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Can I have a fast loading Shopify ecommerce site?

D

Deleted74396

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I love Shopify for it's ease of use and the apps, but I'm struggling to find a theme that loads quick. I need one that loads in under 3 seconds ideally, but under 4 will do too.

Most of my audience are on mobile so it's especially important the site loads quick.

30542

The problem is, every single theme I put through gmetrix takes at least 6.5 seconds (range is 6.5-18 secs) to load.

Does Shopify slow traffic to .my-shopify.com links?

If not, how much is it possible to speed up a theme? I need even the quickest themes to be twice as quick so I'm not sure how realistic that is.

Thanks in advance!

Elle
 
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alexkuzmov

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I love Shopify for it's ease of use and the apps, but I'm struggling to find a theme that loads quick. I need one that loads in under 3 seconds ideally, but under 4 will do too.

Most of my audience are on mobile so it's especially important the site loads quick.

View attachment 30542

The problem is, every single theme I put through gmetrix takes at least 6.5 seconds (range is 6.5-18 secs) to load.

Does Shopify slow traffic to .my-shopify.com links?

If not, how much is it possible to speed up a theme? I need even the quickest themes to be twice as quick so I'm not sure how realistic that is.

Thanks in advance!

Elle
I doubt that any theme is this slow, it might have something to do how you use it.
Jus tried a couple of themes from themeforest( found them by googling 'fast shopify themes') and all of them loaded below 3 seconds on gtmetrix.

Are you testing with an empty theme or one which already has products and some sort of analytics enabled?
Are your images scaled properly?
 
D

Deleted74396

Guest
I doubt that any theme is this slow, it might have something to do how you use it.
Jus tried a couple of themes from themeforest( found them by googling 'fast shopify themes') and all of them loaded below 3 seconds on gtmetrix.

Are you testing with an empty theme or one which already has products and some sort of analytics enabled?
Are your images scaled properly?
I'm using their demos! It's not my site. Glad they are loading quick for you, maybe it was just the timing of my searches.
 
D

Deleted74396

Guest
I doubt that any theme is this slow, it might have something to do how you use it.
Jus tried a couple of themes from themeforest( found them by googling 'fast shopify themes') and all of them loaded below 3 seconds on gtmetrix.

Are you testing with an empty theme or one which already has products and some sort of analytics enabled?
Are your images scaled properly?

It still loads slow for me! It makes buying a theme really tricky as my main factor is speed, and I can't accurately test them it seems. I'm just worried about buying one only to find out it takes forever to load.

30543
 
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MattR82

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I've only used wordpress, not shopify, but is it something to do with the fact that it's just a demo site. Maybe it's not yet optimised etc.
 
D

Deleted74396

Guest
I've only used wordpress, not shopify, but is it something to do with the fact that it's just a demo site. Maybe it's not yet optimised etc.

Yeah I like Wordpress as I have a lot of experience and can get it below 2.5 seconds pretty easy. I don't even know which Shopify theme to buy cuz for me they all load slow! @alexkuzmov did you change the test server region from Canada? Maybe it's that
 

alexkuzmov

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It still loads slow for me! It makes buying a theme really tricky as my main factor is speed, and I can't accurately test them it seems. I'm just worried about buying one only to find out it takes forever to load.

View attachment 30543
Try using the Google Audits, you`ll get a more accurate score from them: Auditing Performance | Web Fundamentals | Google Developers

I did a couple more test and the speeds vary, yes.

Look into this also: How to Optimize Themes for Performance

My advice is, choose the fastest theme based on the Chrom audit, then follow the optimization techniques outlined in the shopify blog article.
That should get you close to where you want to be.

Keep in mind that with shopify, woocommerce, opencart etc. you sacrifice a bit of freedom and speed for ease of use.
You`ll never have the flexibility and speed of a custom made system if you use shopify, and thats OK.
 
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BizyDad

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You need to adjust your expectations. There is a latency with any Shopify stores due to the redirect from your domain name to the Shopify cdn.

Here's the waterfall from webpagetest.org. (gtmetrix doesn't give the full story imo)


I too am super speed obsessed (you'll notice I test on a 3G fast setting to give a worst case scenario), but keep in mind all Shopify stores have this and Shopify still sells beaucoup via mobile devices. When 5G hits this will become less an less of an issue.

