Every Second Counts: Unlocking Higher Sales for Wineries

Most independent wineries I talk to have a sense that website performance is important, but they couldn’t tell you in detail how their website performs, how to meaningfully test, and what a faster website could mean for their bottom line. If this is you, you're not alone—but I'm going to show you just how much of a difference a fast (or slow) site can make.

You’ve probably heard that website performance matters, but you may be shocked at some of these facts:

• 40% of users won’t wait more than 3 seconds before abandoning an ecommerce site.
• A site that loads in 1 second enjoys a 3 times higher conversion rate than a site that loads in 5 seconds.
• Your e-commerce conversion rate decreases by an average of 0.3% for every additional second it takes for your website to load.

So: every second counts. But just how much? I’ve reworked Portent’s excellent research for typical wine orders:

Let’s say 1,000 people visit your website, with an AOV of $150. The best conversion rates are at 1 second (3.05%), so we’ll start there.

• 1 second page load time at a 3.05% conversion rate results in $4,575
• 2 second page load time at a 1.68% conversion rate results in $2520
• 3 second page load time at a 1.12% conversion rate results in $1680
• 4 second page load time at a 0.67% conversion rate results in $1005

In the span of 4 seconds, potential sales have dropped by $3,570.

And wineries with higher visitor numbers or a higher AOV would naturally see higher numbers than these.

The upside is that reducing your time to load will increase your conversion rate. And increasing the speed of your site has other benefits too, including increasing conversion rates for critical things like tasting reservations.

Site speed improvements come in many shapes and sizes—loading smaller (or fewer) images, loading less unnecessary javascript or third-party code, and utilizing server-side caching are just a few of the tools at your disposal.

Some of these tactics can be done via your own CMS, others will need more technically skilled hands. Regardless, every second you save your visitors will result in significantly more sales for you.

Curious how much more money you could be making by increasing your website’s speed? Send us an email and we’ll give you a free site speed audit with tips to fix as well as revenue projections. Like more content like this? Follow Transom on LinkedIn or sign up for our newsletter.