Why is my Shopify store so slow?

Site speed is tied closely to the performance and user experience of your online store. So it’s no wonder that many store owners are concerned about the speed of their Shopify store. 

Painfully slow load times contribute to sky-high bounce rates. In an era when time equates to gold, a swift and smooth browsing experience is non-negotiable.

This guide will help you understand and uncover factors that are slowing down your Shopify store and fixes to improve your site speed and overall store performance! 

Why is your Shopify store slow?

Your Shopify store may be moving at a snail's pace due to a combination of weighty themes and app overload. Let's unpack these culprits and their real-world impacts.

Heavy themes: the hidden culprit

Heavy themes can drastically affect the speed of your Shopify store. Several Shopify stores have fallen prey to this common pitfall.

When choosing a theme for your Shopify store, it's crucial to factor in its impact on the site's speed. Heavy themes packed with numerous features, high-resolution images, and complex coding can result in sluggish loading times. Although they may appear visually appealing, these themes can turn your swift Shopify store into a sloth, leading to a sub-optimal customer experience.

Overuse of apps: The silent speed killer

Excessive use of apps can decelerate your Shopify store's speed. Several stores have experienced slowdowns due to app overuse.

With an ocean of apps available on Shopify's marketplace, it's tempting to install as many as possible to maximize functionality. 

However, some apps can make your site heavier, slowing down your store's load times. It's a vicious cycle: the more apps you use, the slower your site becomes, leading to an unfriendly browsing experience.

It's essential to strike a balance between functionality and speed when managing your Shopify store. Understanding and addressing these speed killers can drastically improve your site's performance, leading to a better, more seamless shopping experience for your customers.

Shopify's limitation due to jQuery

Most developers now prefer using modern JavaScript tools like React, Vue, and Angular. jQuery, an older tool, isn't as popular anymore.

Since its start in 2006, jQuery has been used on many websites to make working with HTML easier. BuiltWith shows that over 79% of the top 1 million websites still use it, but its popularity has been dropping, especially in the last two years.

Today's developers usually don't choose jQuery for adding JavaScript to websites and apps. Unlike jQuery, which works directly with the website's code, tools like React use a 'virtual' version, which many developers find better. Because of this, jQuery is seen as outdated, leading to slower performance in Shopify themes.

How a slow Shopify store affects your business

The sluggish speed of your Shopify store isn’t merely an inconvenience; it could be slowing your business growth. Slow site speed undercuts the user experience, diminishing the likelihood of repeat visits or purchases. This means your site speed is directly hurting your conversion rates. Plus, prolonged site loading times can also silently erode your SEO rankings, directly impacting your online visibility.

User experience

It is well-known that the digital consumer is impatient. Slow loading time immediately undercuts the user's experience. 

No one likes to sit and watch the buffering circle for ages; customers expect pages to load instantly, with every second of delay potentially losing their interest. An outcome? Increased bounce rates, decreased conversions, or abandoned shopping carts.

To give you a clearer picture, data shows that a 2-second delay in webpage load time increases bounce rates by up to 103%. Also, 79% of dissatisfied customers, because of website performance, are less likely to buy from the same site again. 

With these significant figures, it is clear that poor site speed can severely impact user experience and, subsequently, your brand's reputation. This information will surely make you rethink if the sluggish speed can still be overlooked. 

SEO rankings

Many businesses often overlook the implications of slow site speed on their SEO rankings. Although user experience takes the most immediate hit, the adverse impact on your SEO rankings over time can be devastatingly silent.

Search engines, such as Google, prioritize websites that provide a flawless user experience, with site loading speed being a crucial factor. Google’s algorithm is designed explicitly to consider page speed as a ranking factor, making it essential for site owners to improve their site speed for higher search visibility.

According to SEO studies, pages with a longer load time tend to have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page. These factors negatively impact your SEO rankings. Moreover, Google's speed update has made load times a ranking factor for mobile searches, too. 

Providing a seamless mobile experience is no longer an option but a necessity. 

The damage is two-fold: not only does your slow-loading Shopify store dishearten your potential customers, but it also makes it harder for new customers to find you in the first place. With these insights, it becomes evident how grave the consequences of a slow Shopify store can be.

How to improve your Shopify store speed

Two ways to increase your Shopify store speed include lightening the load with theme optimization and maintaining an optimal speed with balanced app management.

