3 key errors the top 25 e-commerce sites make – and how to avoid them
On November 27 2020, Black Friday deals kick off, followed by Cyber Monday on November 30. We have been looking at the top 25 UK e-commerce sites to see if they are ready to take off.
Performance of the top 25 UK e-commerce sites
Enterspeed has prepared a performance analysis of the 25 most popular e-commerce sites in the UK, and it shows that there are still a lot of possible optimisations to be made. According to the survey, only five out of the 25 top UK e-commerce sites rank above 50 on a scale of 100.
The performance review is based on numbers from Google Lighthouse. It's a free and automated tool that gives you an instant, high-level picture of the site's overall performance, along with notes on what you need to fix.
Once you know how your site is performing, you can take the required action. Below, we have listed three key findings based on Enterspeed's Top 25 survey.
Three hacks for performance optimisation
In Enterspeed's study, it is shown that the three most essential hacks that companies can use to optimise performance are:
- Removing unused java scripts
- Every site in the top 25 has JavaScript that is not in use, affecting the performance without creating value.
- Eliminating render-blocking resources
- 72% have resources that delay the display of the page unnecessarily
- Deferring offscreen images
- This is also known as lazy loading time and more than half of the top 25 struggle with it.
- This is also known as lazy loading time and more than half of the top 25 struggle with it.
Speed matters
Let's make one thing clear: these sites wouldn't be in the top 25 if they didn't perform well, although all of the sites could increase both earnings and revenue by optimising the three critical opportunities mentioned above.
Improved performance results in better conversion rates, lower bounce rate and lower advertising costs. Specifically, studies show:
- For every second your site loads faster, cases have shown 2–10% improved conversion rate.
- If your load time is over three seconds, you will lose 53% of your mobile users, according to Google.
- Improved performance results in a higher quality score at Google and, thus, both better SEO ranking and cheaper purchased traffic.
So, to sum up, the speed of your e-commerce site is key when it comes to conversions, but especially on Black Friday and Cyber Monday where the competition is intense, and customers require fast load times. Your pages need to load quickly to prevent user frustration and, consequently, shopping cart abandonment and site bounces.
It's not too late - reach out today
If you want to increase your revenue and earnings by optimising your website’s performance, we are here to help you with reviews and actionable recommendations. It will help make sure your website is fast and competitive during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas shopping, and online shopping during the pandemic.
