You are running a website for your business and have to deal with Magento 2 checkout slow speed. You think that it’s not a big deal, but let’s see.
Imagine you are surfing an online store to find some necessary items. But when you click on your cart to process the checkout, the slow speed turns you down. After filling in some information and waiting for the site to load, you decide to switch to Youtube for some music.
And somehow, you forget about the items waiting for you in the cart.
That’s just a story, but it can be many people’s stories when they are doing online shopping. They can be your business’ customers as well. Sometimes you’ve put a lot of effort into developing and designing your website, but you just lose your clients because of the Magento 2 checkout slow process.
You don’t want that; we don’t want that; your customers wouldn’t want to unintentionally abandon their purchase like that. That’s why you need to be aware of your website’s checkout speed. Magento slow checkout isn’t new and unfixable, so let’s see what you can do to enhance your business page.
How Does Magento Checkout Work?
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Let’s take a look at the process of checkout in Magento 2. The transaction switches to a safe, encrypted channel once the checkout process begins. The URL changes from HTTP to HTTPS, and a padlock icon appears in the browser’s address bar.
The goal now is to acquire all of the information needed to execute the transaction. Each step of the checkout procedure is guided by the Checkout page. Customers who are logged into their accounts can complete the checkout process fast because much of the information they need is already stored in their accounts. Customers who use purchase orders and are affiliated with a company account will see a somewhat different workflow.
It’s the fact that Magento checkout pages often have to load more JavaScript code than other pages of an online store. Sometimes it can go up to 2 – 5 times. Furthermore, since checkout doesn’t benefit from the cache, it can take up to 20 seconds for a simple checkout page to download, execute, and render hundreds of JS scripts and API requests. That’s what leads to Magento 2 checkout slow problem.
From a closer look, the checkout page almost exclusively loads on Knockout.js.JavaScript’s whole page render. You’ll need some separate tools to manage other specific data such as total sums, payment method, shipping method, and different save data requests. It’s no surprise that checkout is one of the most complex and cumbersome pages, but it’s also the key to converting guests and leads to customers.
How Does Magento 2 Checkout Slow Speed Affect Your Online Business?
LEARN MORE ABOUT Magento 2 cart abandonment rate and get a straightforward solution list to your checkout page.
When you first establish a retail firm, you’ll almost certainly put in a lot of effort and spend a lot of money to increase sales. You can offer the best prices, free shipping, and a great user experience, but if the checkout process is too long, you’ll lose valuable clients.
If it’s an issue, then it’ll lead to certain results.
- Lower customer satisfaction: You and I know that there are rational reasons for your Magento checkout slow, but your customers don’t. They always put their benefits and experiences on top because they are paying for your service. Moreover, this problem has been improved on many other websites so users can make comparisons.
- Decrease conversion rate and sales: Same reason as the example I made in the beginning. Magento 2 checkout slow may result in higher cart abandonment, which declines the conversion rate and sales. Combined with low user satisfaction, the number of returning customers will be influenced as well.
Why Is Your Magento 2 Checkout Slow And How To Fix It Immediately
We have mentioned several reasons for Magento 2 checkout slow, but that’s not enough. To completely solve the matter, you need to understand the causes and how to fix them thoroughly. If not, this issue probably can happen again, and you’ll never get rid of such matters.
Complex checkout
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The default checkout process includes two steps. If your page load speed is slow, your customers will have to wait between the steps. This could lead to distraction or interest lowering.
Solution: Switch to One-page checkout to avoid loading steps that result in Magento 2 checkout slow. This can shorten waiting time because all the required information is now presented in a single-page layout. By that, you can significantly rocket customer satisfaction and save time.
Moreover, each one-page checkout extension will provide you with different benefits. You may want to take a look at Magento 2 One-step checkout extension. Besides converting your checkout to one-step, the Magento 2 application also provides some additional features such as delivery date and comment, order comment, payment trust badges, and more.
Hosting provider’s performance
Yes, it could be your hosting provider that makes your Magento 2 checkout very slow. Before jumping in fixing the code, check your host first. You can simply install a clean Magento store demo to test whether your checkout speed is performing well.
Solution: If the speed is slow even on the demo store, you’ll need a better hoster. Preferably a strong and Magento-focused tech support team to make sure you can get support on every aspect of your site.
If the speed is fast, then you’ll need to work more on the code. Below are some reasons that may trigger Magento 2 checkout slow.
Too many JS issues
We know that JavaScript code is a significant factor contributing to slow page load. Moreover, the checkout page has to load more code than any other page. Unfortunately, this is necessary for the page to function properly, so there’s not much you can do to fix this problem quickly.
