The internet is a fast-paced environment, so if you're new to ecommerce you can't afford to have a slow loading online store. Research from Forrester shows that consumers expect websites to be more efficient with 2 seconds as the acceptable response time. The say study reports that for websites that take longer than 3 seconds to load, 40% of consumers say they would leave.
Whether you use a store builder or you buy your store template off a vendor, speed should be one of the things you test first. How a website is coded and the size of the files will greatly affect the download speed.
The effects of a slow-loading online store will not just be on your bounce rates, but can even significantly decrease your return visitors. 75% of those surveyed say they won't return to the slow loading site. The opportunity cost of not paying attention to your online shop's speed then multiplies because of potential lost sales.
Act on it today. Find out what kind of site is produced by your chosen store builder. One thing to test are the special features like flash elements or javascript. Perform a speed test for your online shop with and without these elements. If the change is significant, consider replacing it with a faster loading option or removing it all together.
Your images may also be the likely culprit if your online store loads slow. Do not use huge slices of image as your background. Sometimes, a solid color or a gradient works just as well and won't weigh down the speed of your online shop. Don't forget to compress your images by using the "Save for Web" function of your image editor. Once you're ready to layout your images as part of your website, make sure you define the dimensions in your html code.
There are a few more tricks that can help you decrease the speed of download for your online store. Consider coding methods that help such as referencing external files and use of CSS for formatting.