One of the main reasons consumers shop online is because it’s so much quicker than going out to the shops and making a purchase. With this in mind, it’s essential that all ecommerce businesses consider how speedy their processes are and whether improvements are required in order to offer a more satisfactory online shopping experience. Below we’ve outlined some areas of ecommerce where speed is required and why it’s so crucial.
Page Loading Times
Users are only willing to wait two to three seconds for an ecommerce website to load before they click the X on their browser and find another website. This means that if your ecommerce website takes longer than a couple of seconds to load, you could be losing valuable sales to your competitors. Not only that but it might also be affecting your search rankings, as it will be causing your bounce rate to skyrocket.
The easy solution is to speed up your ecommerce website. You can do this by cleaning up its code, removing any plugins you no longer need and optimising your images. If this doesn’t seem to work, it may be your host that is the problem. For example, if you are running a Magento ecommerce store but are not using dedicated Magento hosting, it’s likely that your website will be performing slowly.
Speedy Site Navigation
Does your ecommerce website make it easy for users to navigate to the products or information they require? Users shouldn’t have to click through multiple pages in order to get what they need from you. The more difficult you make it, the longer it’s going to take and as we’ve already established online shoppers aren’t willing to wait.
Improving your ecommerce website’s navigation and implementing search functionality will allow customers to reach the products or information they need quickly. The easier it is, the more likely they are to place an order.
Fast Checkout Process
The thing that lets many ecommerce websites down is their checkout process. Whilst it’s important to make sure you offer customers a secure way to place their orders, they’re not going to want to have to jump through multiple hoops to do it. Some people even argue that lengthy checkout processes make customers suspicious of ecommerce websites, as they feel like they are being asked for too much information.
The best way to prevent customers abandoning their shopping carts is to implement a one-page checkout process. You can easily gather all the information you need from your customers from a single page and will make the checkout process far quicker for them to complete, as they won’t have to wait for multiple pages to load. Alternatively you could consider integrating your ecommerce website with social media so customers can login and checkout using their social media accounts.
Quick Delivery
Whilst providing a speedy online shopping experience is crucial to the success of your business, it is equally as important to provide your customers with quick delivery services. As we said before, speed is one of the main reasons customers shop online, so if they can’t get their products quickly, there’s very little point in them making a purchase from your store.
Offering speedy delivery services like next day delivery or even same day delivery is something that all ecommerce businesses must strive to achieve in 2015.
Conclusion
When it comes to building your ecommerce website, it’s not enough to offer a unique and engaging shopping experience, it’s got to be speedy too. Consumers are leading increasingly busy lives and simply don’t have the time to wait around for your website to load or for their products to be delivered. If you want your ecommerce business to be a success, offering a speedy and efficient online shopping experience is the solution.