If we want to add some functionality to our WooCommerce store, we can test it against our baseline (as determined in the previous section).

I currently have the default Shop page in WooCommerce as my home page, which displays 12 products. Here is a screenshot of my home page:

If I want to replace the default page with a custom home page with banners, highlighting specific products, showing off one product in detail, and displaying a few on-sale products at the bottom, what sort of effect will it have?

I created a custom home page with banners and featured products, as follows:

I honestly don't know the effect this has, which is why I want to test it. I went into GTMetrix and tested my new home page. The results can be seen in the following screenshot:

The total time for the site to load increases from 2.8 to 3.1 seconds.

And the total page size increased from 318 to 512 KB. 

Now I can make an educated decision as to whether the change is worth it. If I lose a fraction of my audience over the slightly longer page load, will it be offset by the hopefully higher number of people that will convert with the nicer and more helpful page?