For fun I tested the Shopify sites of a couple fastlaners, and they clocked in at 11 & 17 seconds. They're doing fine. You'll be fine.

Good to hear you are building a store. Good luck!
 

SEBASTlAN

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Apparently these are some minimal shopify themes that are relatively quick...

 

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Mine loads in under a second, you must have some bad internet?
 
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reedracer

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I'm using the free Minimal theme with un optimized photos. Sub 3 secs30558
 

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Turbo theme is made for speed maybe try that one, Shopify is a bit slower than other sites but as mentioned you’ll be fine.

If you are speed obsessed you could run traffic to fast funnel pages using convertri
 

MarkT525

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You might want to do some strategic testing

Start with your images. Do you have 4 or 5 per product?
One thing to definitely do is optimize the images with an online optimizer to reduce the file size
Don't forget your banner images too. If your theme has a slider do each one of them.

Then start with plugins and test disabling them one by one checking your response time each time.
Sometimes you may find a plugin is written badly, maybe a badly written query or something. If you find an offending plugin. see if there are alternatives that may be quicker.

Attack the problem that way to identify where the issue is and then you can resolve it.

Mark
 
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JohnForte

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Due to the way Shopify works with its liquid templating system, I have not seen very fast sites. That is why a lot of people are moving to react with SSR and using Shopify just as an API to get the products and create the order.

Maybe something to look into?
 

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I love Shopify for it's ease of use and the apps, but I'm struggling to find a theme that loads quick. I need one that loads in under 3 seconds ideally, but under 4 will do too.

Most of my audience are on mobile so it's especially important the site loads quick.

View attachment 30542

The problem is, every single theme I put through gmetrix takes at least 6.5 seconds (range is 6.5-18 secs) to load.

Does Shopify slow traffic to .my-shopify.com links?

If not, how much is it possible to speed up a theme? I need even the quickest themes to be twice as quick so I'm not sure how realistic that is.

Thanks in advance!

Elle

I just speed tested two of my shopify sites

1.3 seconds
and
1.4 seconds
 
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D

Deleted74396

Guest
All your comments were incredible helpful. @Kid That site was great!

For anybody who sees this in future, here are some fast themes I found for under $60:

Belle loaded between 816ms-1.5s, tested with UK/US east coat/west coast desktop connections, first contentful paint was 2.68s even with a 4g connection

Boutique loaded between fastest 857ms and slowest 888ms, first contentful paint was 3.47s with 4g

Yanka loaded between 1.7s and 2.3s, first contentful paint was 2.94s with 4g

Avone loaded between 714ms and 1.96s with first contentful paint with 4g at 2.75s!

It makes sense to do your own research but these might be a good starting point, I especially enjoyed the Belle and Avone theme from both desktop and mobile :)
 

biophase

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All your comments were incredible helpful. @Kid That site was great!

For anybody who sees this in future, here are some fast themes I found for under $60:

Belle loaded between 816ms-1.5s, tested with UK/US east coat/west coast desktop connections, first contentful paint was 2.68s even with a 4g connection

Boutique loaded between fastest 857ms and slowest 888ms, first contentful paint was 3.47s with 4g

Yanka loaded between 1.7s and 2.3s, first contentful paint was 2.94s with 4g

Avone loaded between 714ms and 1.96s with first contentful paint with 4g at 2.75s!

It makes sense to do your own research but these might be a good starting point, I especially enjoyed the Belle and Avone theme from both desktop and mobile :)

it's almost impossible to get a fast loading Shopify site after installing any apps. Apps will just slow even a fast theme down.

Mine was super fast before adding apps. Before apps are a necessary evil so I just deal with it.
 
D

Deleted74396

Guest
it's almost impossible to get a fast loading Shopify site after installing any apps. Apps will just slow even a fast theme down.

Mine was super fast before adding apps. Before apps are a necessary evil so I just deal with it.

But it's probably still favourable to start with a theme that loads in 3 seconds versus 6 or 7 without apps
 
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ljb7

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Shopify is notoriously bulky and slow loading. You can't load a website onto your own server so you're stuck there.

There is however a way to utilize the Shopify backend with a Wordpress frontend. It's pretty complex and takes a timely development investment but having done it myself I know it's possible.

Is it worth it? Depends who it's for. There are many incredibly large brands using Shopify and making a killing. If you have the right product and brand, people are going to buy.
 

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