As part of their drive to provide customers with convenience and quality, Primera worked with e-commerce agency ISM eCompany to improve the speed of their mobile site.
With more than 500 local stores providing customers with a unique combination of products and services, convenience has always been the key to Primera’s success. Founded in 1991, the brand are now adapting to a mobile-first world in which the smartphone is the most convenient device of all.
Local is Mobile
“More than half of our website traffic now comes from mobile,” says Angelo Ridderhof, head of Marketing and e-Commerce at Primera, “which is an increase of 50% year-on-year. We’re also seeing 43% of ecommerce transactions on mobile, which is an increase of 138%”. Faced with such a significant shift in customer behaviour, Primera recognised that providing a best-in-class mobile experience was critical if they were to continue giving customers the service they expect.
Primera partnered with ISM eCompany, a specialist e-commerce agency, to help understand the impact of mobile on their business and plan an appropriate strategy. “ISM eCompany came to us with an analysis showing a strong negative correlation between conversion and mobile load times,” says Angelo Ridderhof, “which made building the business case for the project easier.” Together, Primera and their partner used data from Google Analytics and site speed testing to identify areas of the site for optimisation, and then began work on improvements to reduce page weight, improve server response and enhance perceived load times by prioritising above-the-fold content.
So we’re very happy that our data analysis and implementation have contributed to a better mobile experience and to helping Primera reach their KPIs.
- Jurjen Jongejan, Senior Conversion Optimization Consultant and Online Marketing Director, ISM eCompany
Perceptions of Speed
As a result of this work, the speed of Primera’s mobile site has increased enormously. Content begins loading in only 0.67 seconds, and a usable page is now loaded in just 3.8 second, compared to the previous time of 9.2 seconds. This 362% improvement has significantly enhanced user perception of the site’s speed. Server requests and page weight have both been reduced by double digits, resulting in a site that is much better suited for display on mobile devices and leading to an average decrease in bounce rate of 10%. In commercial terms, average conversion rates have increased by 4% on the optimised site.
“It’s not just ‘mobile first’ for Primera, but ‘mobile only’, believes Jurjen Jongejan, Senior Conversion Optimization Consultant and Online Marketing Director at ISM eCompany. “So we’re very happy that our data analysis and implementation have contributed to a better mobile experience and to helping Primera reach their KPIs.”
“For us, each optimisation has a small impact and it’s the sum of all the improvements together that really makes the difference, “ says Angelo Ridderhof, reflecting on the lessons from this project. “This is valuable for us as we start to plan the next stage of development for our mobile pages.”
