The days of dialup are long gone. Most modern Internet users expect websites to load lickety-split. For e-commerce companies, having a fast website could be the difference between success and failure.

Research shows that most expect a website to load in about three seconds. If a site takes much longer, it will begin to lose its audience.

In fact, a one-second delay in load time would cost Amazon an estimated $1.6 billion annually.

Check out the following infographic, created by SmartBear, for all the info on how a slow site could seriously affect a retailer's bottom line.

Image courtesy of Flickr, ogomogo