With retailers devoting more focus to the shopping experience across digital channels, including mobile and Web-based platforms, it's crucial they pay particular attention to how these sites are operating. You could probably tell from your own experience that slow websites are frustrating to deal with. However, for retailers, a page that's haunted by sluggish loading times can also translate to lost revenue.

For instance, Shopzilla's Urs Hoelzle found that when the company's website latency dropped from seven seconds to two, revenue skyrocketed 12 percent while page views grew 25 percent, Practical eCommerce reported.

A report from Forrester Research added further credence to this anecdotal evidence when it found that mobile users were twice as likely as desktop shoppers to leave a website due to slow loading speeds.

"Shoppers, regardless of how they access the Internet, are not going to patiently wait for a slow website to open, load pictures, or even load responsive style sheets," Practical eCommerce contributor Armando Roggio explained. "Rather, those shoppers expect a nearly instant response. What's more they will reward ecommerce businesses that have high performance websites."

Creating a satisfactory omnichannel experience
Many retailers are trying to diversify by offering omnichannel eCommerce operations to customers. By doing so, they hope to win new customer by enhancing the convenience factor – customers can choose to buy from websites, mobile devices or physical store, whatever works for them.

However, offering mobile shopping apps and websites won't do much good if the experience is unoptimized. Slow loading speeds and other such bumbles may actually do more harm than good, as the Forrester Research suggests. If you make the decision to go omnichannel and offer customers the ability to shop via their preferred handset, you need to execute well on your end.

Slow load speeds are only one potential misstep. Consumers frequently find other issues with mobile platforms as well, such as in-store or online coupons not working or missing products. ECommerce software such as SalesWarp can help companies unify their shopping experiences across a variety of platforms, eliminating these off-putting differences between shopping channels.