Blog · For coffee roasters
Why your coffee Shopify store is slow on phones, and what to check first
A coffee store is full of beautiful, heavy things: a roasting video, big bag photos, a reviews app, a pop-up. On a laptop they look great. On a phone they make the page wait. Here is how to find what is slowing yours, and what to fix first.
The short answer
A store is slow on a phone because the phone has to download too much before it can show the first picture. The usual causes are a large video or photo at the top, photos sized for big screens, theme code you do not use, and apps that load on every page. Fixing a store is mostly taking things away, in the right order.
Step 1: Test it the way Google does
Open Google's free PageSpeed Insights, paste in your home page, and read the mobile result, not the desktop one. Write the score down with the date. Run it two or three times, because the score can move by up to about 10 points between runs.
Do not chase a perfect number. You want a before and an after on the same test, so you know a change helped.
Then do the test Google cannot do for you: put your phone on mobile data, turn Wi-Fi off, and open your store. Watch the first five seconds. What shows up first? What takes longest?
Step 2: Check the five usual suspects
On coffee stores, the slowness usually comes from one or two of these.
| Cause | Why it slows a phone | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| A large video or photo at the top | It is the first thing a phone has to download, and often the biggest. | Look at the top of your home page. Is it a video or a big photo? |
| Photos made for a big screen | A phone gets the same large file as a laptop, then shrinks it. | Open the page on a phone with Wi-Fi off. Do the pictures crawl in? |
| Theme code you never use | Themes ship with code for features your store may never show. | Ask whoever built the theme what is switched off but still loading. |
| Apps that load everywhere | Reviews, pop-ups and chat bubbles often load on every page, even where they do nothing. | List your apps. For each one, ask: does it need to load before the first picture? |
| Things that jump around | A menu or banner that pushes the page down after it loads feels broken. | Watch the page load on a phone. Does anything move after you start reading? |
Step 3: Fix the biggest thing first
Speed work pays off in the order of what is biggest. A single large video can weigh more than the rest of the page together, so start there.
- Show a still picture first, and load the video after. The customer sees your coffee right away, and the video arrives a moment later.
- Size photos for phones. A phone should get a phone-sized picture. Pictures further down the page can wait until the customer scrolls to them.
- Clear out unused theme code. If your theme carries styling for features you never show, remove it or move it out of the way.
- Make apps wait their turn. A reviews widget can load when the customer scrolls near it, not before the first picture.
- Test again, the same way. Same page, same phone setting, and write down the date.
Your store should look the same when you are done. It just shows up sooner. If a fix would change how something looks, like a video at the top, decide that on purpose.
What this looked like on a real coffee store
We did this for Barista Plus Coffee, a Dallas roaster, the day their store opened. On Google's phone test, the home page score went from 65 to 92. The main image showed up in 2.9 seconds instead of 15.4.
The fixes were the ones above: a still picture before the video, photos sized for phones, 91 unused theme files removed, the theme's leftover styling loaded later, and the reviews app loading only when a customer scrolls near it.
Source: Google PageSpeed Insights, phone test, on the live store, September 26, 2026. These are single runs, and scores move by up to about 10 points between runs, so read them as snapshots. Every page we tested is in the case study.
What speed work will not do
- It will not promise a score. The test moves from run to run.
- It will not promise more sales. It removes one reason people leave. The rest is your coffee, your prices and your photos.
- It cannot remove Shopify's own code. Checkout and tracking are part of every store.
- It will not save a store with a full set of heavy apps. If an app you rely on is the slow part, you have to choose.
Want us to make the fixes? The slow store page says what we do, and how it is priced.
Questions roasters ask
Why is my Shopify store fast on my laptop and slow on my phone?
A laptop on office Wi-Fi hides a lot. A phone has a weaker processor and sometimes a weak signal, so it feels every extra photo, video and app. Test on a real phone, with Wi-Fi off, to see what a customer sees.
What is a good Google PageSpeed score for a coffee store?
Google does not give one magic number to hit. Treat the score as a way to compare your store with itself, before and after a change. Scores can move by up to about 10 points from one run to the next, even when nothing changed, so run the test more than once.
Will a faster store rank higher on Google?
Google recommends good page loading scores to site owners and says they line up with what its ranking systems reward. It is one signal among many, not a promise of page one. A faster store also gives visitors less reason to leave, which matters on its own.
Do I have to delete my apps to speed up my store?
Usually not. Many apps can load a little later, once the customer has seen the first picture. If one app is the main cause, we tell you, and you decide whether to keep it.
Can I fix this myself?
Some of it, yes. Resize the biggest photos, replace an autoplay video at the top with a still picture, and remove apps you no longer use. Theme code and app loading order are harder, and a mistake can break the page. Start with the easy ones and test again.
Is some of the slowness just Shopify?
Yes. Checkout and tracking code that every Shopify store loads are not something a theme can remove. On the Barista Plus store, product pages score in the 80s on a phone because most of what is left is Shopify's own code.