Is Your Shopify Store Too Slow? How Site Speed Affects Your Sales
18 March 2026 · Huskai · 5 min read
How switching from Shopify to Haul improved one store's performance by 22% — and what that means for your sales.
The numbers speak for themselves
When Dottie's Pet Boutique — a handmade dog and cat collar business — moved from Shopify to Haul, we ran Google's Lighthouse audit on both versions of their product pages. The results were striking:
| Metric | Shopify | Haul | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | 73 | 89 | +22% |
| Best Practices | 58 | 100 | +72% |
| Accessibility | 95 | 95 | Maintained |
| SEO | 100 | 100 | Maintained |
These aren't vanity numbers. They directly affect whether your customers stick around long enough to buy.
What does "performance" actually mean for your customers?
When someone taps on one of your products — from Google, from Instagram, from a link a friend sent — they expect it to load fast. Performance measures how quickly your page becomes usable.
On Shopify, Dottie's product pages took over 5 seconds before the main product image appeared on a mobile phone. On Haul, that dropped to under 3.5 seconds.
That 1.5-second difference might sound small, but research consistently shows:
- Over half of mobile visitors leave if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load (Google)
- Every additional second of load time reduces conversions by up to 7% (Akamai)
- Faster sites rank higher in Google search results — speed is a confirmed ranking factor
For a small business where every sale counts, that's the difference between a customer adding to basket or hitting the back button.
Core Web Vitals: the speed metrics Google actually uses
Since 2021, Google has used a set of metrics called Core Web Vitals to measure real-world user experience. They look at three things:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — how quickly your main content (usually the product image) appears. Google wants this under 2.5 seconds.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP) — how quickly the page responds when someone taps a button or selects a variant. Google wants this under 200 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — whether things jump around while the page loads. You know the feeling — you go to tap "Add to basket" and the button moves because an image loaded above it.
These aren't abstract developer metrics. They directly influence where your product pages rank in Google search results, especially on mobile. A slow Shopify store with poor Core Web Vitals is at a real disadvantage.
What does "Best Practices" mean — and why was Shopify scoring 58?
Best Practices measures whether your site follows modern web standards for security, reliability, and user experience. Think of it as a health check for your website's foundations.
Shopify's score of 58 means the platform is cutting corners in areas that affect trust and reliability. A score of 100 means Haul follows every recommended standard — your customers' browsers aren't fighting against outdated practices.
This matters because modern browsers increasingly warn users about sites that don't follow best practices. A clean bill of health builds trust, even if your customers never see the score themselves.
Why are Shopify stores slow?
It's not your fault. Shopify loads a significant amount of code on every page — tracking scripts, app integrations, theme frameworks, and platform overhead. Even with a well-optimised theme, you're carrying weight that has nothing to do with your products.
Every app you install adds more. That reviews widget, that upsell popup, that currency converter — each one adds code your customer's phone has to download and process before they can see your product.
On a flagship phone with fast broadband, the difference is barely noticeable. But most of your customers aren't on flagship phones. They're browsing on the bus, on 4G, on a phone they bought two years ago. That's where performance matters most — and where Shopify struggles.
Wondering what your current platform is really costing you? Try our free cost calculator to see how Shopify's fees stack up against Haul.
What Haul does differently
We built Haul from the ground up with performance as a core principle, not an afterthought. Rather than bolting features onto a general-purpose platform, every feature is purpose-built to load fast.
A few things that make the difference:
- No unnecessary code — Your store only loads what it needs. No bloated theme frameworks, no platform overhead eating into your customer's experience.
- Smart image delivery — Product images are automatically served at the right size for each device. A customer on their phone doesn't download the same massive image as someone on a desktop monitor.
- Server-side speed — Your product pages are assembled on our servers and delivered ready to display, rather than making your customer's browser do the heavy lifting.
- Built-in features, not bolt-on apps — Reviews, stock management, discount codes, SEO — they're all native. No third-party apps adding their own loading overhead. That's how Haul keeps things fast where Shopify can't.
What this means for your bottom line
Let's put it simply. A faster store means:
- More customers stay — Fewer people bouncing before they even see your product
- Better Google rankings — Speed is a confirmed ranking factor, especially on mobile
- Higher conversion rates — Customers who aren't waiting are customers who are buying
- Better ad performance — If you're paying for traffic from Meta or Google, a faster landing page means you pay less for each customer who buys
For a small business spending money on ads, improving your conversion rate by even 1–2% through better performance can pay for itself many times over. If you're pricing your handmade products with tight margins, every conversion matters.
See for yourself
Every Haul store ships with these optimisations built in. There's nothing to configure — no theme audits, no worrying about which apps are dragging things down.
If you're curious how your current store performs, run a free Google Lighthouse audit on one of your product pages. Then imagine what those numbers could look like on Haul.
Want a faster experience for your customers? Join the waitlist — from £15/month with zero transaction fees.
Frequently asked questions
Does site speed really affect SEO?
Yes. Google has used page speed as a ranking signal since 2018, and Core Web Vitals became a ranking factor in 2021. Slower pages are less likely to appear at the top of search results, particularly on mobile — which is where most shopping searches happen.
How fast should an online store load?
Google recommends your largest content element (usually your product image) loads within 2.5 seconds. Anything over 4 seconds is considered poor. Most Shopify stores on mobile sit somewhere between 3 and 6 seconds, depending on theme and app load.
Can I speed up my Shopify store without switching?
You can make improvements — removing unused apps, compressing images, choosing a lightweight theme — but you can't remove Shopify's core platform overhead. There's a performance floor built into the platform itself. Haul doesn't have that floor because it was built for speed from day one.
Lighthouse scores measured on product pages using Google's PageSpeed Insights tool with mobile device simulation. Results may vary by page complexity and content. Tests conducted March 2026.