{"id":3760,"date":"2015-11-02T21:05:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T21:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.abstracta.us\/?p=3760"},"modified":"2025-05-05T21:21:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T21:21:31","slug":"optimize-e-commerce-website-performance-black-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abstracta.us\/blog\/performance-testing\/optimize-e-commerce-website-performance-black-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Optimize E-Commerce Website Performance For Black Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- Go to www.addthis.com\/dashboard to customize your tools --><script src=\"\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/300\/addthis_widget.js#pubid=ra-58d80a50fc4f926d\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>Black Friday: What\u2019s your Last Minute Game Plan? Time to optimize e-commerce website performance<\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">It\u2019s almost that wonderful time of year again, the SuperBowl of shopping, Black Friday, followed by Cyber Monday. While online shoppers are creating a strategic game plan by pre-scoping out the deals, furiously flexing their fingers and rehearsing their clicks in order to score that 50% off plasma screen TV, are you, as an online retailer, creating your own game plan to satisfy demand while maintaining an excellent customer experience? In the end, both you and your customers want the same thing: to score a touchdown, aka complete successful transactions online. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In truth, it can take months to <strong>optimize e-commerce website performance<\/strong> as well as that of mobile apps for the holiday season.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you haven\u2019t started yet, don\u2019t panic! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">Here are some last minute things you can do.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Page_Speed\"><\/span>Page Speed<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Page speed is one aspect of performance testing that should be a major player in your game plan. According to a Harris 2015 poll, 46% of shoppers have said that they will never return to a slow website. Additionally, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a recent study by Paypal found that 45% of customers abandoned carts more than once with an average order size of slightly more than $100, due to a myriad of factors. According to a recent report by SOASTA, 18% of shoppers have cited too slow web pages as a main factor. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">Luckily, there are several free tools that you can use to quickly speed up load time:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Compressorio\"><\/span>Compressor.io<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to its website: \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/Compressor.io\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Compressor.io<\/a> is a powerful online tool for reducing drastically the size of your images and photos whilst maintaining a high quality with almost no difference before and after compression.\u201d When we learned about this tool, we were really impressed. We recommend it to clients when we send them reports that indicate that they should reduce the size of their images. By reducing the file size of an image, the page is able to load quicker.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"WebPageTest\"><\/span>WebPageTest<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.webpagetest.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tool<\/a> allows you to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">run a free website speed test from multiple locations around the globe. You can use real browsers (IE and Chrome) at real consumer connection speeds. You can run simple tests or more complicated tests including multi-step transactions, video capture, content blocking and much more. The results are very helpful in that they provide diagnostic information including resource loading waterfall charts, Page Speed optimization checks and suggestions for improvements.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Sitespeedio\"><\/span>Sitespeed.io<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sitespeed.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tool<\/a> allows you to run tests locally or as a service on the web. It comes up with a similar report as Webpagetest, but it isn\u2019t solely based on the URL you provide since it has a crawler that analyzes ALL the pages that one might reach. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"PageSpeed_YSlow\"><\/span>PageSpeed &amp; YSlow<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/speed\/pagespeed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PageSpeed<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/yslow.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YSlow<\/a>\u00a0are essential for figuring out what exactly is slowing down your website and what to do about it. We enjoy using them because the information presented is very clear and easy to understand for testers and non-testers alike. Detailed explanations are given for why you should make each improvement and how they will be beneficial. These tools can also shed light on optimizations that you weren\u2019t aware of before.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">There are several well-known cases of companies that have boosted their bottom line by increasing page speed. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">In 2012,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.webperformancetoday.com\/2012\/02\/28\/4-awesome-slides-showing-how-page-speed-correlates-to-business-metrics-at-walmart-com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Walmart compared performance to conversion<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\"> rates and found that the overall average site load time for converted visitors was lower (~ 3.22 seconds) than that of the visitors who had didn\u2019t convert (~6.03 seconds). In the same year, Intuit cut its load time in half for several of its marketing web pages and saw a 14% increase in conversions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Load_and_Stress_Testing\"><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abstracta.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Screen-Shot-2016-01-12-at-11.52.55-AM-compressor.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4436\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4436 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.abstracta.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Screen-Shot-2016-01-12-at-11.52.55-AM-compressor-300x234.png\" alt=\"optimizing eccomerce website performance\" width=\"492\" height=\"384\" \/><\/a><strong><span style=\"color: #00b674;\">Load and Stress Testing<\/span><\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Improving page speed is just one way to optimize e-commerce website performance for the holidays. Can your website handle an enormous influx of shoppers at the same moment, all trying to carry out the same task? Another key element of any Black Friday game plan that helps you answer this question is<\/span> <\/span><span style=\"color: #00b674;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/abstracta.us\/blog\/performance-testing\/why-performance-testing-is-necessary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">running performance tests<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"> (specifically load and stress tests). It is important to understand what load scenario you want to test, and what data, tools, and infrastructure are necessary to run the tests. After executing, you want to be able to understand the results of the tests and identify what needs to be optimized. That\u2019s where Abstracta\u2019s highly skilled<\/span> <span style=\"color: #00b674;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abstracta.us\/solutions\/performance-engineering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">performance testers<\/a><\/span> <span style=\"color: #333333;\">come into play.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Lastly_Dont_Forget_About_Mobile\"><\/span>Lastly, Don\u2019t Forget About Mobile<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Black Friday is the #1 day for mobile shoppers, with the weekend before Christmas close behind. <\/span><b>IBM found that mobile accounted for 51.2% of all browsing and 28.9% of Black Friday sales in 2014.<span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3bkW5GV\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-12636 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/abstracta.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/0-min-1.png\" alt=\"apptim logo\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/span> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">We recommend that you use the tool,<\/span> <\/span><span style=\"color: #00b674;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3bkW5GV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apptim<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">, to test your Android mobile\u00a0app for performance, security, and functionality on real devices. It will send you a report with a list of things you can do to optimize your app. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">One last thought&#8230; Although we are headed for an intense season for e-commerce, it\u2019s always \u201cBlack Friday\u201d somewhere! Meaning, it\u2019s important to continuously test the performance of your site year round, as this Blazemeter <\/span><span style=\"color: #00b674;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blazemeter.com\/blog\/back-black-friday-performance-testing-lessons-target\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">blog post<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\"> explains. You never know if a sale or promotion will result in a flood of customers crashing your site (which may be both a blessing and a burden)!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">We hope this post helps you improve your holiday e-commerce game plan! Let us know about your experiences in the comments. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #333333;\">May you and your customers score several transaction touchdowns!<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Recommended_for_You\"><\/span>Recommended for You<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #00b674;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/abstracta.us\/blog\/performance-testing\/why-performance-testing-is-necessary\/\">Why Performance Testing is Necessary<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #00b674;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/abstracta.us\/blog\/performance-testing\/performance-testing-production\/\">Performance Testing in Production<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Black Friday: What\u2019s your Last Minute Game Plan? Time to optimize e-commerce website performance It\u2019s almost that wonderful time of year again, the SuperBowl of shopping, Black Friday, followed by Cyber Monday. While online shoppers are creating a strategic game plan by pre-scoping out the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,61],"tags":[113,114,50],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v14.0.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Optimize E-commerce Website Performance | Abstracta<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It can take months to optimize e-commerce website performance for the holiday season. 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