The impact of page load time on website performance and conversion rate

Website performance is largely influenced by user experience.

More or less, we all know it now.

The user experience is in turn affected by a wide range of factors such as page layout, user interface, page structure, navigation architecture and others.

Page loading speed is another very important factor that, if neglected, leads to “under the radar” problems that affect sales.

The more traffic the site has, the greater the damage.

Research, analysis, the biggest brands like Walmart and Amazon, Google, have argued that page load time greatly affects SEO, engagement, brand loyalty and conversion rate.

The real cost

The impact on user attitude and user behavior

- 47% expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less.

- 40% of users will abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

- A delay of 1 second (or 3 seconds of waiting) reduces customer satisfaction by 16%.

- 79% of shoppers who are not satisfied with website performance are less likely to buy from the same site again.

- 52% of online shoppers say that fast page loading is important to their website loyalty.

The impact on revenue and sales

- If an ecommerce site makes €100,000 euros per day, every 1 second delay in its page load time can cost up to €2.5 million in lost sales every year.

- Every 1 second in load lag time would cost Amazon €1.6 billion in sales per year.

The impact on conversion rate

- The ideal conversion rate is observed at 2 seconds.

- Every 1 second delay in page response leads to a 7% reduction in conversion rate.

- A page with a 4 second load time gets -40% less traffic.

- A page with a 6 second load time gets -50% less traffic.

The impact on Page Abandonment

- Page load time dramatically increases the page abandonment rate.

- A 4 second page response delay leads to a 25% abandonment rate.

- A delay of 10 seconds will cause users to leave a site immediately.

Case study: Walmart

Walmart’s conversion rate problem:

- Walmart saw a significant drop in conversion rate as the average site load time increased from 1 to 4 seconds.

- The overall average load time was shorter for users who converted to the site (3.22 seconds compared to non-converted users at 6.03 seconds).

Improvements and results:

- For every 1 second of improvement, Walmart saw a 2% increase in conversion rate.

- For every 100 ms of improvement, Walmart saw an incremental revenue of 1%.

- Walmart also noticed many improvements in SEO for entry pages and a lower bounce rate.

Sources:

- http://www.fastcompany.com/1825005/how-one-second-could-cost-amazon-16-billion-sales

- http://www.cedexis.com/blog/for-google-400ms-of-increased-page-load-time-results-in-044-lost-search-sessions/

- http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2014/04/09/web-page-speed-affect-conversions-infographic/

- https://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/

- http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/47-of-consumers-expect-a-web-page-to-load-in-2-seconds-or-less#axzz3x8iy9kp8

- https://econsultancy.com/blog/10936-site-speed-case-studies-tips-and-tools-for-improving-your-conversion-rate/

- https://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-need-for-speed/

- http://blog.radware.com/applicationdelivery/applicationaccelerationoptimization/2013/06/web-performance-poverty-line/

- http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2012/02/28/4-awesome-slides-showing-how-page-speed-correlates-to-business-metrics-at-walmart-com/