Slow Loading Issues

Slow Loading Issues

A fast-loading store is critical for conversions — every second of delay can reduce sales by up to 7%. This guide helps you identify and fix the most common causes of slow loading in Nuvi stores.

Diagnosing the Problem

Start by measuring your store's current performance:

1. Google PageSpeed Insights — Visit pagespeed.web.dev, enter your store URL, and review the scores for mobile and desktop.
2. Browser DevTools Network Tab — Press F12, go to the Network tab, reload the page, and look at the total load time and largest requests.
3. WebPageTest — Visit webpagetest.org for a detailed waterfall analysis showing what loads first and what blocks rendering.

Image Optimization

Images are the most common cause of slow loading. Nuvi automatically serves optimized images through its CDN, but the source images matter:

• Resize before uploading — Product images should be 1200x1200px maximum. Hero images should be 1920px wide at most.
• Use JPEG or WebP — Avoid PNG for photographs. JPEG at 80% quality looks nearly identical but is 3–5x smaller.
• Compress images — Use tools like tinypng.com or squoosh.app to reduce file sizes before uploading.
• Keep files under 500KB — Ideally under 200KB per image for product photos.

Reduce Section Count

Each homepage section adds to the initial page weight:

• Keep your homepage to 6–8 sections for optimal loading speed.
• Disable sections you are not using rather than leaving them empty.
• Nuvi lazy-loads sections below the fold (using IntersectionObserver), but the initial sections still load eagerly.

Caching Issues

If your store was fast and suddenly became slow, caching might be the issue:

• Browser cache — Ask visitors to hard-refresh with Ctrl+Shift+R (or Cmd+Shift+R on Mac).
• CDN cache — If you use Cloudflare, purge the cache from the Cloudflare dashboard under Caching > Purge Everything.
• Docker volume cache — For self-hosted stores, the .next build cache is stored in a Docker volume. If it becomes stale, remove it: docker volume rm bootstrap_tenant_front_next and recreate the container.

Additional Performance Tips

• Minimize custom CSS and JavaScript — Large custom code blocks slow down parsing.
• Limit third-party scripts — Each external script (chat widgets, analytics, pixel trackers) adds to load time. Only include what you actively use.
• Use a custom domain with Cloudflare — Cloudflare's CDN serves static assets from the nearest edge server, significantly improving load times for global visitors.
• Check server health — If all pages are slow, the issue might be server resources. Contact Nuvi support to check your container's CPU and memory usage.