From 4.8s to 1.9s: rebuilding a Gulf fashion brand's Shopify storefront
Twenty-three apps, four review widgets doing the same job, and a homepage carousel loading nine full-size images.
The problem
What was going wrong
Mobile traffic was 82% of sessions and mobile conversion rate was less than a third of desktop. Largest Contentful Paint on 4G averaged 4.8 seconds. The team had added apps for three years without removing any, and each added scripts to every page.
The work
What we did about it
- Audited every app for load cost and business value; removed eleven, replaced four with native theme code.
- Rebuilt the theme on Online Store 2.0 with responsive image sizing, AVIF delivery and lazy loading below the fold.
- Moved third-party scripts behind consent and interaction triggers, and deferred everything not needed for first paint.
- Rebuilt the product page around a single hero image with progressive gallery loading.
- Set a performance budget checked on every theme deployment.
Nobody wants to hear that the answer is deleting things. It was the highest-return work we have done on the store.
Services used
What this programme involved
- Shopify Development
- Website Speed Optimisation
- Conversion Rate Optimisation
- Ecommerce SEO
- Dubai
- UAE
- Saudi Arabia
Figures are taken from the client's own analytics and CRM over the stated period and are shared with permission. Client name withheld under NDA.
Portfolio
More work
Design, build and growth programmes we can talk about publicly — with the numbers the client signed off.
Next step
Your situation is probably not identical
But the method is. Send us the numbers and we will tell you which part of this applies to you.