Every Shopify founder I’ve worked with in the last three years has heard the same advice from the same Twitter thread: uninstall your apps. It is mostly wrong, and the reason it’s wrong is that the apps aren’t the problem. The way they load is.
Here is the list, in order of how much each thing actually moves the needle on Lighthouse mobile for a typical DTC store with twelve apps. Cheapest fixes first.
1. Defer the third-party tags. Klaviyo, Hotjar, Recharge tag, Loox — almost none of them need to load in the head. Move them into a script that loads after the LCP image paints. Easy 15-25 point jump.
2. Lazy-load below-the-fold images correctly. Shopify’s default loading="lazy" attribute works, but only if the image is actually below the fold. Half the stores I audit have the lazy attribute on the hero image, which kills LCP. Fix the priority.
3. Resize the hero on the server, not the browser. Use Shopify’s image_url filter with explicit width parameter at the size the device will actually render. The browser shouldn’t be downloading a 2400px hero for a 390px phone.
4. Preload the LCP image. One <link rel="preload" as="image"> tag in the head, pointed at the largest above-the-fold image, with proper imagesrcset. This single line often saves a full second.
5. Audit the theme’s JS bundle. Most premium themes ship 200kb+ of JavaScript whether you use it or not. If you’re not using the predictive search, the AJAX cart drawer, and the lookbook section, kill them. chrome devtools coverage tab tells you exactly which lines never execute.
6. Replace heavy carousel apps with native CSS. A four-image hero carousel does not need Swiper.js plus its CSS. Three flex children and a scroll-snap rule do the same job in 800 bytes.
7. Move font loading to swap. If you’re self-hosting fonts, set font-display: swap in @font-face. INP loves you for it.
Most stores I audit get from a 32 to an 82 just by doing steps one through four. That’s a one-day engagement, not a three-month rebuild.
If you’re sitting under 50 on mobile and want to know what the cheapest path up looks like for your specific store, the form’s on the homepage. The audit’s free.