Theme optimization: lightening the load

Shopify themes act as the physical storefront of your online business--elegant, captivating, but sometimes, heavy. Emphasis on 'heavy,' because the weight of your store's theme could be slowing your site down. Thus, commencing with careful theme optimization can lead to profound improvements in the speed of your Shopify store.

1. To kickstart the process, it's crucial to choose a lightweight and optimized theme from the start. This foundation will help prevent many performance hazards down the line.

2. A frequent habit of some store owners is decorating their site with fancy sliders, images, and animations. While they offer aesthetic charm, they can seriously degrade the website's performance.

3. Consolidate and minify your CSS and JavaScript files. Excessive or unoptimized scripts can slow down your site's loading times. Therefore, refining and streamlining these is of utmost importance.

4. An underused trick to improve load times is to use the Lazy Loading technique for images. This method allows images to load only when they’re about to enter the viewport. This can drastically enhance the perceived load times.

5. Another option is building your landing pages using Instant Page Builder; Instant refrains from adding unnecessary javascript to your store, keeping your store’s load speed as fast as ever, even after installing Instant.

App management: Balancing functionality and speed

The paradox of app management lies in its double-edged sword nature--while promising functionality, it can remarkably slow down your Shopify store if mishandled. Here's how to tackle this predicament:

1. Regularly audit your apps: Keep an inventory of apps that are valuable and those that are not. Uninstalling bulky and obsolete apps can make room for speed-enhancing alternatives.

2. Prioritize app use: Strategically use apps that contribute to the functionality and customer experience, such as those for customer reviews, SEO, and email marketing.

Turning to successful Shopify store owners for insights, most advise on the importance of limiting app use. They emphasize the concept of "less is more." Instead of bulking up your store with plentiful apps, focus on a few that genuinely add value to your store and customer experience.

Remember, it's not about ridding your store of all elements that could potentially hamper its speed. It's about achieving a balance. A balance between maintaining speedy shop loads whilst also offering a delightful and functional shopping experience to your customers.

Beyond speed: Other factors affecting Shopify store performance

Shopify store performance hinges on more than just speed. Introducing two high-impact factors – mobile responsiveness and security. You're about to:

• Understand the critical role of mobile responsiveness in your Shopify store.

• Learn to maintain your store's security as a non-negotiable factor leading to higher performance.

Mobile responsiveness

Mobile users actively dominate online shopping, making mobile responsiveness a critical factor for any Shopify store. 

Consumers anticipate a flawless and swift response when they surf your online store on their mobile devices. The lack of mobile responsiveness causes adverse effects on the user experience, which can lead to lower conversion rates and customer churn.

To optimize mobile responsiveness, it's essential to choose a mobile-friendly theme or build mobile-responsive pages for your Shopify store. 

Luckily, both Shopify themes and pages built with Instant Page Builder are already designed to be mobile-responsive, but you need to test and validate the mobile appearance and functionality periodically. 

Watch out for the layout, text size, navigation, and loading speed. Don't get stuck in the desktop version of your store. Instead, think like a mobile user and enhance the mobile shopping experience.

Security

Security is a fortress that protects your Shopify store from malicious intent. 

A secure platform fosters customer trust, which is essential for driving conversions and loyalty. Shopify already offers built-in security features like SSL certificates, fraud analysis, and chargeback protection. However, it's equally essential for shop owners to take proactive measures to maintain this security.

Ensure the apps you integrate with your Shopify store are reliable. Regularly update your store and its apps to get the latest security patches. 

Additionally, make it a part of your routine to monitor your store continuously for malicious activities. Shopify provides security notifications and warnings - heed them. 

Also, you may want to consider investing in more advanced security solutions, such as SiteLock, for constant malware monitoring and vulnerability detection to keep your store safe and sound.

In conclusion, the performance of a Shopify store is not determined by speed alone. Other factors like mobile responsiveness and security play significant roles, too. 

By optimizing these aspects, one can significantly elevate the performance, leading to higher conversions and customer loyalty.

Conclusion

Shopify’s speed issues often boil down to a crowded cache, theme performance, third-party apps, oversized images, and excessive liquid code. Although recognizing these factors is critical, understanding their implications for your business takes precedence.

Tired of dealing with slow loading times costing you conversions? Prioritize streamlining your Shopify store. Begin by decluttering the cache, optimizing images, and limiting apps to necessary ones. Regularly check your theme's performance and cleanse excessive liquid code.

Fine-tuning your Shopify store speed can transform your customer experience and increase your conversion rate.