Websites become Slower every day

The obesity epidemic seems to have claimed yet another unsuspecting victim: your website!

Website Speeds Slowing Down

Over the span of just one year the loading speed performance of half of all e-commerce websites has worsened – all at the same time as the consumer expectations were rising. What a bad combination.

Websites Lack Speed Performance Budgets

Websites are getting “heavy”, with the median top 100 pages being 1677 KB in 2014. That’s 67% more than just a year ago, when it was 1007 KB. The push to add better quality images and new features to please customers is irresistible, yet this urge, when unchecked, is precisely what drives the customers away. As we had mentioned in a post before, users expect 2.5-3 seconds response time from a web page. After that threshold is reached, they drop off in droves. With the median top 100 retail websites taking 6.2 seconds to render primary content and 10.7 seconds to fully load, slow loading speed is a big problem that cuts directly into revenues. In fact only 14% of the online retailers are able to deliver a sub-3-second user experience.

Website Speed Infographic

Take a look at this still relevant Infographic developed by the folks at Web Performance Daily and see how you’d perform compared to the averages as well as the best-in-class (1.4 seconds) retailers: Website Speed Infographic

Takeaways on How To Keep Website Loading Speed From Dropping

Serving customers right requires more than a relentless push to add more features. By establishing a disciplined, balanced approach to website content with a Performance Budget you can avoid web page bloat and lost revenues. Consider the value (and website loading speed tradeoff) of every new element you add to your online store – you might not need all those images in 4K resolution and to have all your extensions firing on the home page! Question designers’ ideas and monitor how changes affect traffic and conversions. Let us know if you would like to get a free audit of your Magento website by writing to us. We’ll include performance improvement suggestions and provide business process advice that will ensure your store is in top shape.