vital for your customer base and the company's longevity.

Declining Website Traffic

Low search engine ranking and terrible user experience are two major contributing factors to declining website traffic. Low Google rankings mean fewer people see your site in search results.

It's not common for people to search past the first page. Falling beyond first page rankings often occurs because your website UX isn't an enjoyable experience.

Slowly loading pages leads to increased bounce rates and dissatisfied visitors. These people leave seeking products elsewhere. As a result, you lose potential customers to your competitors.

Why is Your E-Commerce Site Speed So Slow?

You know the negative impact of slow website speeds, but what causes this issue? Understanding the problem is the first step to resolving it. Here are some reasons why your e-commerce website speed is so sluggish.

Unoptimised Images

Optimising your website's images means you ensure they look good on desktop and mobile without negatively impacting the site. Unoptimised images can reduce e-commerce site speeds.

The photos are too large and increase the size of your webpage. The larger your web pages, the more time it takes for them to load.

Render-Blocking JavaScript

JavaScript is the code that makes your website work. Companies don't need JavaScript to create a functional website. You may find it adds greater interactivity. But, like your images, you need optimised JavaScript.

Any webpage with unoptimised JavaScript must render the code before displaying the entire page. This delayed process is "render-blocking JavaScript." You have three choices to deal with render-blocking JavaScript:

• Use asynchronous loading
  • This allows JavaScript to load separately from the webpage
• Remove external JavaScript and replace them with inline files
• Delay JavaScript rendering until users can see the rest of the page

There are drawbacks to the first and second methods. Asynchronous loading may result in disordered files. Inline JavaScript files don't have a 100% success rate for improving site speed.

Delaying rendering is the most reliable option of the three.

Various Conflicting, Poorly-Written Scripts

Poorly written JavaScript can conflict with other parts of your website and cause slow e-commerce website speeds. You can run speed tests if you're not sure conflicting scripts are the issue.

GTmetrix and Pingdom can spot slow-loading scripts. The speed tests allow a b2b e-commerce developer to study and improve this badly-written code.

Missing File Errors

It's not uncommon for website installations to have files missing. The website takes longer to load because it's making requests to locate the files. Visitors may experience 404 errors if the site can't find them.

There is no singular cause for missing files. It's easier to reload your e-commerce site from the most recent backup than attempt to find why the files aren't there.

Too Many Ads

Many businesses rely on ad revenue to keep their websites operating. Issues arise when an e-commerce website has too many advertisements.

There may come the point when you must compromise between ad revenue and improving site speed. Too many ads can drastically reduce page loading speed. This, in turn, makes for an unenjoyable user experience.

Bad Web Hosting

You can be a competent b2b e-commerce developer and still have users experience slow loading speeds. You may have a bad web host if there is no apparent reason why web pages load slowly.

Slowly loading pages isn't the only sign you've chosen a bad web host. Poor customer service and poor security may be symptoms of subpar web hosting.

You should receive answers to questions and solutions to issues promptly. Your website should also have a top-notch firewall, anti-malware, and anti-virus security. Lacking various features is another sign of a web host.

Methods for Improving Site Speed

When you get reports of slow website speed, you should take measures to fix it. A good b2b e-commerce developer can offer solutions to e-commerce site users to improve their experience.

Compress Text and Images

Something many businesses overlook is image and text optimisation. Reducing image and text scale and size is a relatively simple solution to resolving your slow web page loading.

Check Your Hosting Provider

Slow e-commerce website speeds can be a result of poor hosting. But some hosting providers suffer from popularity as opposed to inadequate service.

Overly popular web hosting services may have too many websites on their servers. You can switch to a hosting provider that's less cluttered to accommodate your business's website.

Consider dedicated hosting instead of shared hosting based on factors such as website traffic volume, complexity, and revenue generated. With dedicated hosting, you are the sole user of the server, resulting in optimal performance. For large websites, a cluster of servers can be used for website hosting, database management, and caching.

Cache Up

Caching stores information on users' devices so it can load more quickly. Caching is beneficial when increasing page load speeds for user retention.

Specific software captures and stores still versions of websites. These frozen websites serve as preliminary loads onto browsers, enabling pages to load faster.

Removing Unused Plugins

Multiple plugins can seem like a great idea. However, an overabundance of backing installations can slow your e-commerce site.

It's a common occurrence for older websites to have various plugins. Their businesses keep adding more to make the site more attractive to visitors.

The website has an overloaded memory and can't run at peak functionality. You can delete unused and irrelevant plugins to repair slow-loading pages.

Build a Better E-Commerce Website

Building a better website begins with improving site speed. Your e-commerce site cannot succeed if users constantly leave, thanks to slow loading speeds and poor user experience.

Contact DWS Limited if you need a reliable b2b e-commerce developer. DWS Limited provides website hosting, website customisations, and application design.

We can help you increase your e-commerce site speed and customer conversion rates.