A recent study has revealed significant discrepancies in site loading time across various top content management systems (CMS), a factor often overlooked but vital for eCommerce success. The research carried out by the Digital Marketing Agency, Indago Digital, comprehensively surveyed over 30,000 websites, collecting data from March 2024 for both mobile and desktop usage.
Wix E-commerce emerged as the fastest CMS, with website load times averaging at just over 5 seconds (5.24 seconds, to be exact). This makes Wix remarkably 43.75% quicker than Magento, the slowest CMS surveyed, which took an average of 9.275 seconds to load.
"Most clients, when choosing a CMS, traditionally focus on factors such as whether it has the necessary functionality and integrations, if it is intuitive and user-friendly, or the quality of available support. Rarely do we see clients using site speed as a determinant in their CMS selection," Gary Nissim, Managing Director at Indago Digital, said.
Nissim emphasised the importance of site speed from marketing perspectives, indicating it should be a critical factor in choosing a CMS. Fast websites contribute to better visibility in search engines, reduce Cost Per Click (CPCs) on paid channels, and significantly, convert better.
A study by The State of Online Retail highlighted the impact of website load times on mobile conversion rates, suggesting they can drop by up to 20% for each second of delay in page load. This is significant considering 70% of online purchases are conducted on mobile devices. Businesses wishing to foster customer loyalty would do well to consider site performance, with Skilled finding that 79% of users are less likely to repurchase from a site with slow loading times.
Google's introduction of Core Web Vitals into its ranking algorithms in May 2021 heightened the importance of load time, interactivity, and visual stability. "Higher-performing websites correlate with higher rankings. This is evident in our research tools that scrape millions of websites," Peter Dimakidis, Indago Digital CTO, said.
Retailers who ignore the repercussions of slow load times may be unknowingly forsaking significant revenue. A theoretical online shop with 10,000 visitors, a 1% conversion rate, and an average order value of $100 could double its earnings from $10,000 to $22,000 by reducing page load time from 9 seconds to 5 seconds, resulting in a conversion rate increase of 1.2%.
To help businesses improve their website load times, the study suggested five immediate actions: optimising image files; reducing data transfer; enhancing site simplicity and loading consistency; improving performance; and using robust third-party services for hosting, DNS, caching, and cybersecurity. The majority of CMS providers will have an app store where business owners can find apps to help improve their site speed.
Indago Digital gathered data for the study from httparchive.org, examining 30,000 websites using popular CMS and providing overall speed load time monitoring.
