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A customer clicks on your online store, excited to buy something. But instead of seeing your products right away, they’re stuck staring at a blank screen—or worse, a spinning loading circle. Frustrated, they leave to shop somewhere else.
A slow online store is a common problem. After analyzing 4 billion website visits, a report revealed that the average load time for desktops is 2.5 seconds, while mobile load times go to 8.6 seconds. The problem is, to get better conversion rates, studies say that a site must load in less than 4 seconds. It doesn’t help that 73% of online shoppers use mobile phones, so an 8.6-second load time won’t do you any good.
So, if you’re running an online store, how can you determine the reasons behind these slowdowns, and how can you make sure that your speed is up to par with everyone’s expectations? Read on to know the answers.
Given the technicalities of developing a website, a slow store isn’t just random bad luck. It is most likely caused by something specific. So, here are the most common ‘clogs’ that could be slowing your store down:
Pictures and videos make your store look great, but if they’re too big, they may be the reason for slow load times.
For example, a huge, high-resolution photo of a product might look amazing on display, but it could be larger than 20 megabytes. Loading this on a customer’s phone or computer might take ages. The same thing applies to animations or extra code, which is not really necessary.
This happens because every time someone visits your store, their device has to download all those files. If they’re massive, downloading it would take a while.
Your store lives on a server, which is basically a powerful computer somewhere in the world. If that server is slow, overloaded, or too far from your customers, your store will feel sluggish.
This often comes down to your hosting provider or the company you pay to keep your store online. Cheap hosting might save you money at first, but it can cost you customers if it’s not fast enough.
This is where solutions offered by IP Services can make a difference. They specialize in optimizing server performance to keep your store running smoothly, no matter where your customers are.
If you’re using a platform like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento, you might have added plugins or apps to do things like track sales or add a chat feature. While these are super helpful, your store may feel too packed if you use too many.
On top of that, if those plugins aren’t secure, they could leave you vulnerable. Thankfully, Executech’s cybersecurity solutions, for example, can ensure your add-ons don’t open the door to bigger problems like hacks or data leaks.
Plus, each plugin has to load when someone visits, and if they’re poorly made, outdated, and unsecure, they can drag your whole site down. Your store might also rely on payment systems (PayPal, Stripe). This is helpful for user experience, but if they’re slow to load, they can hold up your whole page.
During a big sale, tons of people show up in your online store. There’s a lot of clicking around and adding items to their carts. One example of this is during Black Friday sales. According to a 2022 report by Queue-it, Black Friday brings traffic levels around thrice as high as normal days.
While that’s good for your business, it’s the opposite for your server, especially if it isn’t built for such traffic. A sudden spike can turn excitement into frustration for your visitors.
Behind the scenes, your store keeps a database. It is a digital filing cabinet with info like customer orders, product details, and more. Over time, this can get cluttered with old stuff you don’t need. It could be canceled orders or deleted products. When it’s messy, your store has to dig through all that junk to find what it needs, slowing things down.
Sometimes, the way your online store is built can be a problem. If the code is messy or the page tries to load everything at once (instead of showing the most important stuff first), it’ll be sluggish. This is often called ‘poor front-end optimization,’ which entails a few tweaks in your store’s setup.
Now that you’ve determined the reasons, how can you fix them? Here are a few smart moves you can take:
Start with those big images and videos. You don’t have to sacrifice quality; you can just make them smaller. Tools like TinyPNG or Compress JPEG can shrink image sizes without anyone noticing a difference. For example, a 5MB photo might drop to 500KB and still look sharp even though it’s ten times smaller.
If you’ve got videos, consider hosting them on YouTube or Vimeo and linking them to your store instead of uploading them directly. This keeps your site light and fast.
Also, check your code. If you’re comfortable, trim down extra JavaScript or CSS. You can also ask a developer to ‘minify’ it, which means squishing it into a smaller, faster version.
If your server’s the bottleneck, it’s time to talk to your hosting provider. Ask them about your plan’s speed and whether it can handle your traffic. If you’re on a shared hosting plan (where you share a server with another website), consider upgrading to a VPS (virtual private server) or even a dedicated hosting, where you get a server all to yourself.
Big names like SiteGround, Bluehost, or Cloudflare offer fast options that won’t cut much of your finances. Instead, they can cut your load times in half, making it a worthy investment.
Take a look at all the plugins or apps your store uses. Do you really need that extra pop-up or fancy font tool? Deactivate anything your online store can live without. For the ones you keep, make sure they’re updated and from trusted sources since old or shady plugins can slow things down. On WooCommerce, for instance, you might swap out a heavy analytics plugin for Google’s free Site Kit.
To avoid crashes during busy times, add caching to your store. Caching is like saving a ready-made version of your pages so your server doesn’t have to rebuild them every time someone visits. Plugins like WP Rocket (for WordPress) or built-in tools on Shopify can do this for you.
If you’re expecting big crowds, ask your host about scaling up temporarily using a CDN. A CDN (like Cloudflare) spreads your store across multiple servers worldwide, so customers get the fastest version no matter where they are.
A tidy database is a fast database. If you’re on WordPress, plugins like WP-Optimize can sweep away old data in a few clicks. For other platforms, check your dashboard for cleanup options or ask your developer to run a quick optimization on the database. Do this every few months to keep your site snappy.
For those third-party scripts, try loading them ‘asynchronously.’ This means your store can show up while they load in the background instead of waiting for them. If that seems tricky, a tool like Google Tag Manager can help manage them.
Also, double-check that you’re only using what’s necessary. If you really need a chat app, and you currently have two, pick the fastest, lightest option and ditch the other one.
Run your store through a free tool like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. These will tell you exactly what’s slowing your design down, like images that load too early or code that’s blocking the page.
They may suggest enabling ‘lazy loading.’ This is when images only load when someone scrolls to them. They may also tell you to fix ‘render-blocking’ issues, so it’s best to follow these tips. If you don’t have an internal IT team to do this for you, you can hire a freelance web designer to tweak things for a small fee.
Before you call it a day, test your fixes. Tools like Pingdom or Lighthouse will show you your store’s load time before and after. Aim for under 2-3 seconds, and your customers will thank you once it is achieved.
You can also watch your ‘Time to First Byte’ (TTFB), which measures how fast your server responds. If it’s over 800 milliseconds, your hosting might still need a boost. Finally, keep an eye on traffic with Google Analytics. If slowdowns happen during busy times, you’ll know what to tweak next.
A fast store means that money also comes in swiftly. With studies showing that a second delay can drop your sales by 7%, site speed matters more than ever. So, whether it’s big files, a weak server, too many plugins, or a messy database, you’ve now got the ideas to figure out your weak points. With effort, your store can run faster, keeping customers happy and your sales soaring.
