Case Study: How a 2-Second Improvement in Page Load Time More Than Doubled Conversions

By
Tammy Everts
-
58
71643

Roughly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout, and new findings suggest that slow load times are the number-one culprit. A recent survey* of more than 2,500 online consumers in the US and UK found that two thirds (67%) of UK shoppers and more than half (51%) of those in the US said that site slowness is the top reason they’d abandon a purchase. These are pretty compelling numbers, but what do they mean in real terms for a typical site owner?

What do these findings mean for you?

To test the impact of slow pages on transaction completion, we worked with a brave customer who shared our curiosity. Over a 12-week period, we conducted a split test in which a segment of their web traffic was divided into three sub-segments:

  • Fast: This group received a fully optimized set of pages. (For this experiment, optimal performance was defined as pages that load in less than 5 seconds.) This established the baseline conversion rate for the experiment.
  • Slow (page 1): This group experienced a 2-second delay to the first page in the transaction.
  • Slow (page 3): This group experienced a 2-second delay to the third page in the transaction.

As the results in the table below show, a 2-second delay in load time during a transaction resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%. This is significantly higher than the baseline abandonment rate of 67%.

If you’re a glass-is-half-full kind of person, here’s the positive spin: making each page in a transaction just 2 seconds faster resulted in more than double the number of completed transactions.

Case study: Impact of page slowdown on transaction completion

Also interesting is the fact that it’s not enough to lure shoppers in with a speedy first page. Slowing down the third page – for shoppers who are at the halfway point of a transaction – caused the bounce rate to jump from 67% to 80%.

What are the most common shopping cart performance culprits?

These are the four most common performance issues we see every day:

1. Too many pages in the checkout process

There’s a reason why companies like Amazon have made it a priority to allow one-click checkout for customers who want to hustle through the purchasing process. They know that each stage in the checkout process is an invitation for attrition.

2. HTTPS/SSL

In our world, the only issue that trumps web performance is security. Your checkout process must be secure, but that security can come with a performance price tag: all that handshaking, encrypting, and decrypting necessarily takes time. Site owners who want to make the checkout process faster should take a look at how their site handles security. (Quick tip: Enable HTTPS content to be cached by the browser, which will help checkout pages render somewhat faster. There’s a myth that HTTPS content can’t be cached, but in actuality this is controllable with response headers, just like HTTP content.)

3. Too many page resources

Enabling browser caching, as explained above, will help with this problem, but you should also take a close look at your checkout pages and weed out extraneous images and other large files. Not only do these files consume unnecessary bandwidth, they’re also distracting when shoppers should be focusing on completing a single task.

4. Third-party service calls

If a site uses third-party services such as address validation, credit card authorization, and analytics, you need to make sure these services are performing quickly and reliably during checkout. This means understanding your service-level agreements (SLAs) with third-party providers and knowing what kind of monitoring and performance reporting these providers offer.

Learn more: Find out how Radware FastView gives you automated real-time acceleration of Web applications, out-of-the-box.

*Adventures in Retail: The other line is faster, Brand Perfect, November 2012

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

58 COMMENTS

  2. This blog is an amazing one, the contents here are always very educative and useful, the reason I make it my regular blog of visit so as to widen my knowledge every day, thanks for always sharing useful and interesting information, you can checkout this

  3. Best online business ideas in Hindi. You can start from home even without money.
    As we all know very well today that any person can earn money sitting at home through online business. Because whatever work is done online, it is because of computer and internet. And any person can start this type of business with the help of laptop, computer, internet.

  4. A good business idea can seem daunting, but with some planning and preparation, you can easily start a small business to supplement your income — or become your own full-time boss.

    Maybe you already have an idea for the business you want to start. But while you can feel ready for a new venture and are passionate about your idea, you may be looking for some direction.

  5. Sama seperti bermain judi tradisional, Anda akan menemukan banyak versi permainan kasino online untuk Anda mainkan. Ada banyak situs web untuk setiap bentuk permainan yang mungkin diinginkan pemain, dan beberapa di antaranya mungkin gratis.

