As a leading photographic retailer, CameraWorld has a high traffic Magento website which was beginning to load slowly under the pressure of so many visitors. We met with the team at CameraWorld at their offices and after some very exciting conversations about where they would like to steer the business, they set us to work.
We aim to pay our way from the outset of any project. With this in mind, we focussed immediately on website speed optimisation. This yielded dividends and continues to do so.
With initial improvements applied via our enterprise hosting solutions, we audited the current Magento build. We found a huge efficiency to be had across the website template pages, where excess calls to MySql were being made. We optimised those templates and applied additional best practice on-page website speed fixes. The collective result of which has improved conversions and helped CameraWorld re-invest into their website marketing and development.
“Very talented people. Can’t wait to be the next success story! The team are great. Always go above and beyond.”
Abby Mitchell Director – cameraworld
3 seconds became 0.5 seconds TTFB
The first and most effective improvement any retailer can often do to their site is to increase the website speed. By optimising the server and migrating the CameraWorld website to improved infrastructure, we were able to shave 2.5 seconds from the overall average load times just before Black Friday. As you can imagine, this paid dividends and highlights the importance of speed leading to better conversion rates.
TTFB is measured by adding the complete time it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of the requested page. This time starts when the user types in a website or server’s IP address and ask the browser to go there. The clock stops on TTFB once the first byte of information comes back to the browser. A highly responsive server and equivalent network will have a lower TTFB time.
Mobile
Desktop
Google Analytics attribution then conversion
Now the website is running at full speed, we needed to get a lay of the land. Good attribution is so important to understanding where the opportunity lies in any campaign, so we got to work. Whilst remaining vigilant, looking for the most real data, our experts improved the accuracy of sales attribution in Google Analytics for a clearer view. This has allowed us to begin multi-variant testing and prove genuine increases in revenue, this is the fun bit.
The future is integrated
As part of an omnichannel approach, we are implementing integration into Linnworks in order to separate core logistics from the CameraWorld Magento store. This will pave the way for a Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration, save hours in the warehouse every day and allow for accurate inventory levels across their website, Amazon, eBay and many other channels.
