Site Speed Slow

[FoxCouture]

Good morning, 

  I am having a lot of issues with my site. I would appreciate any feedback on the performance and setup of my store. I can also use as much help as possible to actually get my store running on a more customer friendly, easy to use, but keep the elegant fancy look and feel. Right now I’m going a number of promotions but I cannot get any customers. Which means a lot. Something is turning them away and making them not want to shop on my site. I’m super confused on what to do with this issue because I’m not tech savvy at all. I hired a developer for my site. They did everything but for some reason my site still isn’t performing at a high speed nor is it ranking high or getting customers attention or trust. 

PLEASE PLEASE HELP! 

Website  

[JoesIdeas]

I ran your site through the Shopify Analyzer, a performance analysis tool for Shopify sites and here are some things that jumped out:

1) Lazy loading not implemented (here are the offending images). What lazy loading does is prevents images from loading until the user scrolls down the page and they are into their view. This prevents them from loading immediately on page load, making the page load faster both visually and for search engine crawlers. If you're not familiar with lazy loading, here's a guide on how to implement: https://speedboostr.com/shopify-lazy-loading.

2) There are a couple console errors:

These are related to something called "slick", I know there's an image slider called Slick Slider, so one possibility is that you used to have that, but not anymore, and there is old app code. Or if you still use that slider, it might not be configured correctly. Console errors are sometimes harmless, but sometimes indicative of a problem with code or page load. If you're not familiar, this guide will help you: https://speedboostr.com/finding-and-fixing-console-errors/

3) Images: I see some uncompressed images + some large images. For example, there are multiple images on the home page that are loading at 1000px on mobile. Most mobile devices come in around 400px - 500px. You could keep at 1000px for maximum resolution on retina displays, but at the expense of extra page weight. I would shoot for around 600px - 700px for max image size on mobile. Here's a guide to compress images: https://speedboostr.com/how-to-compress-images-on-shopify/

You can see all the results here: https://analyze.speedboostr.com/result/g4bz32q4kd

As for traffic but low conversions it could mean a few things: bad traffic source (for example targeted traffic from Google Ads is good, but Facebook ads convert lower for most brands), or maybe high prices, or lack of brand trust, or lack of product / customer fit.

Here are some tips to help in those areas:

a) Your collections have a huge black space taking up all of the most important area - "above the fold" - the part a user first engages with. I would remove all that. Since you don't have subcategories, you can just highlight the navigation item in the nav bar / side bar to show which page they're on.

b) The About page sounds like it was written by you, but talking in the 3rd person. If this is a small boutique, family owned brand, own that, people like that. If it's a small team, write from the first person to engage with the reader, and add pictures, and let them know why your brand is awesome / different than buying at other stores.

c) Have a size chart. Some of those blazers look cool, but here's why I wouldn't order them: there's no size chart so I don't know what size to order, the website doesn't seem like an "official" brand or very trustworthy (there are some layout flaws, the logo doesn't feel professionally designed, and there are no reviews.

d) Put some energy into the branding and experience. To me, this looks like a dropshipping website selling random clothes to make money, I don't feel anything unique, niche, or passionate about it. I'm not too savvy on fashion, but the brands I've worked with that do really well, they have a niche and build a community, and have a clear reason for selling their products that customers vibe with, and engagement.

e) Ask for feedback from actual customers (email them personally) and website users (I like hotjar.com to to things like set up polls people can vote on (like, what do you think of our prices), see user behavior, etc).

Hope that helps, I know there's a lot to do as a startup, and getting traction / proof of concept is probably the hardest part of a young business, but with feedback + constantly trying new things + identifying a clear reason to exist (and people to buy from you) then you can carve out niche.

[LuckyDanny]

Hey there, @FoxCouture!  

That’s a frustrating place to be in. You’ve put a lot of effort, time and money into making the site what it is today. It’s hard when you don’t know what’s happening. The good news is that with visitor behavior you can see exactly what your visitors are running into.

Let’s dive in:

Overall

I know that you’re going for an elegant feel, but it has an identity crisis. I would encourage you to own your niche rather than trying to try to sell everything and anything. I would strategize to focus specifically on women or men and women rather than kids too. 

I would also do some research into what luxury looks like. Adding sparkles doesn’t necessarily mean luxury. I would run a survey that asks visitors what they think of your website to get a better idea of what they think luxury looks like. 

There are some mixed messages here. You say luxury, but a lot of what I see is sexy. Those aren’t synonymous, and I would encourage you to look at luxury brands to see what they do differently. I don’t buy luxury brands, but don’t most people who look for luxury clothing want to buy designer labels? It’s something to think about at least and consider in your business strategy. 

Details matter

Make sure you’re paying attention to all of the details. Your social media links in the footer aren’t all linking correctly, and it’s confusing why you have three Instagram accounts. Again, this is where streamlining your product line will help. 

Work on your announcement bar
Simplify the message - “15% off everything” is going to be more impactable. Because the font is so small (I would increase it a bit), it’s hard to read. Without punctuation, it’s even harder to read. Also, be sure to link it. 

Optimize your homepage

Use heatmap, which shows you where people click or how far they scroll, to see how people use your homepage in particular. Do they see your hero image CTA, or is it lost in the busy image? Do they scroll, or do they click around? I would recommend using their behavior to analyze your homepage to maximize what space you have. 

Add in missing pages/information

Is your footer clean? Yes. Does it look nice? Yes. However, it’s not complete. In particular:

• Where’s your Contact Us page? While live chat is great, you need to give your visitors several points of contact to emphasize your trust. If you want to charge those luxury prices, you need to give them white glove service. And that starts with a Contact Us page
• Add shipping information to your Shipping policy: This is fine, but what are the average shipping prices? Those who buy luxury items DO care about shipping, and it’s going to draw them in if you’re upfront about what they can expect. 

Make your About page personal

First of all, it should be moved to the footer. Unless people are clicking on it (check a heatmap), it needs to be kept in the footer. It’s information that is good to have on your site but not necessarily front and center. 

I would rewrite this. You have what could be the start of a great origin story for your page, but go the next step. Bring in some personal side. Show some pictures. Add your stories now - do you dress to the nines for date night? Do you wear pearls and cufflinks while cooking dinner? Relate that to NOW. Make it personal. 

Clean up your navigation

This is where you’ll see the most benefit from streamlining your product line. You can lose the kids line (especially since it’s not couture), and Beauty Envy actually is dragging down the luxury vibe you’re after. Dirty Laundry sounds cute, but it doesn’t make it clear what it is. Also, be very careful with selling adult toys - it’s going to cheapen your brand if you want that luxury feel. 

Use session recordings, which show you what happened on someone’s visit, to see how people are moving around your site. Watch how they use your navigation, or do they not use it? 

Spend time improving your collection pages

For one, lose the header. You don’t need to reiterate that it’s a woman’s collection. They will see fairly quickly that it’s for women. Next, I would take some time to get some higher quality photos with models and a unified look. Some of your images have models, and some don’t. You have 16 (!!!) pages of products for women alone, and no one is going to sit and scroll through it all.

I had issues with your filtering. I like that you have it, but the type isn’t filtering correctly. Looking at bottoms in women’s, it showed dresses as well. You also have a broken filter at the bottom. 

Overall, this goes back to editing. You need to focus on the items you think are worthy of the Envy Fox Couture brand. Just because the dropshipper offers pants doesn’t mean you have to sell it. If you want that luxury feel, you need to commit to it. In the same collection of womens, you have a $221 plunge neck diamond tassel blazer set and $8 fake diamond earrings. That’s not really connecting to your brand. 

Make your product pages stand out

Your product pages need work. I’m not going to lie. You need to dedicate some time to making them really draw in your visitors:

1. Lose the SKU number and categories. That’s for your knowledge, not your visitors.
2. Add shipping estimation or at least a link to calculate it. Don’t leave that to checkout. Remember - white glove treatment.
3. Move the customer reviews down - it shouldn’t be above the description
4. Add a real description. It’s easy to use the dropshipping bullet points, but don’t go that route. It screams CHEAP and DROPSHIPPER. Your customers are smarter than that. Create eye-catching descriptions and/or suggestion stylist-recommended combinations.
5. Where’s the sizing chart? 
6. Add real additional information. In the “Additional information” to the Valentino jacket, the additional information was this (not related to this product at all): “There is a basic, first situation when it’s not a good idea to do intensity prescriptions. That’s when the lifter is a newbie. And there are two really simple reasons for that. First is, that such powerlifters either don’t have 1RMs to base the on or the 1RMs they have are not correct. The latter reason occurs due to a mix of multiple factors. Such as limited technical ability, limited mobility, poor neurological efficiency, and the weak power of will. Secondly, new powerlifters usually progress very quickly to the next routines of the There are millions of ways on how to compose good weightlifting workout programs. Some coaches stay true to few basic plans on such training. They simply tweak them to be fit for different skills and experience levels. But we are sticking to quite a different plan. We put our focus on intensity (actual weights) prescriptions for any specific powerlifter. I personally am sure there are times when both approaches are applicable, even within the same workout session…” 
7. Don’t forget about care instructions! 

Overall, I think you’re on the general right path but need to spend time to redesign your collection in a way that carries your brand. Use that visitor behavior to drive the changes that are impacting your visitors the most.  Lucky Orange has heatmaps, session recordings and more with a free trial (no credit card needed) and plans that start at US $10/month.

I hope this helps! Good luck!

Cheers - Danny

[FoxCouture]

That is most definitely a lot. I will look into getting all of these issues fixed. I truly appreciate all of your help and advice. By the way, is there anyone on the Shopify platform that can fix these issues?

[Pixc]

Hi @FoxCouture 

I took a look around your website and one thing I noticed is that the images do not load immediately. I checked the file size of your images and found that some are bigger in file size than others. Optimizing the file size of your images will be effective in increasing the loading speed of your website. 

One of the services we offer in Pixc is image optimization. You can sign up for the app and get your 5 bonus credits so you can upload your free trial order. If you need any assistance, send us a message at hello@pixc.com.