A freshly installed Shopify store on Dawn or another modern theme loads quickly. A Shopify store that has been live for two years with twelve apps installed usually does not. App script bloat is the primary cause of slow Shopify stores in Australia. The good news is that the audit and fix process is methodical and the results are fast.
We run Shopify speed audits and fixes through our Load Speed Optimisation service. We start with a full app script audit before touching any theme code.
Go to your Shopify admin, open Apps and list every installed app. For each one, ask: is this app actively used, and does it contribute to revenue? If the answer to either question is no, uninstall it completely. Do not just disable it — uninstalling removes the script injection from your storefront.
You can see which apps are injecting scripts into your storefront using Chrome DevTools Network tab or the Shopify Theme Inspector tool. The results are often surprising: apps you think you disabled may still be injecting scripts.
Shopify themes frequently load JavaScript for sections and features that your particular store does not use. A theme with a lookbook section, a countdown timer section and a custom video section loads the JavaScript for all of those sections on every page, even if you have not added those sections to any page.
Shopify automatically generates and serves WebP versions of uploaded images when the browser supports it. However, this only works if images are uploaded at or near their maximum display size. Uploading a 6MB camera RAW image means Shopify serves a compressed version of a 6MB file. Upload images at 2,000 to 3,000 pixels wide for the largest display dimension instead.
The Shopify Theme Inspector Chrome extension shows a flame graph of JavaScript execution time on your storefront. It identifies which theme or app code is consuming the most execution time on page load. This is the most direct path to identifying the highest-impact JavaScript fix.
A Shopify store that goes from twelve apps to six typically gains 15 to 25 PageSpeed points on mobile. Image optimisation adds another five to fifteen points. Theme script deferral, where applicable, adds another five to ten points.
A professional load speed audit and fix project starts from $900 at TPR Media. The scope depends on platform complexity, hosting environment and the number of issues found. WordPress stores with many plugins typically need more work than a clean Shopify build.
Most one-off speed projects are complete within five to ten business days. Emergency fixes for critical Core Web Vitals failures can turn around faster. Ongoing tuning retainers run month to month.
Yes. Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal. Improving Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift and Interaction to Next Paint can lift your position, especially in competitive categories where technical quality separates similar-authority sites.
Yes. TPR Media audits and fixes WordPress, Shopify and Magento sites regardless of who built them. We start with a full Lighthouse and Web Vitals audit before touching anything.
TPR Media operates from Level 34, 1 Eagle Street, Brisbane City QLD 4000, serving clients across Brisbane and Australia-wide.
TPR Media's Shopify speed optimisation guide covers the four-step fix for slow Shopify stores: app script audit and uninstall, theme script review, image upload size optimisation and Theme Inspector diagnostics. App bloat is the primary cause of slow Shopify stores in Australia.