You’re hitting $3M in online revenue yearly, and you finally got your online store to load in 1.9 seconds. Congratulations — you just lost $360,000 this year.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but these are the facts: Page load times over a second — even less than two seconds — can cost you hundreds of thousands in lost revenue annually. When your site takes almost two full seconds to load, you risk losing around 20% of potential customers before they see a single product. With typical ecommerce traffic volumes and order values, those lost seconds translate to massive revenue gaps.
If you think your site is "fast enough," you might need to think again. We’ll show you exactly how much that assumption is costing your business — and what you can do about it.
The real cost of slow sites
The relationship between load time and revenue isn't linear — it's exponential. As page load time increases from one to three seconds, the probability of bounce increases by 32%.
Here's how this translates to real money for a typical mid-market online retailer:
Let’s work with that 1.9 second page load speed. Say you have…
- 10,000 monthly visitors
- A 2.5% conversion rate
- An $85 average order value
- A 1-second page load time, meaning your revenue would be $18,700/month
When your site speed increases to three seconds, a 32% higher bounce rate drops conversions to 1.7%, reducing monthly revenue to $14,450 — a loss of $6,800 per month, or $81,600 annually.
At five seconds, a 90% higher bounce rate crushes conversions to 1.3%, generating only $11,050 monthly — that's $122,400 in lost revenue per year.
On mobile, it’s even worse. With almost 77% of ecommerce traffic now coming from mobile devices, and mobile users even less patient than desktop visitors, slow mobile performance can destroy your business. The average web page load time is 2.5 seconds on desktop and 8.6 seconds on mobile, meaning mobile generally loads over three times slower than desktop — pushing you into the danger zone where most customers abandon their journey.
The compounding costs beyond conversions
Revenue loss from potential customers bouncing is just the beginning. Site speed creates a ripple effect of damage that compounds over time.
You’ll experience SEO issues: Google's Core Web Vitals now directly impact your search rankings. So a slow site doesn't just lose the customers who find you — it actually ensures that fewer shoppers find you in the first place. It’s common to see significant drops in organic traffic within months of speed declining, creating a vicious cycle of reduced visibility and reduced revenue.
Your average CLTV will plummet: First impressions matter in ecommerce. About 38% of shoppers are less likely to return after experiencing slow load times, even if they eventually complete a purchase. So you're not just losing immediate sales — you're potentially damaging the long-term value of every customer relationship.
You’ll see a reduction in brand loyalty: Slow sites create negative brand associations that extend far beyond the individual user. Customers share bad experiences more often than good ones. A consistently slow site will train potential customers to think of your brand as outdated or unreliable.
You’ll see way more abandoned carts: Even customers who stick around through slow page loads often abandon their carts at checkout. Every additional second during the payment process increases abandonment rates. Even a two-second delay in load time during checkout can result in abandonment rates as high as 87%.
Why "fast enough" isn't fast enough anymore
Customer expectations have been shaped by Amazon, Google, and other tech giants who've made sub-second load times the norm. Today's shoppers don't consciously think "this site is slow" — they just leave because they’re not getting what they want. Their browsers are already loading your competitor's site before they've consciously decided your experience isn't worth waiting for.
And in reality, it runs deeper than impatience. Speed has become a proxy for quality, reliability, and modernity in customers' minds. When your site loads slowly, shoppers subconsciously question whether your business is legitimate, whether your products are current, and whether their payment information will be secure. This split-second judgment happens before they even see your products — meaning you're losing sales not just to bounce rates, but to eroded trust and credibility that takes years to rebuild.
The competitive landscape has shifted dramatically. While you've been accepting two to three second load times as "pretty good," your smartest competitors are investing in platforms and infrastructure that deliver consistently well under two seconds. Regional and legacy platforms often hit performance ceilings that become impossible to overcome.
The speed audit: How to measure your revenue loss
Test your site speed right now using a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. Test both desktop and mobile, and run tests at different times of day to understand your real-world performance.
Calculate your specific revenue impact using this formula:
Current monthly visitors × Current conversion rate × Average order value = Baseline revenue
Then apply the bounce rate increases based on your actual load time:
One second: Baseline
Two seconds: ~9% higher bounce rate
Three seconds: ~32% higher bounce rate
Four seconds: ~54% higher bounce rate
Five seconds: ~90% higher bounce rate
Then take the revenue difference between your current performance and optimal speed, then multiply by 12 to see your annual revenue loss.
Don't just test your homepage, either. Test your product pages, category pages, and checkout flows. Often, the pages where customers make buying decisions are the slowest parts of your site.
The path to performance that converts
Speed isn't just a technical metric — it's the foundation that determines whether every other optimization effort actually matters. Online retailers thriving in 2025 have moved beyond accepting "good enough" performance and built their operations on platforms designed for speed from the ground up.
If you're on a platform that can't consistently deliver in close to a second, you're fighting an uphill battle. The most successful merchants have learned that true performance requires platforms built for speed natively, not bolted on through endless optimization.
Every second you wait to address performance issues is costing you real money. The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in faster infrastructure — it's whether you can afford not to.
Want to learn more about how Maropost can help you unlock faster site speeds, improve conversion rates, and protect your revenue? Book a demo.