How to speed up a Shopify store

To speed up a Shopify store, measure first, then remove what you do not need: unused apps, oversized images, extra sections and old tracking tags. Most of these need no code. Your theme and what you add to it are the parts you control. Check real-visitor data before and after each change.

How do you measure your speed?

Shopify shows real-visitor data for free. In your admin, go to Analytics, then Reports, and search for the web performance reports. A summary also appears on the Themes page. Google’s three Core Web Vitals are what you are looking at:

Three things to know before you read them:

• A new store has no data. Scores need real visitors, and a store in private mode gets none. Until then, PageSpeed Insights can give simulated results.
• Low traffic makes scores swing. Switch the report to a weekly or monthly view.
• Results take time. Data can be delayed by up to 36 hours, and only the last 90 days are kept.

Use the page type and page URL reports to see which template is slow. This tells you whether to work on your homepage, your product pages or your collections.

What should you fix first?

This order follows Shopify’s advice on improving performance, starting with what needs no code.

1. Remove apps you do not need

Review each app and ask whether it adds enough value to justify its cost in speed. Keep what helps you sell. For the rest, remember that uninstalling may leave code behind, so ask the developer how to remove it fully.

2. Resize your images

Upload images at the size they are displayed. Use JPG for photos and PNG for graphics that need transparency, and reduce the number of high-quality images on pages that load many of them. Our guide to optimizing Shopify images goes through this step by step.

3. Cut sections and animations

Each section on a template adds work. Shopify gives no exact limit, but it says high section counts lower performance. If your theme uses page transitions or other animations, compare your scores with and without them.

4. Paginate large collections

For collections with many products, turn on pagination so that fewer products load at once.

5. Clean up tracking tags

Audit your tag manager and remove unused or low-value tags. If your INP score is poor, Shopify’s advice is to reduce excess JavaScript from your theme, apps and tags, starting with the worst offenders.

6. Review your theme

Shopify says its Horizon themes and free Online Store 2.0 themes are optimized for performance. If yours is old or heavily customized, this may be the largest change available to you, and also the most work. See our guide on how to choose a Shopify theme.

What should you ask a developer?

If you work with a developer, Shopify’s performance guide for themes gives them specific targets:

• Do not lazy-load images visible on arrival, and give the main image fetchpriority="high".
• Use an <img> tag for the hero image, not a CSS background.
• Set width and height on images to limit layout shift.
• Serve smaller images on smaller screens with srcset and sizes.
• Host fonts on the Shopify CDN, or use system fonts.
• Remove or defer render-blocking app scripts.
• Find slow Liquid code. Nested loops are the most common cause of a slow server response.

What can you leave alone?

Browser caching is already set by Shopify. And do not sacrifice useful content for a score. Google says it seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par, and that good scores do not guarantee a top position. A clear product photo that loads a little later is often better than no photo at all. For the rest of your search work, see our Shopify SEO guide.

If you want to compare your current store with a new one, Forgefont installs a custom theme next to yours, and every photo is uploaded only once. Your current theme stays online until you choose to switch, so you can look at your options before anything changes. Configure your store to get started.