  6. Thank you for giving such useful information that is often difficult to come by. Good job. Excellent article and your website are quite user-friendly. Your website and essay are fantastic. I’m a blogger who focuses on fashion. You can see examples of my work by visiting this website. Your webpage is great. This website is quite easy to navigate. Thank you for taking the time to put your views down on paper. Please browse through my website. Thank you for writing such a fantastic article. Your article is excellent. This website is very user-friendly. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

  9. mengenai Agen Slot Online, mudah- mudahan berguna untuk kamu serta mudah- mudahan dengan terdapatnya keterangan ini kamu bisa memehami beberapa mengenai slot online. Demikian dari aku dapat kasih

  10. Beberapa dari mereka masih ragu jika suatu saat kita bisa mendapatkan keuntungan besar bahkan ratusan juta hanya untuk bermain slot. Nyatanya memang banyak dari mereka yang sudah membuktikan sendiri bahwa mereka bisa menghasilkan banyak uang dari permainan taruhan judi slot yang mereka jalankan. Jadi sebenarnya ini adalah kemungkinan yang pasti bisa kita dapatkan dan rasakan jika kita bisa serius dalam bermain.

  12. Agen judi slot online menawarkan pemain pilihan pembayaran yang paling nyaman. Penting untuk menggunakan layanan yang dapat merespons pertanyaan pelanggan dengan cepat. Agen slot online harus selalu aktif. Selain waktu respons yang cepat, agen harus ramah kepada para pemain.

  13. Info Situs Slot Gacor Hari Ini virtual yang menyambut pemeran dari bebagai negeri. Pada dikala yang serupa, tidak seluruh Info Situs Slot Gacor Hari Ini ini menawarkan penjudi situasi yang seimbang buat main. Terdapat banyak patokan buat Info Situs Slot Gacor Hari Ini yang baik. Dipimpin oleh saran dari web hendak berikan ketahui Kamu mengenai yang sangat berarti..

  15. Memenangkan permainan slot online tepercaya memiliki kemenangan terbesar yang tersedia. Karena Anda bisa menang dengan mudah di sini dan agen selalu membayarkan hadiah yang Anda dapatkan.

  16. Pragmatic Slot Online dengan Mudah- Jika aku wajib balik, bisa jadi Menegaskan kita main slot semacam memencet toko di mana tiap orang wajib mengantre. kemudian tekan mesin slot Terdapat banyak sekali mesin slot yang dibesarkan lalu menembus, terdapat metode serta sistem yang lalu dibesarkan.

  17. Agen slot online tidak memberikan hadiah Anda, jadi Anda perlu memeriksa latar belakang dan lisensi mereka. Penting untuk membaca ulasan masing-masing sebelum memutuskan untuk menggunakannya, karena agensi ini dapat memberikan umpan balik tentang layanan tersebut.

  18. Jika Anda tidak memiliki banyak hoki di pihak Anda, Anda tidak akan berhasil. Ini akan menjadi sebuah acara. Perjudian dimungkinkan di situs slot online ini, dan Anda juga dapat menggunakan nama samaran dari agen slot online yang sangat bagus dan dapat diandalkan.

  20. Mereka memiliki tema yang berbeda, paylines, pembayaran, fitur bonus dan berbagai pilihan untuk membuat taruhan Anda. Untuk menjadi pemenang ketika Anda memilih untuk bermain slot online, Anda perlu mengetahui permainan mana yang harus dipilih.

  22. Saat ini ada berbagai jenis permainan taruhan online untuk dipilih dan ini memungkinkan kita untuk memainkannya di smartphone. Perlu Anda ketahui bahwa bermain game judi dengan smartphone merupakan salah satu solusi modern.

  32. Dedicated Server vs. Shared Server
    Instead of asking whether a dedicated server is affordable for your company, ask if your company can afford shared hosting. Dedicated servers do cost more than hosting plans, but site abandonment means fewer conversions. So, then, which actually costs more?

  34. Sikat88 merupakan situs slot online yang terpopuler di tahun 2022 se indonesia, situs yang menyediakan berbagai macam permainan slot online dengan tema yang menarik dan unik bisa membuat anda betah bermain permainan judi slot online yang tersedia. Tidak hanya memiliki tema yang menarik dan unik, permainan yang dihadirkan juga memiliki sistem permainan yang mudah untuk dimainkan dan juga memberikan kemenangan dengan mudah.

  38. Stranger things is one of the top-rated tv series of 2022 and the Eddie Munson is one of the main characters of this tv series so if you love to wear denim jackets, get this fantastic Eddie Munson Vest

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here