The revenue impact of every second while your website loads

The real cost of slow loading

Amazon's famous study revealed a startling truth: every 100ms of latency cost them 1% in sales [1]. For a company making billions in revenue, that translates to millions lost purely due to slow loading times. But this isn't just a problem for tech giants. Smaller companies face even steeper penalties for poor performance. Research suggests that mobile sites loading in one second generate 2.5x higher revenue per user compared to those taking five seconds to load. Perhaps most concerning is that 53% of mobile visitors simply leave if a site takes more than three seconds to load [2]. Walmart's experience reinforces these findings – they reported a 2% increase in conversions for every second they shaved off their loading times [3].

Why users leave slow sites

Google's research into user behavior paints a clear picture of modern expectations [4]. Nearly half of users expect pages to load in under two seconds, and 40% will abandon a site that takes more than three seconds. The impact goes beyond immediate abandonment – studies indicate that 79% of shoppers who experience poor site performance say they won't return, and 44% will share their negative experiences with friends. These figures, while approximate, demonstrate how poor performance can create lasting damage to your brand and customer base.

The hidden revenue leaks

The impact of slow loading extends far beyond immediate lost sales. Google officially uses speed as a ranking factor [5], meaning slower sites literally become harder to find. Ad effectiveness suffers too – Google Ads studies [6] show that slow landing pages waste ad spend by driving away potential customers before they even see your offer. This creates a compound effect where you're paying more for traffic while converting less of it.

Speed impact by industry

Different sectors experience varying impacts from load times, but the pattern remains consistent across industries. In e-commerce, research indicates that a two-second delay can increase bounce rates by over 100%, while a one-second delay typically reduces conversions by 7% [7]. Cart sizes tend to decrease by roughly 7% for every second of delay, though these figures can vary by market and audience.

Media sites face their own challenges, with page views dropping by approximately 11% for each second of delay. Reader engagement suffers a similar fate, declining about 5% per additional second of loading time. Video content is particularly sensitive, with abandonment rates climbing nearly 6% for each second users spend waiting.

How we solve this with Framer

At Trueform, we've tackled these challenges head-on by using Framer for website development. Framer's approach to static site generation means pages are pre-rendered at build time, allowing content to load instantly from a CDN without database queries slowing things down. The platform's built-in image optimization automatically handles compression and responsive loading, while supporting modern image formats for optimal delivery.

Measuring the impact

The results we've seen after moving clients to Framer-built sites speak for themselves. Our sites consistently achieve load times under 400ms, with first contentful paint under one second and time to interactive under two seconds. This typically represents a 30% or greater improvement in core web vitals compared to their previous solutions.

What to do next

The path to better performance starts with measurement. Use tools like Google Lighthouse to establish your baseline and monitor Core Web Vitals across different devices. Set clear performance budgets for your sites, establishing limits for page weight and time to interactive. Most importantly, choose performance-focused platforms like Framer that handle optimization automatically, implement CDN delivery effectively, and make asset optimization straightforward.

If you are interested in migrating your website to Framer, we'd love to support you with this. Just get in touch with us or book a call.

Sources

1. Amazon speed impact study: https://www.gigaspaces.com/blog/amazon-found-every-100ms-of-latency-cost-them-1-in-sales

2. Google mobile load abandonment study: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/

3. Walmart speed impact case study: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/performance/more/website-performance-conversion-rates/

4. Google user expectations research: https://web.dev/articles/user-centric-performance-metrics

5. Google speed ranking factor announcement: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search

6. Google Ads landing page speed study: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/mobile-page-speed-conversion-rates/

7. Akamai conversion impact study: https://www.akamai.com/blog/performance/akamai-releases-spring-2017-state-of-online-retail-performance-report

8. COOK case study: https://web.dev/articles/cook-case-study

9. AutoAnything case study: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2010/08/19/web-accelerator-revs-conversion-and-sales-autoanything/

Note: All unmarked statistics should be treated as approximations based on aggregated industry data rather than specific studies. For the most current and accurate figures, we recommend conducting your own A/B tests and measurements for your specific use case.