Top UK retailers struggle with poor website speeds, Visualsoft

A new Visualsoft research study on 240 of the UK’s top e-retailers has shown that over half are risking huge revenue losses due to poor loading speeds on their websites. 54% of page speeds rated as ‘poor’, taking over nine seconds to load, and 32% only rated as fair (six to eight seconds). The analysis, in the 2017 E-Retail Performance Report, reveals that the most sluggish retailers (those rated ‘poor’) will lose 29% of all potential customers through site speed alone. Those rated ‘fair’ will also suffer, dropping about a quarter of all potential customers. Only 2% received an excellent rating, loading in under four seconds, which is the speed required to ensure minimum customer drop-off.

Tim Johnson, Chief Sales Officer at Visualsoft, says: “Describing nine second load times as slow, might seem ridiculous to many retailers, but the evidence shows that over 50% of people expect a site to load in less than two seconds. For every additional second it takes to load, rates of conversion have been found to drop by up to 20%. Our research shows that the UK’s top e-retailers are not acting to solve slow mobile device load speeds. With over half of Christmas and Black Friday online shopping expected to come from mobile devices this year, creating surges in traffic that will only further slow.”

He adds: “Up and coming retailers may not be able to compete with the seasonal marketing spend of their larger competitors, but by maximising page load speeds, they can successfully scoop up those frustrated customers who want a speedier shop. We see great improvements with the companies we’re working with through our ‘Shared Success’ model, where we agree a percentage of increased sales rather than upfront fees for our work. Increases in page load speeds for mobile devices is one of the first things we look to improve in order to maximise conversions.”