Lucy logs onto your webpage at 3 minutes past midnight; she’s browsing on her phone and trying to snag one of the limited edition headbands in your latest Shopify shop drop. The shop is loading frustratingly slowly. She’s tossing and turning in bed and annoyed that she might lose out on something she’d been looking forward to wearing to her work holiday party. When she finally gets to the checkout page, a doomed message reads out, “Sorry, product sold out!” Does this sound familiar? It doesn’t have to! The following tips can significantly increase your Shopify eCommerce website’s loading speed.

1. Accelerated Mobile Pages

AMPs for short. This diet HTML, designed by Google and Twitter, makes mobile pages as fast as possible. It is designed purely for speed and readability. While they do not allow for java and other “pretty” web design features, their use will improve website speed and, by association, your Google ranking. More speed equals higher ranking equals a higher conversion rate. Bingo!

2. Fewer Apps

Part of what makes Shopify such an attractive eCommerce platform is its vast app offering. However, if you are not using the app, the JavaScript will still be running in the background, making frequent unnecessary requests, and slowing down your site’s performance!
Make sure to uninstall any apps you’re not currently using.

3. Responsiveness

Having a sleek and functional, user-experience focused website isn’t just about bragging rights with your spouse. Good web design that speaks to your user will reduce page load speed, get them where they need to go quicker, and up your Shopify eCommerce speed. Sit back and watch the sales go up and up!

4. Compress Images

Obviously, you want to show off your products with high quality, aesthetically pleasing imagery. However, if you use too many pretty pictures, they will fail to load for your user and count against you. You can find Image Optimizer on the Shopify app store for easy image compression and SEO optimization.

5. Fewer Sliders in Your Web Design

Sliders have always been the “unnecessary transitions in PowerPoint” of web design. They’re pretty, but they take up time! It’s time to let go of the load time-sucking images, which actually appear to annoy many users in the same way those PowerPoint transitions do. One singular high-quality image with a clear call to action and value proposition will optimize speed and improve conversion rates.

The “Boring” Data

Studies show that most buyers log onto shops on a smartphone. 64% of these users expect a website to load in under 4 seconds! And almost 80% of those users who did not enjoy the web performance say they are unlikely to log in again. Yikes! That’s a significant dip in an economy that relies on repeat customers and brand loyalty! Speeding up a page by just one second can up conversion rates by 7%!

Okay, but I need more…

We hope the above has been a little taster of some of the speed-saving techniques you could add to your Shopify eCommerce store. If you need more, consider adding jdp to your virtual team. At jdp, we believe in supporting your brand from beginning to end. A Shopify store shouldn’t be the end of your relationship with your ideal customer. It should have them coming back for more!

Get in touch for a free one-hour consultation. We specialize in connecting businesses with their customers and fostering brand loyalty. We achieve this by delivering excellent user experience through our websites and using the latest marketing tools and techniques to attract new customers and keep them engaged. We look forward to working on your project with you.