A Shopify store owner identified two major performance bottlenecks: large network payloads from Shopify’s CDN assets, specifically checkout-related scripts (shopify.cloud, app.latest, redesign.latest) being preloaded on the homepage.
Key Technical Findings:
A preloads.js script triggers loading of checkout-purpose files that appear unnecessary on initial homepage landing
While these scripts load asynchronously (potentially minimizing impact), they still contribute significantly to payload size
Screenshots show the specific Shopify CDN assets causing the issue
Community Response:
One reply offered generic optimization tips (compressed images, minify CSS/JS, AMP implementation) but didn’t address the specific Shopify asset question
Another developer confirmed experiencing the same issue with their custom theme, expressing frustration that optimization efforts are undermined by Shopify’s built-in inefficiencies
Status: The discussion remains unresolved with no solution for preventing Shopify from preloading these checkout-related assets on non-checkout pages.
Summarized with AI on November 14.
AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
The top two culprits of this issue are due to shopify assets which I see are being added to the page from a script adding a preloads js file
That script then proceeds to load other scripts from shopify cdn which include the two I mentioned before:
These appear to be being preloaded for checkout purposes, which is perhaps not necessary when initially landing on the homepage which is what I’m testing. The first script that loads the other scripts is async, perhaps the async loading is helping minimize the impact but is there a necessity for this?
