I help Shopify brands and agencies build custom storefront features, fix theme issues, and connect Shopify with the other tools they use. I’m Karim, a developer in Victoria, BC. I’ve worked with Shopify since 2016 and have 17+ years in web development. Goodharbour is my independent software studio. You talk to me, and I do the work. My work covers Liquid themes, product and collection pages, cart features, custom apps, and integrations. When a feature needs more than the theme, I build the APIs, webhooks, and Rails backend behind it. At PIVOT, a Shopify Plus agency partner, I contributed to more than 20 custom storefronts as part of small development teams. I also built and maintain FieldsRaven, a published Shopify app that captures storefront data and saves it to Shopify metafields. I take on defined projects and ongoing development, directly with brands or alongside agency teams. We agree on the scope, I keep you updated, and I test and document the work before handover. If a smaller change or an existing tool fits better, I’ll say so. Tell me what you want to change, what happens today, and the result you need.
Shopify Speed Optimization Services
Most slow Shopify stores weren't built slow. They got slow one app, one tracking tag and one autoplay video at a time, and nobody kept track of the total. Shopify speed optimization is the work of measuring what each of those costs and removing, deferring or rebuilding the expensive ones.
The work centres on Core Web Vitals, Google's three measures of loading speed, responsiveness and layout stability, plus the apps, images, fonts and theme code behind them. It isn't a redesign: if the theme itself needs replacing, that's custom theme development. And if pages load quickly but don't sell, you need conversion work, not speed work.
On shopexperts, 703 experts list speed optimization (September 2026). Compare them below, and ask each one how they'll measure the result before you ask what it costs.
Top-rated Shopify speed optimization experts and agencies
Friction Studio — Conversion-Led Shopify Development for Ambitious Brands Friction Studio is not just a Shopify agency — we are strategic partners for DTC and eCommerce brands that want stores built to perform, scale, and convert. We don’t simply deliver a website; we engineer Shopify systems that elevate revenue, reduce friction, and strengthen customer experience. We help established and scaling brands unlock higher growth by combining conversion-driven design with robust Shopify engineering. Our focus is simple: high-impact UX, scalable development, and business outcomes that matter. How We Help You Grow: Custom Shopify & Shopify Plus Builds — Premium, performance-focused stores designed for long-term scalability. Conversion-Focused Redesigns — Strategic UX and merchandising upgrades that increase conversion rates and AOV. Platform Migrations to Shopify — Seamless transitions from legacy systems without data loss or SEO setbacks. Performance & Speed Optimization — Technical tuning to improve user experience and search performance. Landing Page & CRO Systems — Revenue-driven landing pages and CRO experimentation for paid acquisition and retention. We take a systems-first approach, aligning design, development, analytics, and conversion strategy so every touchpoint drives measurable results. Why Brands Choose Friction Studio: We operate as long-term growth partners, never one-off vendors. We’re obsessed with clean code, fast experiences, and friction-less buying journeys that turn visitors into loyal customers. Our work isn’t just technically sound, it’s commercially intelligent. From advanced integrations to retention-driven experiences, we build Shopify solutions that strengthen both brand perception and bottom-line performance.
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PROPERO is a Shopify Plus Partner agency that helps D2C brands build high performing stores and streamline their operations with intelligent automation. With over 300 happy clients, a team of more than 30 experts, and over 550 projects delivered across 30 countries, we combine deep Shopify expertise with advanced automation to drive real business growth. We specialize in custom Shopify development, from fractional quantity selling and custom calculators to product bundling, Recharge portal customization, and subscription management. On the backend, we are an official Mechanic.dev partner and n8n workflow specialists. We build automations that eliminate manual work, sync data seamlessly across platforms, and optimize order processing so you can focus on growing your business. Our work has been trusted by brands featured on Shark Tank in the USA and India, as well as Dragon's Den in Canada, including Boobie Superfoods, Oye Happy, and Hush.ca. We serve clients across automotive, fashion, health and beauty, and sports industries, delivering enterprise grade quality at competitive rates. Whether you need a full store build, a seamless migration, or ongoing management, we are here to turn your vision into reality. Tell us your goal, and we will build it.
I move stores from WooCommerce to Shopify and keep everything that matters: the catalog, the full order and customer history, discounts, content, and search rankings. These migrations are where WordPress depth and Shopify depth both pay off, and I have both. Years as a freelance WordPress developer, then years building on Shopify, including themes on the Shopify Theme Store trusted by 800+ stores. The hard part isn't exporting data, it's landing it in the right Shopify structure: orders that reconcile to the cent, refunds, guest customers, data buried in WooCommerce plugins, and redirects that protect your SEO. I build a custom import pipeline per store, validate it before go-live, and reconcile against the source when it's done, then set up payments, shipping, taxes, Markets, and languages so you launch a store that's actually ready. I can take the whole move to launch from payments, shipping and carrier setup, taxes, Shopify Markets and multiple languages, theme setup and customization, to the cutover itself and stick around afterward for the theme work, conversion improvements, and maintenance that follow. Happy to talk through your store and scope the move.
Dreams To Life, LLC is a trusted Shopify development agency specializing in custom store builds, theme customization, and advanced troubleshooting. With years of experience supporting eCommerce brands, we deliver scalable, high-performance Shopify solutions that drive growth and conversion. Our team combines deep technical expertise with a strong understanding of UX, design, and business strategy, allowing us to turn creative visions into powerful, functional online stores. Core Expertise: Full Shopify store setup & custom development Theme design, optimization, and maintenance App integrations & API development Speed optimization and technical debugging Migration to Shopify / Shopify Plus Ongoing support & store management At Dreams To Life, we focus on quality, reliability, and results — helping clients transform ideas into thriving online businesses.
Hello! I’m a senior eCommerce developer with over 10 years of experience, specializing in platforms like Shopify, Magento, WordPress, Squarespace, HubSpot, JavaScript, and PHP frameworks. I'm based in Northern Virginia, and I’m passionate about store creation, maintenance, and customization — especially using selected themes. My biggest strength in Shopify is the ability to customize stores to meet unique client needs, no matter how specific. I also have extensive experience with Shopify theme upgrades, and I’m currently looking to grow my skills in Shopify app development. I’ve done some app customization already and would love to explore it more deeply.
Thails is a Shopify Plus agency specializing in high-converting eCommerce experiences. Built on 8+ years of hands-on eCommerce expertise, we've helped 50+ global brands — including Absolut Elyx, Hey Harper, and GURU Beverage — grow revenue by optimizing their stores for conversion, UX, and performance. Our founder launched their first online business at 16 and has been obsessed with turning browsers into buyers ever since. That merchant-first mentality drives everything we do. What We Do: We combine custom Shopify Plus development with data-driven UX design and conversion optimization to create stores that don't just look great—they perform exceptionally. From new store launches to migrations and strategic redesigns, we partner with ambitious brands ready to scale. What Sets Us Apart: We own outcomes, not just tasks. We focus on revenue impact, not activity. Our clients average 25-35% improvement in conversion rates within the first 3 months of working together. We've been merchants ourselves. As store owners, we know that revenue is everything. We've experienced slow load times tanking conversions, poor UX killing AOV, and features that sounded good but added friction. That's why we're obsessed with optimization. We don't add complexity unless it drives growth. Every design choice, every line of code, every feature we implement is validated against one metric: Does this help your customers buy more? Results speak louder than promises. Our clients see 25-35% conversion rate improvements, reduced cart abandonment, and higher average order values. We measure success by your revenue growth, not by completion dates. Let's discuss your project now, book a call here: https://thails.com/book-free-call/ 25+ 5 Star Reviews: here and here See all our case studies here
Since 2006, Michael has been at the forefront of ecommerce innovation. After launching and scaling his first online business to significant revenue and earning recognition in Internet Retailer's Second 500, he sold the company in 2015. Now Michael dedicates his expertise to helping other entrepreneurs succeed, combining deep technical knowledge with proven strategic insights gained from real-world experience. His services Include: E-commerce Consulting, Shopify Development, Automated Email Marketing, Website Migration, AI integration & Visibility, Website Audits, and Amazon Optimization. He utilizes AI for the following Site Pre-Design, Customer Service and Shopping Agents, CRO, Descriptions, Icon/ Graphic creation, Market Research, and more as he finds additional uses that add speed and value.
