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Performance

What’s 1 Second of Site Speed Worth to Online Brands? More than You Might Think…

eCommerce brands have suspected for some time that site speed and conversion are linked. When pages load quickly, shoppers typically stay on a site longer, giving brands an opportunity to present more of their product line to a potential buyer. It makes sense that as shoppers learn more about a product, the more likely they will be to buy it. But until now, online retailers didn’t know exactly how fast site load time had to be to make the difference between a shopper ultimately buying or bouncing. The data just wasn’t available to know the true impact of site performance on KPIs. 

Fortunately, brands no longer need make assumptions about how quickly their sites must load to avoid customers bouncing from their site to a competitor’s. The recently launched benchmark — The Site Speed Standard — is now available on the eCommerce Speed Hub, and it definitively proves that site speed impacts conversion rate. In fact, the data shows that just one second can be the difference between customers buying and bouncing.  

Saving the Second 

The Site Speed Standard, a key component of  eCommerce Speed Hub, is an interactive database of benchmark data collected from over 200 retail brands and more than 25 billion page views. The data is fresh, easy to use, and interactive, allowing online retailers to see the impact of page load speed on conversion and shopper experience across different devices. Brands can also compare their site performance against data from over 200 leading eCommerce sites. But most importantly, the Site Speed Standard proves that speed always wins when it comes to increasing conversions. In fact, when brands reduce page load times by just one second, this is what happens: 

  • Conversion rates increase by 5.7% on mobile and 3.3% on desktop 
  • Bounce rate reduces by 12.2% across the board 
  • Page views increase by .38 pages on mobile and .52 pages on desktop 

Note that these results can be expected for every second of page load time that brands can shave off.   

Why Site Speed Is Vital to Your Bottom Line 

As you might expect, when page load time slows down, conversion rates fall and bounce rates rise. When comparing the extremes of page load time averages, we see an almost exact negative correlation; the fastest load times see double the conversion rates and half the bounce rates!  

So, how fast does your site have to be to end up on the right side of the equation? The Site Speed Standard benchmark data shows that pages that load in less than 4 seconds win 59% of the conversions, and those that exceed the four second mark experience 58% of the bounces. However, sites that load in 2.5 seconds or less are the biggest winners when it comes to shoppers visiting their checkout pages. Brands needs to beat 4 seconds to achieve the biggest result.  

Saving the Second Graphic

It’s clear that slow site speed is a shopping experience killer for customers and a conversion killer for brands. Every eCommerce shopping session has an outcome, and site speed plays a big role in whether customers buy or bounce.   

What it all Means 

Fast eCommerce sites have a strong advantage! Get the data driven knowledge your brand needs to take control of your site. Visit the Site Speed Standard today!