Having a slow website will kill online sales numbers and conversion rates.

To run a successful ecommerce business, site performance and speed must always be a top priority.

This is not a new concept. Back in 2006, Amazon released one of the first studies on the correlation between site speed and conversion. In Greg Linden's report “Make Data Useful,” that summarizes the study’s results, Amazon showed a shocking 1% loss in net sales for every 100-millisecond delay in page rendering time.

If applied to Amazon’s last quarterly report, a 100-millisecond delay in website load performance would yield a loss of over 290 millions dollars. Speed matters, and it can make or break the success of your online sales performance. In Q4 of 2014, online sales accounted for 6.7% of total retail sales. That is over $79 billion in online sales, up 14.6% from Q4 in 2013 (US Census).Over 60% of consumers’ time spent online shopping takes place on a mobile device. In 2014, mobile commerce for the world’s 500 leading retailers is expected to surpass $83 billion, up 80% from $47 billion in 2013 (Internet Retailer).

With consumers continuing to buy more products online, and a growing emphasis on mobile and tablets, the task of creating a high performing site across devices is both more difficult and more important now than ever before. In their recent report, “Close The Experience Gaps With The Right Business Technology” Forrester identified performance as the number one gap that stymies companies’ ability to deliver great experiences.

Why is this important? Because as companies continue to innovate and add new technologies to improve and differentiate their ecommerce stores, speed remains a top concern and criteria to evaluate new platforms.

For more data on how loading time affects your bottom line, check out KISS metric’s infographic below.