There are 3 metrics to pay attention to when testing a website’s load time & performance:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how long it takes for the largest image & text to load on the site. This is the most common way of measuring how long it takes for a site to be fully loaded for a visitor.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly a web page responds to any action a user performs on the website (i.e. clicking a button or typing).
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): this is a measure of how “stable” the website is when loading (i.e. do images load in and stay in place or do they shift up/down when loading in the website)
LCP, INP, and CLS are the most common metrics used when measuring website loading speed and performance. Together, these 3 have a strong impact on conversion rate, organic ranking, paid marketing performance, and overall customer experience.
Here are the benchmark to aim for with LCP, INP, and CLS:
LCP — 2.5 seconds or less
INP — 200 milliseconds or less
CLS — 0.1 or less
Here is the LCP, INP, and CLS for Ciele Cosmetics:
LCP
Mobile: 2.7 seconds
Desktop: 2.8 seconds
INP
Mobile: 104 ms
Desktop: 54 ms
CLS
Mobile: 0
Desktop: 0
This means that the Ciele Cosmetics website is taking too long to load.
When a shoppers visits the website on their mobile phone or computer, the website is taking longer than the recommended 2.5s to load.
This extra load time might seem minimal; however, ecommerce is a game of milliseconds.
Each additional second it takes the website to load hurts overall conversion rates 👇
Based on the site speed audit results, there are a handful of technical issues slowing down the website.
Most notably, the site is being slowed down by to excess JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code present in the site. This is a the most common occurrence in ecommerce sites hosted on Shopify. Every app installed, theme change, and third party script (i.e. Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, etc.) injects code into the site. Even if the app/theme is removed, the code stays behind, accumulating over time.
Look at the Diagnostics section from the site speed audit below. Notice the 4 instances where JavaScript and CSS code are slowing down the website? Based on how Shopify apps work, this is the most common issue slowing down websites hosted on the platform.
The best way to make the Ciele Cosmetics website load faster is by optimizing it’s codebase.
During this process, necessary JavaScript and CSS code is compressed to run more efficiently.
Unused JavaScript and CSS code is deleted altogether.
This would also improve “main thread” operations — another technical issue slowing down the website. The “main thread” is the order in which the browser loads the website. Streamlining the codebase helps the browser load it faster.
Research shows that even small improvements in your website’s loading time can drastically improve conversion rates.
1 second improvement in page load time will increase mobile CVR by up to 27% (
This is why major ecommerce brands will spend tens-to-hundreds of thousands of dollars on their website’s performance.
At Roadrunner, we’ve seen ecommerce brands improve conversion rates by 50%+ by making their website load faster.
Making your website load faster does more than increase it’s conversion rate.
Improve search rankings: Google is a business too, and they are incentivized to give searchers the best user experience. That’s why site speed is an important ranking factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.
Increase paid marketing performance: faster loading websites will have a lower bounce rate than slower loading websites. Lower bounce rate means lower CPCs (platforms like Facebook and TikTok optimize for better user experiences) and lower CPAs.
More repeat customers: a poor user experience erodes trust and brand loyalty. Shopify found that 79% of customers are less likely to repurchase from an online store if they were “dissatisfied” with the site's speed.
to help ecommerce companies maximize their conversion rate through proper site speed optimization. To date, we’ve helped more than a dozen Shopify sites increase their CVR by 20-50% through site speed optimization.
If you’d like to learn more about our site speed optimization services: