
How to speed up Shopify’s page load time
18.09.2019
The rapid evolution of technology has conditioned us to expect instantaneous results. From same-day delivery options to instant-hot-water kettles, we’ve lost our patience when it comes to waiting – especially if we deem it unnecessary. And nowhere is this more prevalent than online.
In the olden days of dial-up internet, we’d be happy to wait full minutes for websites to load. We’d put a load of washing on, make a cup of tea (with our regular, five-minute-boil kettle), do a little dance, make a phone call, etc. Now, we want websites to load within seconds. Milliseconds, even.
The state of the internet in 2019 is that most of us won’t wait more than three seconds for a web page to load. Six seconds, and your bounce rate is likely to be somewhere around the 100% mark.

Why is page loading speed so important?
Aside from the fact that you’re losing most of your audience if your website isn’t loading quickly enough, page speed actually impacts a whole host of metrics.
Bounce rate: Although there are plenty of reasons why your customers might bounce from your site – including low-quality design, poor mobile optimisation and irrelevant content – speed is one of the biggest factors to consider when it comes to reducing your bounce rate. With 90% of mobile users bouncing when they have to wait five seconds for a page to load, you can’t afford to make people wait.
Conversion: Unsurprisingly, page speed has a huge impact on conversion. Even a decade ago, Amazon found that every 100ms delay cost them 1% in sales. Fast forward 10 years, and that figure jumps to 7%. And with no one hanging around on sites that load slower than five seconds, you don’t have many users left to convert.
SEO: Although your site’s bounce rate isn’t a ranking factor, your site speed is. Google’s algorithm uses your site and page speed as a signal of the quality of your site, determining where to place you on search engine result pages (SERPs). Slow site speed also impacts your site’s crawlability, which can harm your indexation.
Checking your Shopify sites’ page speed
Before you can start improving your site’s page speed, you need to know what’s slowing it down in the first place.
Here are a couple of tools we use to test the speed of our Shopify stores:
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google’s PageSpeed Insights is a free tool that reports on the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, providing suggestions of how different pages can be improved. When you enter your store’s URL and run a speed test, PageSpeed Insights gives you a performance score out of 100, with anything above 90 considered fast, and below 50 considered too slow.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix is another free tool that analyses your site’s performance, grading web pages from A to F, as well as offering recommendations for improving your site’s speed. It gives a more detailed breakdown of the time each request took to fulfil, pulling in data from both Google’s PageSpeed and YSlow. However, without upgrading to a paid account, you’re limited to the tool’s basic features.
These tools help you identify the things that might be slowing your site down. Now, let’s go into how to fix them.
6 ways to speed up your Shopify store
1. Optimise your images
All that rich, gorgeous lifestyle and product imagery you’re sporting? It’s not great for your site’s speed. With images accounting for 50% to 75% of your web pages’ total weight, it’s important to think about how many images you’re including on each page. And the higher the quality of your images, the larger that number gets.
Luckily, it’s pretty simple to optimise your images. Here are a couple of ways you can stop your lovely imagery from slowing down your website:
Compress your images: With tools like TinyJPG and TinyPNG, it’s easy to compress the size of new images. For existing images on your site, you can use apps like Image Optimizer to compress your images without any quality loss.
Reduce the number of high-resolution images or videos: If your site is packed with things like content sliders, videos and gifs, you’re going to struggle to get it down to an optimal speed. Before you add anything with a high resolution, really think about whether you need it – or, if it’s a crucial part of your site, how you can reduce its size. For example, if your homepage features a hero slider, consider reducing the number of slides you show.
2. Optimise your theme
This is where things get a bit more technical. To optimise the performance of your Shopify theme, you can manually compress and combine your CSS and JavaScript files, making it easier for browsers to display them quickly.
Here are a couple of key ways you can optimise your theme:
JavaScript & CSS files minification: Minification compresses the text in your CSS and JavaScript files, removing extra characters like spaces and line breaks. By eliminating redundant characters, minification makes your file size smaller, which helps your site load faster. You can do a quick analysis with GTmetrix to find files that haven’t been minified – but make sure you duplicate your theme before making any changes!
JavaScript & CSS files concatenation: Concatenation is the process of combining multiple JavaScript and CSS files into one, ideally resulting in one large JavaScript file and one large CSS file. Because HTTP/1 struggles to serve pages with too many file requests, concatenation aims to solve the problem by reducing that number. However, with HTTP/2, concatenation is fast becoming obsolete. Once Shopify starts supporting the new HTTP, it’ll be better to keep your files separate.
3. Do you really need another app?
Most of the apps downloaded through Shopify add some JavaScript and/or CSS files to your store, which impacts your site’s performance. For every app you install, your site gets that tiny bit slower.
That’s why it’s important to regularly go through your list of installed apps and evaluate what value they’re adding to your store. Are there any you installed on a trial basis and forgot to delete? Have you got two apps that do a similar job? Loop in a developer to find and delete any unnecessary apps. Once you’ve finished the app cull, run speed tests and note the positive impact fewer apps has on your site’s performance.
Similarly, when it comes to installing new apps, always weigh the benefits that app will have on sales against the possible impact on your site’s load speed. If it adds value, then great! If not, or if the value is minimal, consider holding off for the time being.
4. Organise your tracking with Google Tag Manager
Gathering data from your site is essential for learning more about your customers’ behaviour – but all that data collection can end up slowing down your website.
When you’re separately tracking for conversions, goals, and retargeting, all those tracking tags increase the number of requests your page is making, which can ultimately harm its overall performance. And if they’re not done asynchronously, they can stop the page’s content from rendering.
By using a management system like Google Tag Manager, you can condense all your tracking tags into one JavaScript request – meaning you can manage multiple store tags with just one snippet of code. For more information on using Google Tag Manager with your Shopify store, you can check out this guide.
5. Don’t write code that loops over too many times
Liquid, Shopify’s coding language, is used to load dynamic content onto your online store. It’s an incredibly powerful and useful tool, and is great for things like announcements, product recommendations and collection filtering. But sometimes, using Liquid can come with a performance tradeoff.
Loops are one of those times.
For-loop is a control flow statement that means the system has to loop (search through) all the products in a collection – sometimes multiple times over, creating loops within loops. While this can be useful for things like advanced collection filtering and colour swatches, it can severely impact your load times, so it’s important to avoid using an excessive number of Liquid loops.
Removing any conflicting code or duplicated tasks is one way to stop these loops from slowing down your Shopify store. If you’ve got numerous developers working on your site, make sure you’re not running multiple for-loops for the same information.
6. Fix those broken links
Make sure you do some regular spring cleaning on your site for things like broken links and redirects. Not only do broken links impact your site speed, but they also affect your search rankings.
These broken links increase the number of HTTP requests your page makes, which can do some damage to your page load time. Fortunately, it’s an easy problem to fix. You can use a free tool like Broken Link Checker to find and remove any broken links.
Applying these tips to your Shopify store
Luckily, Shopify is inherently an incredibly fast platform. With secure, reliable hosting and unlimited bandwidth, a lot of the hard work has been done for you.
When it comes to optimising your site further, always loop in your developer. It’s also a good idea to duplicate your theme before making any major changes.
Don’t have a developer? Borrow one of ours.

By Chloé Rose Whitmore
Copywriter
The resident copywriter and content queen at Juno. Drinks 13 cups of tea a day and finds dogs' ears calming.
At Juno eCommerce we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. As a result we are transparent in everything we do.
This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, request information or enquire about a product / service from Patchworks.
The policy explains how we use that information, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
We may change this policy from time to time so please check this page to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.
By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.
Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent, by email, to: info@junowebdesign.com.
Who are we?
Juno eCommerce
Where to find us
16 Commerce Square, Nottingham, NG1 1HS, United Kingdom
How to contact us in case of a complaint
+44 (0)115 941 8122
info@junowebdesign.com
How to contact us to request access to, or change, any personal data we may hold on you
+44 (0)115 941 8122
info@junowebdesign.com
ICO Registration Details
We are registered as a Data Controller with the Information Controller’s Office (ICO).
