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In the post, I invite you to look at page load scores for the 145 Shopify E-commerce themes. This review is based on page speed test results of all themes’ official demos. I mean, here at EDIY we’ve analyzed paid themes available on the Shopify market. I’m gonna show you the 7 fastest Shopify themes with the highest score on mobile as well as the themes with average and minimal page load time.
Once you start using Shopify for commercial purposes, you definitely want to build a successful store and make money selling online. I am confident that bigger sales come after faster load times. The main question is how do you build a fast-loading Shopify store? When thinking about the fastest e-commerce platform, EDIY readers concluded that a high-performance theme is one of the keys to the fast Shopify website. What’s the fastest Shopify theme you know? That’s what I’m here for.
A brief look at what to expect from Shopify
Who loves Shopify? Here are some of the biggest companies that use Shopify. I guess they have chosen the platform for its cloud-based service, easy setup, inbuilt marketing solutions, and different plans equipped with the bulk of useful tools. In addition, clients love Shopify for a variety of apps and templates that can personalize online stores.
The above-mentioned benefits should be exactly expected. First, you must have a good product to market, and then after joining the platform, you can select a theme to promote your brand. Here the store owners must think carefully about it.
The popularity of Shopify is constantly growing. It is also about the increase in the number of themes. As I said at the beginning of the article, nowadays there are 146 paid themes available on the Shopify market. Do not forget about 12 free templates that can be used for e-commerce sites as well. At first look, all themes appear to be attractive. Beautiful designs, good features, and regular updates. At first look, all themes appear to be attractive. Beautiful designs, good features, and regular updates. If this is true, why are there still queries in Google like “Which Shopify theme loads fastest?”, “How do I speed up my Shopify theme?”, and so on and so forth.
There are reasons why a theme loads fast, and another one goes slower. Let’s look deeper.
Why some Shopify themes are faster?
My thoughts are represented as a list.
- Some theme developers worked hard on image optimization. They might have used image optimization tools and alt tags to ensure fast loading.
- To improve performance the developers could minimize code by removing unnecessary elements.
- For all-out performance, it is worth using third-party scripts prudently. The developers of the fastest Shopify themes were likely to use those scripts that are definitely optimized for speed. You can also implement caching techniques to reduce load times.
- The developers tried to simplify some templates. I mean that themes that have a simple menu that holds a few categories will naturally have higher page speed even without page speed optimization.
- There is another life hack – you can simply disable Shopify payments on the product page. It allows for providing better page loading. It is also helpful to implement caching techniques to reduce load times and regularly test your website’s performance.
How we test Shopify themes we took into account
First I’d like to note that I received much help at this stage from my EDIY team members.
Well, we did a test automatically using Google Page speed testing API. We tested each page 3 times. We tested the Home page, Collection page, and Product page.
After getting 3 results for each page we selected the fastest mobile page speed test results. Then we calculated the average value between the maximum page speed score of the home, catalog, and product pages. Afterward, we ranked all with this strategy.
As a result, you will see the maximum average speed for the fastest Shopify themes in relation to the maximum speed for each page.
Finally came the moment that many readers were waiting for. Here are the fastest commercial Shopify themes available at the Shopify marketplace. That would be great to use them in 2023-2024. Check it out!
The fastest Shopify themes with page load speed above 90%
Charge
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/charge/styles/default
Theme price 180$
The Charge theme is the best choice if clients are asking for something different again. It can be a great starting point for any eCommerce website you want to launch as well as the versatile theme for well-established brands. The Charge theme starts not only with a design and a wide range of customization options but also with complete documentation and quick customer service.
Along with the advanced feature set, this Shopify theme has excellent speed test results. Go over them:
- Maximum page speed for homepage – 92%
- Maximum page speed for collection page – 98%
- Maximum page speed for product page – 94%
- Maximum average speed in relation to the maximum speed for each page – 95%
Modules
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/modules/styles/sky
Theme price 200$
The Modules theme is designed to showcase brand imagery in a minimalistic and clean design. It evokes customer sense through sight without distracting users with messy attention-grabbing details. The template offers an enhanced search, advanced product filtering, and product badges. By choosing Modules as the fastest Shopify theme, you have a chance to better conversion results in your store. Check out the theme’s speed results:
- Maximum page speed for homepage – 93%
- Maximum page speed for collection page – 96%
- Maximum page speed for product page – 95%
- Maximum average speed in relation to the maximum speed for each page – 95%
Blum
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/blum/styles/solie
Theme price 190$
The Blum theme is quite popular among Shopify clients. With its image-focused design, the template is advertised as a theme “made for fashion brands”. Blum has a smooth layout, featured product carousels, image banners, and other options to engage visitors. Sure I consider the Blum theme one of the fastest Shopify themes relying on the results below. By the way, the template is a product designed by SalesHunterThemes company that has released an Electro theme. Both this company’s products show high speed, here’s a look.
- Maximum page speed for homepage – 92%
- Maximum page speed for collection page – 97%
- Maximum page speed for product page – 95%
- Maximum average speed in relation to the maximum speed for each page – 95%
Electro
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/electro/styles/gadget
Theme price 170$
I have just mentioned the Electro theme in a previous paragraph. The developers also say that this is a minimal but powerful theme, made for complex product specs. It has a simple beautiful design to highlight the product first with options like animation, text hotspots, image rollover, and image zoom. Electro is very suitable for merchants who are selling devices and gadgets online.
The speed score makes Electro a high-converting Shopify theme. Look at speed test results.
