A lot of research has been dedicated to the behavior of online shoppers. Many of the finds reveal exactly how important page speed is to any online business. If it takes more than a second for the page to start loading, the visitor will get the impression that nothing is happening in the background and if there are no signs of “life” they will lose patience and leave.
- The 3 second rule – 57% of online consumers will abandon a site after waiting for just 3 seconds for a page to load.
- Bad experience that sticks – 80% of those who abandon because of a slow loading page will never return to that store.
- Word of Mouth – Half of the customers you lost will also share their experience with others. In an age of social media this can do lasting harm to your business.
- What about the rest – Indeed there are 43% of visitors who stay after 3 seconds but as they wait 4, 5 or more for pages to load, the number of abandons increases dramatically.