What performance improvements should we focus on to reduce friction and increase conversion rates during the checkout process, where speed and reliability are paramount for high-value transactions?
Topic summary
The discussion centers on optimizing checkout performance to boost conversion rates for high-value transactions.
Key recommendations include:
- Target sub-2-second load times
- Enable Google autofill for faster form completion
- Offer multiple trusted payment options
- Prioritize mobile-first design
- Implement persistent carts and clear inline error messaging
Technical focus areas:
Core Web Vitals are highlighted as the primary performance metrics:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - measures loading speed
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP) - measures responsiveness
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) - measures visual stability
Important context:
While performance matters, conversion optimization involves multiple variables beyond speed. In some cases, other CRO strategies may deliver greater impact than performance improvements alone. Analytics tools can help correlate Core Web Vitals scores with actual conversion rate changes. Public case studies demonstrate the connection between these metrics and user experience, though results vary by specific situation.
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For high-value checkouts, I’d focus on reducing load times (<2s), enabling Google autofill, and supporting multiple trusted payment options. Mobile-first optimization, persistent carts, and clear inline error messaging also go a long way in reducing friction. If you’re interested, I can share a checklist of checkout performance best practices that we’ve used across luxury eComm stores
Hello and thanks for your question!
First of all, I’d like to emphasize that conversion rates depend on numerous variables, and in some cases, you might need to prioritize other conversion rate optimizations (CRO) over web performance improvements. If you’re interested in CRO, our team has recently released a comprehensive self-paced course to help you learn more about this topic.
Bearing that in mind, when working on web performance, we recommend focusing on the Core Web Vitals, which measure three different facets of user experience:
- Largest Contentful Paint to measure loading performance
- Interaction to Next Paint to measure interactivity
- Cumulative Layout Shift to measure visual stability
In your admin, you have aggregated data showing the overall scores for LCP, INP and CLS. Depending on the analytics tools you’re using, you might also have granular data to identify the current Core Web Vitals scores for your checkout page, allowing you to correlate improvements in Core Web Vitals with enhancements in conversion rates.
As a final note, there are many public case studies that correlate these metrics with user experience and conversion rates. However, as mentioned before, depending on your specific situation, you might need to focus on other optimizations that could have a greater impact on conversion rates than web performance alone.
I hope this information is useful to work on improving your conversion rates.