- Maximum page speed for homepage – 94%
- Maximum page speed for collection page – 95%
- Maximum page speed for product page – 94%
- Maximum average speed in relation to the maximum speed for each page – 94%
Bullet
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/bullet/styles/default
Theme price 310$
As people say “You can run faster than a bullet”. I assume the Bullet theme developers borrowed this idea when choosing the name.
Thus they managed to add a theme to the list of the fastest Shopify themes. Moreover, the Bullet theme offers the best-converting product page – with a maximum page speed for a product page of 99%.
In addition to image-focused design, you receive good options for e-commerce such as a countdown timer, EU translations (EN, FR, IT, DE, ES), an event calendar, a sticky header, and a sticky cart.
- Maximum page speed for homepage – 85%
- Maximum page speed for collection page – 96%
- Maximum page speed for product page – 99%
- Maximum average speed in relation to the maximum speed for each page – 93%
Unicorn
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/unicorn/styles/valuable
Theme price 150$
The theme doesn’t go with unicorns in design. Still, the Unicorn template comes with an amazing icon menu, a full-width logo that can be rarely found on the themes market, and a mega menu. You can see more features on the product page. And here I am ready to show you the Unicorn theme’s speed test results that are gonna help you increase your store’s conversion rates.
- Maximum page speed for homepage – 91%
- Maximum page speed for collection page – 91%
- Maximum page speed for product page – 93%
- Maximum average speed in relation to the maximum speed for each page – 92%
District
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/district/styles/district
Theme price 220$
The District theme has 683 reviews. From this, we can understand that the template has a long-term experience of successful products on the Shopify market. And still, it remains one of the fastest Shopify themes.
The District theme offers a very clean and minimal layout. Clients say that is great for medium-sized collections. The template is easy to navigate, user-friendly, and versatile due to its included commerce functionality. Among options, you can see the sticky cart, quick buy, color swatches, product videos, and product tabs. And then there is the list of maximum page speed results for the main District pages.
- Maximum page speed for homepage – 96%
- Maximum page speed for collection page – 95%
- Maximum page speed for product page – 78%
- Maximum average speed in relation to the maximum speed for each page – 90%
This table is a summary of the fastest Shopify themes mentioned above.
| Name | Theme url | Theme price, USD | Maximum page speed for home page | Maximum page speed for collection page | Max Maximum page speed for product page | Average Maxium page speed of 3 main pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charge | https://themes.shopify.com/themes/charge/styles/default | 180.0 | 92% | 98% | 94% | 95% |
| Blum | https://themes.shopify.com/themes/blum/styles/solie | 190.0 | 92% | 97% | 95% | 95% |
| Modules | https://themes.shopify.com/themes/modules/styles/sky | 200.0 | 93% | 96% | 95% | 95% |
| Electro | https://themes.shopify.com/themes/electro/styles/gadget | 170.0 | 94% | 95% | 94% | 94% |
| Bullet | https://themes.shopify.com/themes/bullet/styles/default | 310.0 | 85% | 96% | 99% | 93% |
| Unicorn | https://themes.shopify.com/themes/unicorn/styles/valuable | 150.0 | 91% | 91% | 93% | 92% |
| District | https://themes.shopify.com/themes/district/styles/district | 220.0 | 96% | 95% | 78% | 90% |
Maybe you already use a Shopify theme and you don’t see it in the list above. And yet, you wonder what load speed predicted by developers your store template offers to customers.
Curious? Then keep reading. I promise to show you more templates and their results.
Mediocre themes with page load speed between 89% – 50%
This table includes the results for 125 Shopify themes with average page load times. In total, the average cost of these templates is about 250$, but there are also themes that cost more than 350$. I guess the developers should create a better performance miracle for the money.
The slowest Shopify themes with page load speed below 50%
Selecting the fast Shopify theme is crucial for the success of your e-commerce store. Still, there are slow-loading templates on the market. Many of them have a stunning look and a wide range of customization options.
For my article, I picked up 13 Shopify themes with page load speeds below 50%. Here they are Pacific, Avatar, Capital, Startup, Retina, Beyond, Launch, Icon, Empire, Grid, Gain, Momentum, Envy.
What is remarkable is that many of the slowest themes are offered at a higher price than the fastest ones. So, what’s the point of using them, if they don’t ensure a good and quick user experience?
Here are the expanded results of the slowest Shopify themes according to our test. These 13 templates offer minimal page load times, but still attractive design and options.
To recap
Let me recap what I’ve got so far in my post relating to the fastest Shopify themes.
In a word, there are three points to focus on.
First, the fastest themes are mostly new themes and themes from new theme vendors on the Shopify marketplace. Partially this can be explained by the fact that new theme developers are listening to community requests. It’s obvious that speed is of the essence in the e-commerce world and leads to an excellent customer experience. 89% of consumers are ready to make another purchase after a positive customer service experience.
Second, it is more difficult to make old themes speed-optimized just because they include a lot of features and legacy code. The more features and sections had been added to each page the slower it loads.
Lastly, thank you all for reading. Please don’t treat the test above with scientific accuracy. At EDIY we tested demo stores – not real websites. So later you can make demo sites with fewer blocks and products. It will probably give you a better page speed score.
As people say the template is a kind of backbone for your store that can boost sales and vice versa. I propose using the information from EDIY articles to get the most out of e-commerce, in particular, to power up your business with the fastest Shopify theme.
I would appreciate some feedback. Let’s keep in touch.
