North Wales web design expert cautions e-commerce owners on website speed

Often e-commerce website owners are reluctant to trust web designers who advise them that poor site speeds are costing them online sales.

Their reluctance to tackle the issue, however, could be having a serious impact on their business.

New research, carried out by Visualsoft, analysed the speed of the UK’s top 250 e-Commerce websites.  They found 62% rated as ‘poor’ – taking longer than nine seconds to load on 3G.  16% of retailers’ sites took 15 seconds or longer to load.

Why is load speed important for an e-commerce website?

Speed is a huge problem because consumers increasingly expect to be able to use mobile phones and tablets to shop online.  A website that is not optimised for speed on both mobile and desktop will lose sales – and for e-commerce sites in particular, consumer trust is everything.

Statistics show that 40% of users will go to the competitor after a bad mobile experience, yet an alarming 84% have experienced difficulty completing a mobile e-commerce transaction.  According to reports, mobile is now a bigger market than desktop when it comes to e-commerce websites – and usage is set to increase.

2019 is expected to be the biggest year yet for e-commerce retailers,  so it is really important that Welsh e-commerce businesses don’t miss out on their share of this growth.

Paul Lyons, owner of North Wales web design company, Design Web, says:

“I have to be honest, I was shocked by these statistics –  only 1% of e-commerce websites were found to have ‘excellent’ page load speeds in the Visualsoft research.  Almost 47% of customers expect a website to load in less than two seconds, so e-commerce websites with fast page load speeds will clearly have a competitive advantage.”

If industry predictions are to be believed, mobile is set to soar between 2019 and 2021.

“For existing e-commerce website owners, 2019 will mean upping your game, you absolutely need an SSL security certificate, fast page load speeds and a mobile optimised site, or you will lose sales – and once they have found a competitor’s website, they may not return – these are easy issues to fix and the cost can be offset against increased sales.” If local businesses need any advice or would like a free review of their website, North Wales Web Design specialists DesignWeb are offering this throughout January – to take advantage of this, just get in touch.