Site Performance

SPEED = DOLLARS. MAKING THE MOST OF SITE PERFORMANCE

In the Wild West of online retailing, one factor trumps most others when it comes to converting shopping to sales: speed. That’s what leading analysts told our client, an international leader in everything athletic. Improving a site’s response time by as little as a couple of seconds can have a dramatic impact on the bottom line. The goal was obvious, speed things up. But knowing and doing are two different things.

Any organization, large or small, is a slave to its internal culture. The bigger the organization, the more it’s true. Hence, harnessing and shaping that culture is critical, especially when change is the order of the day. ACME’s client had always prided themselves on a unique and visually strong web presence, an attribute that could very well be challenged by a dedication to a speedier experience. Suddenly, making the ecommerce experience faster became a much more personal endeavor. We had to effect a cultural change, shifting priorities from aesthetics to performance.

Big change needs a well thought out plan. ACME approached assessing, measuring and tactically improving online store performance with a methodology aimed at ensuring results. This included a keen eye kept on transitioning the organization’s culture. That, and a little bit of science.

As each piece of the project went in to use, ACME closely monitored and measured performance. You can’t argue with numbers, and this approach allowed us to demonstrate measurable gains in performance. In the end, it was a dedication to hands on project management, an innovative transition strategy and measured results that got us buy in across the board and the cultural change we were seeking.

In the first six weeks after the site response performance improvements, the client saw increased revenue in the US to the tune of $700,000 (not to mention European gains of €150,000). To keep the cultural shift moving, ACME developed the Site Performance Playbook, an integral internal tool. The playbook was distributed organization wide, delivering a simple but effective message: speed = dollars. By transitioning the client’s culture from one focused on aesthetics to one with its mind set on performance, we were able to bring real change to their retail revenues. And the online Wild West is just a little less wild.