A flawed approach to page speed measurement is sabotaging ecommerce sites.
There, I said it.
Now I know this might be an exaggeration, but it really is time for a change.
Thats a glaring omission.
We build what we measure
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Most sessions are very short most under 30 seconds.
Given that, if things are slow, youre going to really, really, really hate it.
The latter is especially telling, as consumers often turn to mobile shopping precisely to avoid those long lines.
Yet, according toMonetatedata, typical mobile sites convert at only 38 percent of their desktop counterparts.
Optimizing mobile browsing speed will help close this gap.
That means for 20 percent of the session, users are waiting, bored.
As a user, that certainly makes for a better experience.
Website speed has changed
Two new web development technologies have changed the game for site speed.
The first is the rise of mature JavaScript tool frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular.
Essentially, websites can now compete with native apps in the realm of browsing speed.
But the majority of site speed tools arent measuring that at all.
Something needs to change to ensure that the user experience improves along with site-building technology.
Change what you measure
The first mindset shift is from online grid-based metrics to perceptual metrics.
Historically, page speed was measured by web connection-based metrics (e.g.
bytes downloaded per page) that had a strong correlation with the speed of a site.
PWAs and modern optimization techniques have weakened that correlation.
In simple terms, these metrics measure how long it takes to load the visible parts of a page.
They ignore actions like prefetching content that data pipe-based metrics would penalize.
The second mindset shift is an increased focus on measuring browsing speed.
Unfortunately, it focuses only on first-page load.
Thankfully, a tool calledWebPageTestis capable of measuring browsing speed via its advanced scripting features.
I recommend using it to accurately measure browsing speed at key points in the customer journey.
A dramatic example of when WebPageTest and browsing speed measurements matter is with Accelerated Mobile Pages.
AMP pages are prefetched and delivered directly from Google.
Otherwise, user experience will suffer.
Its important to remember that every ecommerce website is competing for users attention every minute of every day.
Your competition isnt just a competitors site.
Its Facebook, email, Netflix, and every other native app on a users unit.
Story byIshan Anand
Ishan has been launching mobile products for the iPhone since it was released.
He helped found Moovweb, a website infrastructure platform that enables sub-second React websites.
