Have you ever encountered a slow website when shopping online and ended up giving up? In a context where users are increasingly rushed, e-commerce performance can represent the success or failure of a business.
This performance is linked to user experience, fast page loading, optimization for all devices, and constant monitoring. However, not all companies take such care when planning, running the risk of making a series of mistakes.
This article explain to you how a good performance of online stores can directly impact the conversion into sales of your visitors. Check it out:
User Experience
User experience refers to what the customer feels when navigating through your e-commerce site. This can be measured by their impressions, satisfaction, and even the possibility of referring the site.
Good experiences are provided by sites that are pleasant in all senses: speed, a good product description, easy to finalize purchases, good delivery service, and especially good customer service.
Thus, by allowing the user to have a positive experience, which generates satisfaction, the success of your e-commerce is guaranteed in the performance in conversions. Remember that the customer needs to perceive that he can count on your company, and that it supplies his demands in specific moments.
Average Waiting Time
The average waiting time is crucial for the permanence or abandonment of the user in your virtual store. A very slow site, that takes too long to load, can scare visitors away, because as we said, we are increasingly anxious to perform our activities as quickly as possible.
A time superior to 4 seconds to load a page is enough for the customer to abandon the e-commerce site and go surfing on other sites. Thus, the ideal is that this period does not exceed 2 seconds. The fast loading of the page allows the visitor to gain time in searching for the product.
Another advantage of site speed is linked to SEO(Search Engine Optimization) factors, which are responsible for positioning your brand in Google's results page.
One of the factors that lead your e-commerce content to the top positions in Google is the average loading time. Therefore, a fast loading can guarantee a good positioning, generating more traffic and credibility to the site.
E-Commerce Performance and Sales Completion
The finalization of sales, therefore, is directly linked to e-commerce performance, which means that it needs to be faster, more intuitive, and solve the visitor's problem. To have a good performance, you need to follow a few steps:
Reduce images
Images, although indispensable, are one of the big culprits for slow loading sites, since they are often in excess or in high resolution.
To get around the problem, choose to leave only the necessary images and low-resolution photos. As irresistible as it may be to keep a photo at 1920 X 1080, choose to use an image optimizer so that they are adequate without harming the site.
Eliminate unnecessary features
Some website platforms, especially WordPress, have a number of features that are often not used or even known by everyone. One way to improve e-commerce performance is to eliminate all those plug-ins, including social network plug-ins that are not used. This will improve the speed of the site.
Clean up the HTML code
The amount of elements in the programming code can also hurt the performance of the site. So group elements by function and rename HTML items in a way that makes sense.
Optimization for Mobile Devices
A big mistake for e-commerces is not getting the mobile version of their pages: versions that adapt to other devices with internet access (smartphone or tablet).
A large portion of people access the internet through these devices. People interact on social networks, pay bills, close deals, and of course, make online purchases.
In addition, this is also a ranking factor in Google. When searching on a mobile device, the platform only displays responsive sites, i.e., those that adapt to different screen types.
Another option is e-commerce app development. Applications perform better, are lighter, and provide a good user experience. It is worth mentioning that, despite requiring an initial investment, developing a mobile version will help increase the conversion into sales of your visitors.
The Importance of Monitoring
Finally, another important tip is the monitoring of results. It is essential to establish a revenue target and thus work on the issues that may influence the trajectory in search of an X amount of visitors, for example.
One of the main factors that determine the achievement of the expected revenue is the monitoring of the online user's behavior. There are several tools that accurately show the most accessed content on the page by visitors and the most abandoned content.
Monitoring the users who access your e-commerce site allows you to identify the strategies that are working and the ones that need to be changed.
In addition, paying attention to the call center allows important feedbacks from users, questions, complaints, or suggestions to be analyzed by your team and resolved.
It is also interesting to have a design and programming team that is responsible for carrying out frequent tests and applying improvements when the needs are identified.
In general, the biggest responsible for the success of an online store is the store itself, because it is there that the customer should make the purchase decision. Therefore, always invest in improving the performance of your e-commerce. The results will be worth it.
Did you like to know a little more about performance? How about knowing a little more about how to have a successful e-commerce? Read our article about the most common mistakes that make you lose money in your virtual store.
