E-commerce Platform Performance and Core Web Vitals
Page performance is a commercial imperative in e-commerce — not just a technical metric. Google's research and commercial data consistently show that slow pages have lower conversion rates. A 1-second improvement in mobile load time improves conversion by 8-12% for many retailers. Core Web Vitals are both a Google ranking factor and a direct driver of commercial performance.
Core Web Vitals for E-commerce
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): How quickly the main content of the page appears. Target: under 2.5s. Critical for first impression — slow LCP drives bounce. Common causes: unoptimised hero images, slow server response.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Responsiveness to user interactions. Target: under 200ms. Slow INP on product pages, add-to-cart buttons, and checkout is felt directly as "sluggishness."
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): How much the page layout shifts as it loads. Target: under 0.1. Irritating for users — causes misclicks; reserve space for images and ads.
Performance Optimisation Techniques
- Image optimisation: WebP format, responsive images, lazy loading, CDN delivery
- Critical CSS: inline above-the-fold CSS to eliminate render-blocking
- JavaScript reduction: audit third-party scripts (tag managers, live chat, marketing tools), defer non-critical scripts
- Server-side rendering: Next.js/Nuxt for faster initial page loads vs client-side rendering
- CDN and edge caching: serve pages from locations close to users