Your Shopify Store Is Slow: 5 Fixes in 15 Minutes

This post is the companion guide to our YouTube video. Follow along at your own pace -- each fix has step-by-step instructions.

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[INTRO -- ON CAMERA]

Pull up Google PageSpeed Insights right now. Type in your Shopify store URL. Run the test on mobile.

If your score is under 50, your store is actively losing sales. Every single day.

Here's the number that matters: for every 1 second of additional load time, your conversion rate drops roughly 7%. A Shopify store that loads in 5 seconds instead of 2.5 seconds is losing 17-20% of potential sales. Not because the product is wrong. Not because the price is wrong. Because the page didn't load fast enough.

I'm Mark Cijo, founder of GOSH Digital. We've optimized speed for dozens of Shopify stores, and most of the time the fixes don't require a developer. They require knowing what's actually slowing your site down.

I'm going to show you 5 fixes you can make in 15 minutes or less. No code. No developer. Just settings and decisions.

Let's go.

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Fix 1: Uninstall Apps You're Not Using (3 Minutes)

[SHOW SCREEN -- Shopify admin, Apps section]

This is the single biggest speed killer on Shopify stores. Every app you install adds JavaScript to your storefront. Many apps add CSS files, tracking pixels, and API calls on top of that. The average Shopify store has 6-12 apps installed. I've seen stores with 30+.

Each app adds 50-500 milliseconds to your page load time. Five heavy apps can add 2-3 seconds.

Here's the part that makes it worse: many apps inject their code on EVERY page, even pages where the app does nothing. That popup app you use on your homepage? Its JavaScript is loading on your product pages, your collection pages, your checkout -- everywhere.

The fix:

Go to Settings, then Apps and Sales Channels. Look at every app. For each one, ask three questions:

1. When did I last use this?
2. Does this app directly generate revenue?
3. Can another app I already have do this?

[SHOW SCREEN -- Uninstalling an app]

Uninstall everything you're not actively using. Not "disable" -- uninstall. Disabled apps often leave residual code behind. You need to fully remove them.

Be ruthless. That app you installed 8 months ago "just to try"? Gone. The countdown timer you used once for a flash sale? Gone. The third review app you installed because someone on a Shopify forum said it was "better"? Gone.

Expected impact: Removing 3-5 unused apps typically improves load time by 0.5-2.0 seconds. I've seen cases where removing a single heavy app dropped load time by a full second.

[CUT TO MARK]

One caveat -- before you uninstall, check if the app has embedded custom code into your theme. Some apps add liquid code to your theme files during installation and don't remove it during uninstall. After removing apps, go to Online Store, then Themes, then Actions, then Edit Code, and search for the app name. If you find leftover code, delete it or have your developer clean it up.

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Fix 2: Compress Your Images (3 Minutes)

[SHOW SCREEN -- A product page with large images]

Shopify automatically serves images in WebP format and provides responsive sizing. But that doesn't help if you're uploading 4000x4000 pixel images at 2MB each.

The biggest culprits are usually NOT your product images. Product images uploaded through Shopify's product editor get handled reasonably well. The real speed killers are:

• Hero and banner images that are 3-5MB
• Lifestyle images in custom sections that nobody compressed
• GIFs (animated product images are a conversion killer in disguise)
• Blog post images that were uploaded at full resolution

The fix:

[SHOW SCREEN -- TinyPNG or Shopify image settings]

Step 1: Install a free image compression app like Crush Pics, TinyIMG, or use TinyPNG (tinypng.com) to compress images before uploading. Target file sizes:

• Hero images: Under 200KB
• Product images: Under 150KB
• Blog images: Under 100KB
• Icons and logos: Under 30KB

Step 2: Check your hero/banner image dimensions. They should be 1920px wide maximum. Anything wider is wasted pixels that slow down load time with zero visual benefit.

Step 3: If you're using GIFs anywhere, replace them with static images or short MP4 videos. A 2-second looping video file is typically 80% smaller than the equivalent GIF.

Expected impact: Compressing oversized images typically improves load time by 0.3-1.5 seconds, depending on how many large images are on the page.

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Fix 3: Reduce Third-Party Scripts (3 Minutes)

[SHOW SCREEN -- Browser DevTools showing third-party scripts]

Open your store in Chrome. Right-click, Inspect, go to the Network tab, and reload the page. Filter by JS (JavaScript). Look at how many scripts are loading from domains that aren't your Shopify store.

Typical offenders:

• Google Analytics (necessary, keep it)
• Meta Pixel (necessary if you run Meta ads)
• TikTok Pixel (necessary if you run TikTok ads)
• Hotjar or Clarity (do you actually look at the heatmaps?)
• Intercom or Zendesk chat widget (adds 300-500ms)
• Cookie consent banner (necessary, but choose a lightweight one)
• Various review widget scripts
• Social proof notification pop-ups
• Exit intent popup scripts

[CUT TO MARK]

Here's my rule of thumb: if a third-party script doesn't directly contribute to revenue or legal compliance, remove it.

That chat widget you installed because "what if someone has a question"? Check your analytics. How many chats do you actually get per day? If it's fewer than 5, the speed cost is greater than the support benefit. Remove it and add a prominent email contact link instead.

Those social proof pop-ups that say "John from Texas just bought..."? There's no credible evidence they improve conversion rates, and they add 200-400ms of load time. Remove them.

Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity? Great tools for understanding user behavior. But if you're not actively running a CRO project and reviewing recordings weekly, they're just dead weight. Uninstall them. Reinstall when you actually need them.

The fix: Go through your third-party scripts one by one. Keep what's essential (analytics pixels for active ad channels, cookie consent if you serve EU traffic). Remove everything else.

Expected impact: Removing 2-3 unnecessary third-party scripts saves 0.3-1.0 seconds of load time.

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Fix 4: Enable Lazy Loading (2 Minutes)

[SHOW SCREEN -- Shopify theme settings]

Lazy loading means images below the fold (the stuff you have to scroll down to see) don't load until the user actually scrolls to them. This dramatically improves the initial page load because the browser only has to load the content that's immediately visible.

Most modern Shopify themes (Dawn, Refresh, and most premium themes released after 2023) have lazy loading built in. But it's not always enabled by default, and it's sometimes configured incorrectly.

The fix:

[SHOW SCREEN -- Theme customizer, section settings]

Go to Online Store, then Themes, then Customize. Click through your major page types (homepage, product page, collection page). For each image-heavy section below the fold, check the section settings. Look for a "lazy load" or "loading" option.

If your theme doesn't have a lazy loading toggle, check your theme settings (the gear icon in the customizer sidebar). Many themes have a global lazy loading setting there.

If your theme supports none of this, you likely need a theme update or a developer to add lazy loading attributes to your image tags. But for most stores on modern themes, this is a 2-minute toggle.

Expected impact: Enabling lazy loading typically reduces initial page load time by 0.5-1.5 seconds on image-heavy pages like homepages and collection pages.

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Fix 5: Switch to a System Font Stack for Body Text (4 Minutes)

[SHOW SCREEN -- Theme typography settings]

This one surprises people, but it can make a noticeable difference.

Custom web fonts (Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, or fonts loaded from your theme) require the browser to download font files before it can render text. That's one or two extra HTTP requests, and the font files themselves are typically 20-100KB each. Multiply that by regular weight, bold weight, and italic, and you're looking at 200-400KB of font files the browser needs to download before your page looks right.

System fonts -- the fonts already installed on your visitor's device -- load instantly. No download. No delay.

[CUT TO MARK]

Now, I'm not saying custom fonts don't matter. Your brand font is part of your identity. If your heading font is distinctive and part of your brand, keep it.

But your body text? Nobody notices if your paragraph text is in Inter, Helvetica, or the system default. Nobody. And switching your body font to a system font stack eliminates 100-200KB of font downloads and removes one of the most common causes of Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) -- that annoying effect where the page jumps around as fonts load in.

The fix:

Go to Online Store, then Themes, then Customize. Find your typography settings (usually under Theme Settings or a Typography section). For your body font, look for an option that says "System" or set it to a system-safe font like Helvetica, Arial, or the default system font.

Keep your heading font as-is if it's brand-important. Headings are fewer characters and fewer font files to load. The body font is what appears everywhere and drives the bulk of font file downloads.

Expected impact: Switching body text to a system font saves 0.2-0.5 seconds and significantly reduces CLS scores.

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Bonus: Test Before and After

[SHOW SCREEN -- PageSpeed Insights]

Before you start making changes, run your current score on PageSpeed Insights and screenshot it. After you've made all five fixes, run it again.

Most stores see a 10-25 point improvement in their mobile score from these five fixes alone. If you started at 30, you might be at 50. If you started at 50, you might hit 70.

For reference, here are the score ranges:

• 90-100: Excellent (rare for Shopify without serious optimization)
• 50-89: Needs improvement (most Shopify stores land here after basic optimization)
• 0-49: Poor (actively costing you sales)

Every point improvement in your speed score has a measurable impact on conversion rate. Google has published data showing that a 0.1 second improvement in load time increases conversion rates by 8% for retail sites. These five fixes, collectively, can improve load time by 2-5 seconds.

Do the math on what that means for your store's revenue.

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What's Next

If you've made these five fixes and want to go further, the next level of Shopify speed optimization requires theme-level code changes -- things like deferring non-critical JavaScript, preloading key assets, and optimizing Liquid template rendering. That's developer territory.

We handle Shopify speed optimization as part of our web development services. If you want a thorough audit and professional optimization, book a call and we'll walk through your store together.

Book a call here: https://cal.com/markcijo/gosh

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About the Author

Mark Cijo is the founder of GOSH Digital, a Klaviyo Gold Partner agency that has driven over $70M in revenue for eCommerce brands. GOSH Digital specializes in email/SMS marketing, paid media, SEO, and web development. Mark and his team work with brands that are serious about growth -- not vanity metrics.

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