Over the last 10+ years, I’ve worked as a freelancer, spent four years at a creative agency leading design, development, and client delivery, and now run a 2-person team that feels more like a creative partner than a traditional agency. We work closely with merchants who want a Shopify site that actually reflects the brand they’ve built — and can support where they’re going next. I’m most interested in projects where design, dev, and strategy all overlap — where there’s a real problem to solve, not just a template to swap.
I am a frontend web developer with over 14 years of experience, specialising in Shopify and WordPress development. My focus is on building seamless, conversion-focused eCommerce experiences that combine clean design with high performance. I work with a modern tech stack that includes HTML, CSS, JavaScript (ES6+), Liquid, React, Tailwind CSS, and popular CMS frameworks. I am also experienced in integrating marketing tools such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and Google Tag Manager, helping brands automate and scale their online presence effectively. Some of the projects I am most proud of involve transforming underperforming storefronts into fast, mobile-first websites with measurable improvements in conversion rate and user engagement. My approach blends UX/UI enhancement, speed optimisation, and conversion rate optimisation (CRO) strategies to ensure every site not only looks great but delivers real business results. Whether collaborating with agencies or supporting in-house teams, I take a hands-on, performance-driven approach to development-turning creative ideas into high-impact digital experiences.
How to choose a Shopify speed specialist
Ask what they'll measure, and where. A good specialist starts from field data: Core Web Vitals from real visitors, as reported in Google Search Console or the real-user section of PageSpeed Insights. A proposal built around moving a lab score from 40 to 90 is a proposal to pass a test, not to speed up your store.
Expect a cost for every app and tag. The audit should list each app and third-party tag that loads on the storefront, how much script it adds, and whether anyone still uses it. It's common to find an app nobody on the team can explain, still loading on every page.
Check which templates they'll test. Paid and organic traffic usually lands on product and collection pages, and those are often heavier than the homepage. Ask for results per template, tested on a mid-range phone over mobile data, because that's the shopper who notices a slow page first.
Ask how they'll keep the apps working. Deferring a script is easy; deferring it without breaking reviews, subscriptions or tracking takes care. The specialist should work on a duplicate theme, say which changes need your sign-off, and hand over a list of every change made.
Red flags. Guaranteed scores. A "speed booster" app offered as the fix, because adding an app rarely solves an app problem. Lazy-loading everything, including the hero image, which makes the main loading metric worse. An audit that still reports First Input Delay, which INP replaced in 2024. And a recommendation to change themes before anyone has measured the current one.
Agree the handover. Speed decays as apps and campaigns get added. Ask for the baseline numbers, the templates tested and a short list of what to check after each new install, so your team can spot a regression without paying for another audit.
What actually slows a Shopify store down
Shopify page speed optimization rarely starts with the theme. The weight usually comes from what's been added on top of it.
Apps that inject scripts. Reviews, upsells, popups, chat and loyalty apps each load their own JavaScript, often on every page, even where they show nothing. A handful of them can outweigh the theme's own code.
Oversized hero images and video. A 4MB banner or an autoplay background video is often the largest thing on the page, and usually the element that Largest Contentful Paint (LCP, how long the main content takes to appear) is timing. Shopify's CDN serves modern formats such as WebP automatically, but only resizes images when the theme requests sensible widths.
