Mobile websites: speed drives sales

How to improve the profitability of your mobile websites and online shops

Mobify’s (a company since acquired by Salesforce) Mobile Insights report for the second quarter of 2016 provides marketers with figures that confirm what they had suspected. An analysis of large volumes of data, drawn from Mobify’s customer base in the second quarter of 2016, demonstrates the impact of a mobile site’s speed on consumer engagement and sales.

“The retail sector agrees that a successful online shop relies on responsiveness to retain mobile visitors, but there is little data to prove this, and even less at the scale of major retailers. With Mobile Insights, Mobify aims to fill this gap, provide insightful data and give retailers concrete actionable insights.” Vik Kambli, Head of Strategy at Mobify

What exactly does the Mobify study reveal?

• for every 100-millisecond reduction in homepage loading time, Mobify’s clients saw their conversion rate per session increase by 1.11 per cent, representing an average of an additional $376,789 in annual turnover;
• for every 100-millisecond reduction in checkout page loading time, the increase reaches 1.55 per cent, equating to an average of $526,147 in additional annual revenue;
• shoppers are more likely to return to the fastest mobile sites;
• each additional page view per visitor improves conversion by 5.17 per cent, equating to an average of $398,484 in additional annual revenue.

According to an article by Helen Leggatt for BizReport (August 2016), adapted into French by Philippe Delberghe.

What solutions are available for those whose businesses depend on their website?

Choose a technically capable service provider

The choice of a service provider to create your website should not depend solely on the visual appeal of their work. Many graphic designers are capable of creating an attractive design in Photoshop; far fewer know how to bring it to life, ensuring it works effectively on both mobile phones and computers; very few will advise you on the user experience for your customers; and even fewer still who know how to build a fast website, avoiding the accumulation of plugins, unoptimised style sheets and JavaScript calls that will turn your dream website into a nightmare for your customers.

Continuous improvement

Creating a website isn’t something you can do in a day; keeping it alive and evolving takes time and a budget. But that shouldn’t matter if it’s your business tool! A manufacturer invests millions in a machine tool or a new production line to win new markets. Why not allocate the necessary budget to your main source of income?

Don’t hesitate to revamp

High-street shops revamp their shop windows at least once a quarter, and not just to amaze the children… When was the last time you revamped your website?

Your online shop

For a fast-loading online shop on mobile phones, see our page on e-commerce website creation, and, to measure your website’s speed today, our post on slow websites.