Customer experience, conversion & SEO – all the reasons at a glance
In e-commerce, you constantly hear: “Performance is important.” Or: “Your store needs to be faster.” But what exactly is behind this? Why should you seriously consider this topic – even if your store “feels like it’s running okay”?
In this article, we take a look at the four most important reasons why good online store performance is not a bonus these days, but a real must-have.
I’ll also give you practical Shopware examples, study references and specific tips on where you can start.
Customers love fast stores
The most important insight first: loading times are user experience.
If an online store loads slowly, it looks like a broken store to many visitors. You probably know this yourself:
You click on a product, wait … and wait … and at some point you click away.
This jump is often not rational – but human.
👉 According to Google, around 53% of mobile users abandon their visit after a loading time of more than 3 seconds.
(Source: Google/SOASTA Research)
Even worse: even if a purchase is made, a negative impression is often left behind. The user has the feeling that “it was somehow slow” – and may decide to go with a competitor next time, where everything runs more smoothly.
“Perceived fast” vs actually fast
Many retailers consider their website to be “sufficiently performant” because they test it daily in the office via fiber optics and desktop. However, the real user experience – on mobile devices, via LTE, with complex product lists – is often very different.
Performance is not a nice-to-have – it is an essential part of the user experience. If you neglect it, you not only lose sales, but also customer loyalty in the long term.
Performance improves the conversion rate – and therefore your sales 💰
Numerous studies show the direct correlation between loading time and purchasing behavior:
- Deloitte: +8% sales with only 0.1 seconds faster loading times
- Amazon: +1 % sales per 100ms improvement (internal analysis)
- Portent: Up to 3x higher conversion rate when pages load in less than 1 second
Why is that?
The faster a page loads, the less often users bounce, the faster they make decisions and the less often they abandon the checkout.
Every millisecond counts, especially in the shopping cart and checkout:
Load inhibition = pause for thought = doubt = abandonment
Mobile use makes loading time more critical than ever
User behavior has changed massively in recent years:
- Between 50-75% of all e-commerce visitors come via mobile devices
- Mobile users are particularly sensitive to waiting times
- The technical basis (CPU, network, RAM) is significantly weaker on smartphones
An example:
Your desktop loads a product page in 1.8 seconds – very good.
On a mid-range cell phone with LTE, the same page takes 4.6 seconds to load – especially with a weak network or a larger product variant with many thumbnails.
That can be enough to make the user leave the site.
Shopware practice:
Shopware 6 relies heavily on JavaScript – from theme JS to plugin functionalities and dynamic Offcanvas elements.
These scripts sometimes load twice, are not lazy or block the main thread – which is particularly noticeable on mobile devices.
Performance influences SEO & visibility on Google
Google introduced mobile PageSpeed as a ranking factor in 2018 – and the so-called Core Web Vitals are now part of the evaluation:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) → Speed of the visible content
- FID (First Input Delay) → Interactivity
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) → visual stability
The better your values, the more positive the signal to Google – especially in the mobile index, which has been the standard for years.
Shopware practice:
Many stores still have banners, sliders, newsletter overlays, cookie banners, modal windows etc. on the start page.
These are often integrated in an uncontrolled manner and cause massive layout shifts and delays in the LCP.
💡 Tip:
Avoid blocking elements in the first view. Use modern image formats (WebP/AVIF), skeleton screens and do not load large content immediately.
Conclusion: Performance is a matter for the boss – and a real sales lever 💡
A quick page brings you:
- More sales through higher conversion rates
- More customer satisfaction & customer loyalty
- Better rankings on Google
- Fewer bounces for mobile users
- Fewer technical problems due to loading delays
But the most important thing is that performance is a continuous process.
It is not enough to optimize the PageSpeed score once – you have to check, measure and adjust it regularly.
Further links & studies 📚
- Deloitte study: performance & conversions
- Google/Soasta analysis for mobile performance
- Portent: Conversion Rate vs. Performance
- Conductor: Case Studies about PageSpeed und SEO
Next steps?
➡️ You want to know where you stand? Do a performance audit of your Shopware 6 store with Lighthouse, WebPageTest or Chrome DevTools.
➡️ You need support? I’ll be happy to help you with the technical implementation – from theme optimization to cache strategy.
👉 Just write to me or take a look at my article on Shopware 6 caching for the first step.
