E-Commerce Execs Worry Over Slow Website Performance, Losing Customers

By: LiquidPixels | December 8, 2021 | 4 Min Read

Imagery is the most powerful sales tool on any website, but for e-commerce, imagery is often an afterthought.

LiquidPixels knows that imagery is critical to the online customer experience. Almost two years have passed since the pandemic forced a shift in how consumers shop, and we were curious to hear feedback from the industry.

Recently, we surveyed 600 senior executives of e-commerce and retail-based U.S. companies to find out their fears and worries regarding slow website performance, how much their own site images are a contributor, and a number of other issues.

What we learned was fascinating.

The Woes of Slow Website Performance

A lack of site image analytics has retail leaders anxious about the holiday season. Top worries include sagging sales, second-page SERP rankings, unsatisfactory SEO standings, and overall business competitiveness.

Eighty-four percent of those surveyed responded that they were either “slightly” or “very concerned” about how sub-optimal image performance affects their website.

In connection, 66 percent believe they are losing traffic and potential customers and prospects to competitors with better, faster websites.

Additionally, 60 percent felt that their SERP rankings and SEO standings suffer because of slow website performance. “Google ranks fast sites higher in search results versus those which are slower,” says Steve Kristy, CEO of LiquidPixels. Businesses know this and they want to do better.

More than 50 percent of respondents also expressed their concern about abandoned shopping carts becoming a “major challenge.” Finally, about 74 percent of executives fret over the increasing costs of maintaining an e-commerce website.

Customer Complaints

As executives worry about website speed, customers are frustrated about it. A significant portion of the respondents receive client complaints that lead them to believe a web performance image optimization is in order.

Seventy percent of the respondents reveal that their customers have, at least at one point, sent in complaints about slow website performance. The top issue with 49 percent of the vote was “Your website is very slow.”

Thirty-six percent received complaints that their device “did not show product pictures,” while another 36 percent reported customers “not seeing details about the product.” Additionally, 35 percent said they “could not zoom in or out of the product image on their device.”

Increasingly, web performance image optimization on mobile devices has become important. Last September, in fact, Google started to index websites based on how well their pages were optimized for a mobile-first experience.

“These results do not surprise us,” said Kristy. “Page load time is crucial to the overall customer experience. Companies may have a beautiful website and exceptional products, but if their site loads too slowly, shoppers will get frustrated and move on.”

The Drive to Optimize Image Performance

Eighty-two percent of the survey respondents are interested in learning how they can better display their website imagery. Moreover, an additional 75 percent said they are open to learning more about their site’s performance, including how to reduce page load time and optimal image resolution across devices, as well as ways to increase traffic, among other benefits.

Eighty-one percent of respondents plan to do website upgrades in 2022. Seventy-eight percent plan to invest in imagery tech to increase their competitiveness in the e-commerce space. Half of those surveyed report a willingness to spend from $100,000 to $1 million, or more.

“Imagery is the most powerful selling tool on any website,” says Kristy. “It is the virtual window into your store to entice customers to explore products and to fill their shopping carts. We are encouraged to see that retailers are investing in imagery technology that will make them competitive in this new selling environment.”

Read More About the Survey

Adobe recently released its Digital Economy Index for this year’s Cyber Week sales. According to Adobe:

Consumers spent a total of $10.7B on Cyber Monday, which is down 1.4 percent YoY. Although it is about $100 million shy of what shoppers spent last year ($10.8B), it still remains the biggest online shopping day of the year. In the peak hour (11pm-12am ET / 8pm-9pm PT on the west coast), consumers spent $12 million every minute.

Cyber Week (from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday) has now driven a total of $33.9B in online spend, down 1.4 percent YoY, as Black Friday dipped 1.3 percent YoY at $8.9B vs $9B (2020) and Thanksgiving Day stayed flat at $5.1B.

Even with a 1.4 percent drop from previous year’s sales, the importance of an efficient e-commerce site with fast load times and optimized for every device, should not be understated.

LiquidPixels creates dynamic imagery solutions that allow businesses to alter imagery on demand, optimized for any device, over any network connection, for the fastest and most accurate rendering possible.

To download an executive brief on this survey, visit our survey page here.