How To Fix Slow Shopify Product Pages
Reading Time: 4 minutes When it comes to doing business online, speed is essential. Just a 1-second delay in your web page loading speed can reduce your conversion rate by 7%, while more than 53% will leave your page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. If you’re running an e-commerce store at Shopify, that is going to cost you a lot of money. Someone actually calculated – a 1-minute delay can cost you $2.5 million in missed revenue if your e-commerce makes more than $100K per day. So, if your store needs more than 2-3 seconds to load, it’s high time to seriously address this issue.
We’ve gathered a few tips on how to fix your slow Shopify product pages and stop losing customers.
Table of Contents
Use an adequate plan
The page loading speed depends not only upon a device and the speed of your customers’ networks but on the speed and infrastructure of your hosting provider as well. This is especially important during days when e-stores are overwhelmed with high traffic and transactions. Take Black Friday as a perfect example. If your customers are experiencing lags or delays, it may be the sign your business is growing, so you might want to consider switching to a better hosting plan.
Build your mobile pages with AMP
Your current and potential customers are spending a great deal of their time using their mobile phones, and by 2021 m-commerce is expected to dominate online sales, meaning you need to provide your customers with the top-notch mobile experience.
If you’re handling your e-commerce site on your own, meaning that you don’t have an in-house web developer, you can build accelerated mobile pages for your Shopify store quickly using apps such as RocketAmp or FireAMP. Both applications are easy to download and use, and within just a few clicks, your pages will perform smoothly on mobile screens.
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Compress images
Huge images are hard to load, and when it comes to keeping your customers on your page, every second counts. Many simply forget to resize images, while others fear that by resizing them, images will lose their quality. But, your product page can still look stunning if you compress the image you’re using, or use a smaller file size.
The recommended image size is 2048×2048 pixels and you can resize them in a second using different editors, such as PhotoShop, or using an online image resizer tool.
Reduce the number of apps you use
Your e-commerce business may suffer because of too many installed apps on your website. One of the ways to boost the speed is by removing all unnecessary apps, and thinking twice before installing an additional one, as the value it brings needs to be higher than the speed you’ll lose. Still, to the untrained eye, some apps may seem less important than they actually are so it’s best to leave it to experienced Shopify Plus experts, who can analyze your situation and help you make informed decisions.
Stop using sliders
If you’re still using slider images, consider changing them for a single hero layout image on your pages. Sliders usually have 5 to 6 images, and they significantly increase your page loading time while not having any specific purpose, except to annoy your visitors who choose to ignore them in 99% of the cases. A high-quality hero image will not only make your web page run faster, but it will also make your call to action more visible and conspicuous to your visitor, thus bringing you more revenue.
But, if you think your product pages benefits from having a carousel, limit the number of images to 2 or 3 and use Lazy Load to enhance the end-user experience.
Cut on pop-ups
If you’re using pop-ups, you should consider how crucial they are for your e-store and whether your customers are actually using them. Although they may seem like a practical solution which provides your users with a top-notch experience, they usually do more harm than good, as loading so much data can take a while. Disable them using your theme customizer.
Link your videos
If you use videos on your pages, make sure they are not uploaded on your store, as this can be critical when it comes to your page speed. The best solution is to create an account on some video hosting services, such as YouTube or Vimeo, and upload your videos there, and then embed them on a page of your choice. If there are previously uploaded videos on your web pages, you’ll have to download them first in order to change them for the embedded content.
Use a fast theme
The theme you use for your e-commerce store also influences its speed, so it’s extremely important to choose the one that is fast and responsive. It is a good idea to test your time across different devices and screen sizes, which you can do easily using Google Chrome, and check whether you can spot lags or some other problems.
Go through these steps with Shopify and make improvements wherever you can, and see your profits skyrocket, along with your speed.
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