How Slow Site Speed Can Hurt Your Online Business?

Do you think site speed is not important for your e-commerce business?

Then you couldn’t be more wrong.

Research shows that 1-3 seconds load times increase the bounce rate probability by 32%, 1-5 seconds load times by 90%, 1-6 seconds load times by 106%, and 1-10 seconds load times by 123%.

As you can see, the bounce rate probability is directly related to web page load time. If the latter increases, the former shoots up too.

High bounce rate, in turn, directly affects customer engagement–and that’s not surprising at all. If customers are not willing to spend much time on your site, obviously they won’t be queuing up to engage with your brand, either.

In other words, slow site speed means poor customer engagement.

But that’s not all. Increased page load times can inflict much more damage by negatively affecting other factors important for your online business, besides customer engagement.

Here are some key success determiners that take a hit because of slow site speed.

Negative Publicity

Unhappy customers frequently share their bad experience with others. As a matter of fact, reports show that 44% of customers will tell others about a bad online experience. And in this age of social networking sites, one negative feedback about your business can have far-reaching consequences and keep many others from using your services.

Less Page Traffic

While bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who visit a site and then leave it quickly without viewing other pages within that site, page traffic indicates to the total number of visitors that enter a site.

Research shows that slow page loading reduces page traffic, too. A 1 second delay in website page loading time causes page views to decline by 11%.

Additionally, Google might take your site’s high bounce rate as poor quality of content on your site and give it lower ranking on its search result pages.

Fewer Sales

If fewer people visit your site and many among these leave your site after viewing just the first page, obviously your sales will drop.

But that’s not the worst of it. According to a study quoted by the Hosting Tribunal, people also abandon a purchase midway if slow site speed is slow. This study reports that the main reason for dropping a purchase for 51% US online customers is none other than slow website speed.

Less Repeat Business

If your site is slow, nearly 80% of your customers are less likely to do business with you again.

And your loss is your competitors’ gain. Reports show that 43% of buyers will visit a competitor’s website if they were not happy with their mobile shopping experience.

Want to know more about how slow page loading time affects your online business? Then check out this interesting infographic which contains loads of information about how slow site speed can break the back of any online business, as well as several case studies showing how big brands benefited by improving their load times

What’s good for industry leaders will help you, too. Therefore, rope in the services of a web development agency of reasonable repute to improve your site speed and with it your sales and brand image.