Registration Number: ZA376490
How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you use our website, email us or call us to enquire about our products and services, or if you register to receive one of our newsletters. We also collect information about you when attending industry-specific exhibitions, events and through networking.
We do not react to Do Not Track (DNT) signals, as any details captured are for the sole purpose of enquiring about, or signing up for, the Patchworks Integration Platform as a Service.
What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information other than business information that we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.
Like many other websites, https://www.junoecommerce.com/ uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual.
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How we use your personal information
We use personal information about you in connection with the following purposes:
(Please Note: we will never keep paper copies of any of your personal data)
Fulfilling your requests:
to provide you with the information, products and services that you have requested from us
to complete any transaction you are undertaking with us
to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into you and us
to administer any promotion or competition that you enter via our website(s)
to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so
in the course of processing a job application or enquiry
to meet a legal or statutory obligation.
Marketing:
to provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about
to measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you, which may be based on your activity on our website(s) or the website of another Juno eCommerce Company or third parties’ websites
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If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, please email us on info@junowebdesign.com.
Service Improvements and account management:
to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer
to administer our site and for internal business administration and operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes
to notify you about changes to our service and to send you service emails relating to your account
as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure
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Sharing your personal information
We will not share your information with 3rd parties for marketing purposes.
However, we may pass some information to our third party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process products and to keep you informed).
When we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond the Patchworks Network, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.
These third parties may include:
Credit reference agencies and other companies for use in credit decisions, for fraud prevention
We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our staff and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.
Controlling your information that we hold
If we do not have a business relationship with you, then you have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us.
We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted.
You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us on info@junowebdesign.com
You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information for marketing purposes.
You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking or unchecking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us on info@junowebdesign.com.
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us on info@junowebdesign.com.
You have the right to ask for a copy of the non-business personal information Patchworks holds about you.
If you wish to raise a complaint regarding how we have handled your personal data, please email info@junowebdesign.com in the first instance and the Patchworks Team will investigate and report back to you.
If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Keeping your information safe
When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any personal information is encrypted and protected via SSL and secure data storage. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.
We may store your personal information on Google and Amazon’s Clouds and in our Portal, CRM, Messaging, Accounting, Support and Email Service Provider software.
To read the detailed specification of how the third parties we work with keep your data safe, please click on each of the relevant links below:
https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance
https://www.digitalocean.com/security/
https://aws.amazon.com/security/
https://www.hubspot.com/security
https://slack.com/security
https://www.xero.com/accounting-software/security
https://www.atlassian.com/trust/security/
https://mailchimp.com/about/security/
https://www.elastic.co/legal/privacy-statement
In addition to the security and compliance policies documented above, Patchworks have GDPR compliant contractual agreements and / or Data Processing Agreements in place with each of our data processing sub-contractors.
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best efforts to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
We will hold your data for no longer than we need it for, or if you have advised you wish us to delete it or we have a legal reason such as tax purposes. We aim to keep your data no longer than 5 years in all other cases.
You can request a copy of our retention schedule by emailing
info@junowebdesign.com.
Patchworks agree to the individual redress principle, which requires that individuals have a right to pursue legally enforceable rights against Data Collectors and Processors who fail to adhere to the law. This principle requires not only that individuals have enforceable rights against data users, but also that individuals have recourse to courts or a government agency to investigate and / or prosecute non-compliance by Data Controllers and / or Processors.
Should a data breach occur, every person whose data we control will be notified within 7 business days.
Keeping children safe
We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 18 or under. If you are aged 18 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.
If we learn that we have collected the personal information of a child under the relevant minimum age without parental consent, we will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible. Parents who believe that their child has submitted personal information to us and would like to have it deleted may contact us on info@junowebdesign.com.
Profiling
We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may make use of additional information about you when it is available from external sources to help us do this effectively. We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.
In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.
Transferring your information outside of the European Union
We operate internationally. As part of the services offered to you by Juno eCommerce, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”).
By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.
If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.
We keep this Policy under regular review.
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