The holiday shopping season is the ultimate stress test for eCommerce sites. With traffic surges, heightened shopper expectations, and millions on the line, every second counts. To help brands prepare, eCommerce thought leader Linda Bustos talked with Yottaa’s own Shawn O’Neill for an exclusive video series on site speed optimization during holiday shopping times.
In each conversation, Shawn shares proven strategies to boost speed, protect the shopper experience, and drive conversions — insights honed from working with some of the world’s top retail brands. Watch the videos below, and take away actionable tips to get your site ready for the holiday eCommerce season.
How to Build Fast, Efficient Holiday Gift Guides
Gift guides are a seasonal staple, but if they’re slow to load, shoppers won’t stick around to browse. In this conversation, Shawn O’Neill gives Linda Bustos actionable tips for designing holiday gift guides that are as fast as they are engaging. He explains how to optimize images, streamline third-party scripts, and reduce unnecessary page weight—ensuring your guides showcase your products without compromising site speed.
AI on Product Detail Pages — Site Speed Risks and Smart Implementation
The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT is reshaping the product detail page experience, from automated product descriptions to personalized recommendations. But these features can also impact performance. Shawn and Linda explore the potential slowdown risks of embedding AI widgets, and Shawn offers best practices for integrating them without hurting page load times. You’ll learn how to test AI features responsibly and deliver next-level personalization without trade-offs.
Site Speed Optimization and Holiday Gift Finders
Gift finders can delight shoppers and drive conversions—when they’re fast. In this video, Shawn and Linda discuss why some gift finders deliver a smooth, high-performing experience while others create frustrating delays. Shawn shares tips for building flows that guide shoppers seamlessly without overloading the site, from minimizing API calls to optimizing the order of content loading.
The Hidden Performance Impact of Consent Banners
Those cookie and email consent banners that greet visitors might seem harmless — but they can have an outsized effect on Core Web Vitals. Shawn explains to Linda why banners are often the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) element or cause disruptive layout shifts, making them a silent drag on performance. He also offers practical ways to test and optimize these elements so compliance doesn’t come at the cost of speed.
These expert insights are just the beginning of site speed optimization. The right site performance strategy can turn holiday traffic into lasting customer loyalty and measurable revenue gains.
Get your site holiday ready. Download Yottaa’s free Holiday Readiness Ebook and discover the proven tactics leading brands use to keep their sites fast, reliable, and conversion-friendly all season long.