Importance of Shopify store speed
Creating a fast and high-performing Shopify store can feel overwhelming—but it doesn’t have to be. That’s why we’ve put together this ultimate guide to help you optimise your site’s speed and deliver a seamless shopping experience that keeps customers coming back.
What Is Shopify Site Speed?
Shopify site speed refers to how quickly your store loads and becomes fully usable for visitors. And make no mistake—every second counts. According to Google, the likelihood of a visitor bouncing increases by 32% as page load time rises from one to three seconds. Why? Because slow websites frustrate users. If your store feels sluggish or unresponsive, shoppers are more likely to leave and buy elsewhere.
In fact, a study of 750 consumers and 395 marketers revealed that:
- 45% of users were less likely to make a purchase on a slow site.
- 37% were less likely to return after a bad speed experience.
Why Site Speed Impacts More Than Just UX
The damage doesn’t stop at frustrated users. A slow-loading site can also sabotage your marketing performance. Platforms like Google Search and Meta Ads measure user engagement—and if your site loads slowly and visitors bounce quickly, those signals hurt your rankings and ad effectiveness.
In short:
- Poor site speed can lead to lower search visibility.
- It can increase your cost per click on paid ad platforms.
- And most importantly, it can cost you sales.
How to analyse site speed performance
Improving your Shopify store’s site speed is essential—but before making any changes, it’s just as important to understand how your store is currently performing. Measuring your store’s performance both before and after optimisation gives you a clear view of the improvements and helps ensure your efforts are making a real impact. Fortunately, there are several reliable tools available to help you analyse your site’s speed and overall performance. Among the most widely used are Google PageSpeed Insights (powered by Google Lighthouse), GTmetrix, and Shopify’s own Online Store speed report. Each of these tools offers valuable insights, from identifying specific issues affecting load time to tracking performance scores across mobile and desktop devices. Using these tools, you can build a clear picture of how your store stacks up and where the most impactful improvements can be made.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights is a free and powerful tool that quickly analyses a web page to evaluate how efficiently it loads, providing a comprehensive performance score out of 100. It breaks down the analysis into four key categories: Performance, which focuses primarily on loading speed; Best Practices, which assesses code quality; Accessibility; and SEO. One of the most valuable aspects of this tool is its ability to highlight specific metrics such as First Contentful Paint (FCP), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), and Total Blocking Time (TBT). These metrics are part of what’s known as Core Web Vitals, which play a crucial role in overall user experience and site performance. Although PageSpeed Insights uses Google’s Lighthouse engine to power its analysis, it presents the results in a more user-friendly format, making it accessible to both developers and store owners. You may also hear developers refer to Lighthouse directly when discussing performance testing and optimisation.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix is another valuable free tool that evaluates how quickly a specific URL loads and offers actionable recommendations for improvement. It leverages Google Lighthouse to provide a detailed performance analysis, breaking down how each element on a page contributes to its overall speed. What makes GTmetrix especially useful for eCommerce stores is its ability to pinpoint the exact scripts, images, and other files that may be slowing down your site. This level of detail helps store owners and developers identify and address performance bottlenecks more effectively, making it a go-to resource for optimising Shopify store speed.
Optimising images & video content to improve store speed
Images and videos are typically larger file sizes and can make up a significant portion of the data that a web browser needs to load. This can greatly affect the loading speed of an eCommerce store. To enhance custom website performance and provide an optimal user experience, it is essential to optimize both images and videos by compressing them as much as possible. This helps improve loading times and ensures a smoother browsing experience for your customers.
Compression
Image and video compression involves reducing the file size to the smallest possible level while maintaining an acceptable quality. It’s a delicate balance between ensuring the file is small enough to load quickly and still large enough to preserve its high-quality appearance.
We recommend that brands compress their images before uploading them to Shopify. By doing this, you ensure you’re starting with the smallest file size possible. Tools like TinyPNG are excellent for compressing images while retaining their original quality. Shopify also automatically compresses images upon upload, providing the smallest file sizes for your site. Additionally, it’s advisable for developers to configure Shopify stores to dynamically resize images, serving smaller dimensions to mobile devices, further optimizing space and improving load times.
Video Optimization
Videos tend to be large files and can slow down your store if not handled properly. Avoid setting videos to autoplay or allowing them to load with the initial page render. This can cause delays as the page might wait for the video to fully load before displaying the rest of the content. If your store design requires autoplay, keep the video short (under 15 seconds) and ensure it’s compressed to the smallest possible size. Tools like Clideo’s Video Compressor can help reduce video file sizes without compromising quality. Additionally, consider embedding videos from platforms like YouTube or Vimeo to prevent slowing down your store.
Minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML of a Shopify store
Every Shopify store is built using code that tells the browser how to display a page. The primary coding languages used are CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. During web development, the code often includes extra spaces, line breaks, and comments to make it easier for developers to read and understand. However, with thousands of these elements across a site, they can accumulate and slow down page loading times.
Minifying the code—CSS, JavaScript, and HTML—is an effective way to help browsers process the website’s code faster, resulting in quicker page loads and improved store performance. Minification involves removing non-essential characters like spaces, line breaks, and comments, making the code cleaner and more efficient. This process doesn’t affect the website’s appearance or functionality, ensuring the same user experience but with faster loading speeds.
While Shopify automatically minifies some of your store’s code, custom themes or apps that add their own CSS or JavaScript may not be fully minified. Working with a development team, like ours, can help assess whether your store’s code has been properly minified and ensure you’re benefiting from the most streamlined code for maximum site speed. We recommend brands perform a “clean-up” of their store’s code base at least once a year, as new app installations and content over time can contribute to code bloat, slowing down your store’s performance.
Choosing a Shopify theme for speed
The theme of your Shopify store plays a crucial role in determining its performance speed. Choosing a theme that wasn’t designed with speed and performance in mind can make it challenging to optimize later, especially if the foundation is flawed. While a theme may be visually appealing and feature-rich, if it’s bloated with poorly optimized code, you could experience slower performance.
A theme optimized for speed is typically lightweight, designed with efficiency in mind. A lightweight theme results in faster load times, providing a better experience for your customers and enhancing your store’s overall marketing effectiveness.
We recommend asking theme developers how frequently they release updates and speed optimizations, as site speed benchmarks continually evolve. Technologies that enhance speed require ongoing adjustments to stay current. Custom Shopify themes built by experts generally offer faster load speeds, as the code is tailored specifically to your design and feature needs, rather than including unnecessary features that you may not use. This specialized approach ensures optimal performance.
Optimising Your Shopify Store Speed: Why It’s an Ongoing Effort
Improving your Shopify store’s speed isn’t a one-time fix—it’s an ongoing process. With evolving performance standards and emerging technologies, maintaining a fast, seamless user experience requires regular attention.
We recommend performing a full site speed audit at least once a year, including a review of all on-site content. In between, it’s essential to:
Limit the use of unnecessary apps
Optimise images and media before uploading
Reassess performance after major updates like new designs or feature rollouts
Given the rapid pace of digital innovation, rebuilding your store every three years is a realistic approach to stay current and competitive.
Need Help?
If you’re looking to boost your Shopify store’s performance, At Armadillo Media based Milton Keynes, London, our team of experts is here to help. Get in touch today and let’s take your store to the next level.