Fonts, sliders and forgotten tags. Three font families in four weights, loaded before any text can render. A carousel library loaded site-wide for one homepage slider. Ad pixels, heatmaps and test tools added for a campaign and never removed, all competing for the browser's main thread, which slows Interaction to Next Paint (INP, how quickly the page responds to a tap).
Judge results on field data. PageSpeed Insights shows two sets of numbers. The lab score is one simulated load on a throttled phone; it moves between runs and says nothing about your actual shoppers. Field data covers real Chrome visitors over the previous 28 days, and it's what Google's ranking systems use.
The targets are LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS, how much the layout jumps) of 0.1 or less, at the 75th percentile of visits. A store can score 45 in the lab and still pass all three in the field. Judge the project on field data a month after the changes ship, not on the score the day they go live.
What do Shopify speed specialists charge?
Speed work splits into three kinds of engagement. Typical ranges:
Speed audit
$300 – $900
Diagnosis and a prioritised fix list
Optimisation project
$1,000 – $6,000
Fixes to theme, apps, media
Monitoring retainer
$300 – $1,500
Per month, regression checks
The biggest win is often free. Removing apps you no longer use costs nothing, trims the monthly app bill, and often does more for real-user numbers than days of code work. A good audit names those apps before anyone bills for development.
Project prices rise with the number of templates in scope, how heavily the theme has been customised, and how many apps have to stay but load less. Among claimed profiles in the first 100 listings on shopexperts, the median published starting price is $175 (September 2026), a starting point rather than a project price. Send your three busiest landing pages to get a quote.
What does Shopify performance optimization cover?
Most engagements start with the audit and pick from the rest based on what it finds:
Speed audit and baseline
Field and lab measurement per template, with a ranked fix list
App and script clean-up
Removing unused apps and leftover code, deferring what stays
Image, video and font optimisation
Correct image sizes, lighter video and fewer font files
Theme code optimisation
Trimming CSS, JavaScript and Liquid that loads without being used
Core Web Vitals fixes
Targeted work on LCP, INP and CLS failures on key templates
Performance monitoring
Monthly checks that catch regressions after new apps or campaigns
Frequently asked questions about Shopify store speed optimization
An audit usually takes a few days. How long the fixes take depends on how many templates are in scope and how quickly you decide which apps to cut, which is often the slowest step. Then allow about a month before judging the result, because the field data in Search Console and PageSpeed Insights covers the previous 28 days and needs time to catch up.
Not usually. Many apps can be limited to the templates where they actually appear, or loaded after the page becomes usable, without changing what shoppers see. Some can be replaced by Shopify's own free apps, such as Shopify Forms or Shopify Bundles. The apps that get removed are the ones nobody uses, and the audit should show you what each one costs in speed before you decide.
Speed is one of many signals Google uses, and passing Core Web Vitals won't lift a page that doesn't match what people are searching for. Treat rankings as a side benefit. The more reliable reason to do the work is the shopper on a mid-range phone who gives up before your product page finishes loading, and who never shows up in a lab test.
Among the first 100 speed optimization listings on shopexperts, 74 are agencies and 26 are freelancers (September 2026), so expect to see more agencies. A freelancer fits an audit and a defined fix list. An agency fits when the speed problem is tangled up with a heavily customised theme, a large app stack or a monthly monitoring retainer, because that work needs more than one pair of hands.
Sometimes, but less often than merchants hope. A current Online Store 2.0 theme usually starts lighter than an older theme with years of edits. Move the same apps, tags and 4MB images across, though, and you rebuild the same problem on a new base. Measure first; if the audit shows the theme code itself is the bottleneck, a rebuild becomes the better spend.
A list of every installed app, with what it's for and who uses it. Access to Google Search Console and your analytics, so the specialist can see real-user data and your top landing pages. Collaborator access to the store rather than your own login. And a note of anything that must not change, such as a tracking setup your ad agency relies on.