Ecommerce Load Speed and Mobile UX Platform Comparison [INFOGRAPHIC]

One of the most important decisions your clients will ever make regarding their online stores at first seems trivial. This decision is which platform they should choose when building their sites.

The platforms your clients opt for can directly impact how fast or slowly their pages load. E-retailers lose up to $4 TRILLION dollars each year via shopping cart abandonment, and one of most frequent causes for cart abandonment is a slow checkout process.

Avoiding a Slow Checkout Flow

You can control checkout flow to an extent by limiting the amount of information customers have to provide or by keeping them on a single page for the entire process. But if your clients’ sites are built on bulky code or with redundant coding scripts, there’s not much you can do. As a result, their choice of ecommerce software can directly impact their cart abandonment rates.

I wanted a data-rich analysis of how ecommerce software actually performs. After being unable to find one, my team at Selfstartr and I reviewed the top 20 e-commerce solutions in-depth.

We compared thousands of sites, looking at a wide variety of performance data and features. However, I focused on two elements:

1. Load time. A slow page speed can do more damage than will a few missing features (like live chat) because a slow page chases off new and returning customers.
2. Mobile user experience. As our infographic below notes, mobile sales are growing quickly – 300% faster than regular ecommerce. 82% of smartphone users rely on their phones for making product decisions. If your clients aren’t using a cart that performs well on mobile devices (32% are not), they’re in trouble.

Online store builders come pre-loaded with dozens of options. Some options should be standard on all solutions, others are worthwhile, and others aren’t worth investing in. I was most interested in features that make life easier for digital marketers and new e-retailers.

The software solution e-retailers choose directly impacts the loading speed and SEO-friendliness of their sites, what third-party apps they can integrate, and which payment gateways they can use, among other factors. Choose the wrong platform, and important options like live chat, upsells, and cross-sells might not be supported.

Adopting a mobile-friendly platform and using visually-centered marketing like video can give your client an advantage over much of the competition. Visual marketing is only worth the investment if it’s done right, however. Gail Gardner, the mind behind GrowMap, and Julie Weishaar of NewHorizons123 can evaluate existing video content or customize new videos to help your client stand out in this quickly-evolving niche.