For e-commerce and online retail, revenue and web performance are inextricably linked. Delays, latency and downtime reduce conversions: Google estimates that every second of extra page load time over two seconds reduces conversions by 7%. It’s why many major brands rely on Varnish software to power their online grocery, clothing and cosmetics stores.

In this week's episode of Two Minute Tech Tuesdays, we're looking at parallel ESI (Edge Side Includes).

Parallel ESI is a performance-enhanced version of open source ESI. Parallel ESI issues all the ESI includes in parallel, upfront, so a single slow include does not slow down other operations. Open source ESI processes includes serially, one command at a time. If a single include is slow, the whole delivery pipeline is stalled.

The dominance of e-commerce in the world of retail surged over the past two decades to the point that online shopping is a regular part of daily life, often surpassing real-life retail experiences in convenience, cost and even immediacy: you can find exactly what you want online (no guarantees at your local shop) and have it shipped to you, and in some cases, have it in hand the same or next day. All from the comfort of home, office or wherever you happen to be. I think we’re all pretty used to this.