Solution: To actively deal with this problem, I recommend a helpful tool Magento 2 JavaScript, that will improve the rendering speed of your site. You can combine this tool with some actions below to achieve maximum results.
Firstly, go through the setting to check and analyze the necessity of each integration and extension. Refactor, disable or turn off as many of them as possible, then check if there’s any improvement made afterward. Don’t be scrimping on disabling the extensions. What’s the need of them if they trigger Magento 2 checkout slow on your site instead of bringing enhancements?
Another action is to disable JS Bundling. This is a special feature of Magento 2 requiring a huge file (around 5-10 MB) with JS codes, which certainly affects page loading time. Moreover, it doesn’t offer a full gathering of the JS files in a batch, and the browser will have to process downloading before moving to the execution stage.
Unoptimized static content
Again, the checkout page contains the biggest number of static resources. According to Vasili Nikolaev, a tech writer, even a brand new Magento 2 checkout page will load an average of 270+ JS files (estimated around 2.8 MB). Besides, the page contains a lot of JS scripts from third-party extensions with an overwhelming number of JS files outsources.
Solution: Apply manually done Advanced JavaScript Bundling and a good Content Delivery Network will do wonders in serving your static resources.
Don’t be mistaken between Magento JS Bundling with the Advanced JS Bundling option. Advanced JS Bunding ensures each page of the website just needs to download a standard bundle and specific bundle for themselves. This will lead to a reduction in the number and size of the page requested assets.
Meanwhile, Content Delivery Network is a global network of servers that helps to simplify and optimize content delivery. By integrating website CDN, you can improve the Magento 2 checkout slow issue and increase user experience on your site.
Unused elements
During your setting up the websites, you might have activated too many unnecessary elements. These features are one of the reasons for your Magento 2 checkout slow. If you have tried all the above solutions but still cannot fix the issue, go through some of your features below to check their usage.
Shopping cart price rules
Every time customers add a product into their shopping cart; the price is re-calculated. This means the price will be calculated multiple times depending on customers’ activity. If you set too many price rules in the backend, Magento has to check every store price rule to apply the correct rules to the items.
Solution: Switch off the price rules you don’t use at the moment and disable those you no longer apply. You can skip the rules that have expired to/from a date because they won’t affect your website’s speed.
Shipping method
When it comes to shipping carriers, your system has to wait for shipping API data to load before fully rendering the page. The chain from the initial request to the shipping rates result is very long. After the customer fills in their address, Magento sends requests to the server for shipping method and rates apply. This is very complicated and even can lead to Magento one page checkout being slow if the customer makes changes in the process.
Solution: Simply switch off unused shipping methods and carriers to improve Magento 2 checkout slow issue. Consider your target customers and locations because the method is specifically preferred in different places. You’ll see great improvement as your website becomes lighter and easy to handle.
Active country
Magento provides you all the country options. Nevertheless, if you just leave them like that, the system has to perform tons of work to fetch them all.
Solution: The easiest and quickest way to reduce Magento 2 checkout slow matter is to switch off unused countries that you will not deliver your products. Moreover, make sure you clearly identify two separate options: “Ship to applicable countries” and “Ship to specific countries”. They have independent shipping methods but can be combined to work together pretty well. For example, you can set up DHL to ship only to the U.S. while FedEx is available for both U.S. and Asia.
This separation will lessen the amount of serve checking back and forth. If you don’t set up these features, Magento will send a request to all the shipping carriers and wait for the inapplicable answer. This takes a lot of time for both the server and customers.
Payment method
Offering more payment options to customers is great. However, there’s the same problem when your server has to handle a lot of work to find the correct payment method. Each request will create a little delay and ends up making your Magento 2 checkout slow.
Solution: Review and analyze the method often used by your customers, then disable those who are never or rarely in use. One note here is that not all payment methods are easy to remove. You’ll need more powerful tools to deal with the methods tightly integrated into Magento (like PayPal).
Conclusion
Magento checkout is a complex and extremely diverse system. You may implement our advice individually or together based on your site condition. However, there can be other factors leading to your Magento 2 checkout slow problem. The issue may come from your extensions or customizations – we wouldn’t know until we check it out.
We recommend you find support from an experienced Magento development team if you can’t fix the system on your own. Although it’s the final step, it’s crucial to convert customers and upgrade sales, so don’t miss it out.
BSS Commerce is one of the leading Multi-platform eCommerce solutions and web development services providers in the world. With experienced and certified developers, we commit to bringing high-quality products and services to optimize your business effectively.
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