Speed Up Magento 2 Store: 5 Fixes That Drive Conversions

Slow site speed costs real money. A Magento 2 store loading in 6 seconds instead of 2 seconds can lose 30-40% of potential customers before they even see your products. Google reports that 53% of mobile visitors abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load.

Even with quality hosting, most Magento stores suffer from everyday performance issues: heavy themes loading unused code, uncompressed product images, database bloat from years of operation, and misconfigured caching. These problems build up quietly until customers start leaving—and revenue drops.

The good news? You can speed up Magento site performance without rebuilding your entire store. Our Magento speed optimization service has helpedstores achieve 2-4x faster load times. Below, we’ll show you exactly what slows Magento down and how to fix it—backed by real case studies with measurable results.

Why Magento 2 Stores Are Slow

Magento performance issues rarely come from hosting alone. In most cases, slow load times are caused by store-level decisions related to themes, extensions, images, and configuration.

Heavy or “Bloated” Themes

Many Magento themes—especially marketplace themes—ship with dozens of features designed to look impressive in demos: parallax effects, animated sliders, mega menus, product quick-views, and pop-ups. The catch? All of this code loads for every visitor, whether you use these features or not.

A poorly optimized theme can load 1.5-2.5 MB of JavaScript and CSS before displaying a single product. That’s roughly equivalent to loading 500 pages of plain text just to show your homepage.

Homepage sliders with 5-8 high-resolution slides. Even if 90% of visitors never interact with the slider, all images and animation scripts load immediately—delaying everything else on the page.

How to Check if Heavy Theme Affects You:

Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights
Look for “Reduce unused JavaScript” and “Reduce unused CSS” warnings
If these warnings show 500+ KB of unused code, your theme is likely the culprit

How to Optimize Heavy Themes in Magento 2:

Disable Unused Theme Features:

First, navigate to your theme’s configuration settings in the Magento Admin panel.
Then, locate and disable features you don’t actively use, such as product sliders, parallax effects, or unnecessary animations.

Consider Switching to a Lightweight Theme:

Consider migrating to Hyvä theme (now free for all Magento 2 stores). Hyvä replaces Magento’s bloated default frontend stack with lightweight Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS. Our clients typically see:

96% faster mobile page load time
Total Blocking Time reduced by 96%
Google Lighthouse scores up to 99

Unoptimized Images

Images are one of the biggest contributors to slow Magento 2 site speed. Uploading a 4000×4000px product image for a small thumbnail is a very common mistake. Magento does not automatically compress images on upload. A single 4–5 MB image can noticeably delay page rendering, especially on mobile networks.

Images typically account for 50-70% of total page weight on Magento stores. Yet most store owners upload product images directly from manufacturers or photographers without any optimization.

Common Mistakes:

Uploading 4000×4000px images for 300px thumbnails (Magento doesn’t auto-resize on upload)
Using high-quality PNG files where JPG or WebP would suffice
Serving the same 2000px desktop image to 375px mobile screens
Skipping compression entirely

How to Check if Images Affect You:

Open Chrome DevTools → Network tab → Img filter
If you see individual images over 500 KB, you have an optimization problem
Check total image weight—anything over 2 MB on product pages needs attention

How to Optimize Images in Magento 2:

Use TinyPNG to compress existing images before upload
Set the quality to 80-90%, aiming for 150-300 KB per product image.
Convert to WebP format. You can use Plumrocket’s WebP Image Optimizer extension for Magento 2 stores. It automatically converts images, reducing size by half while maintaining great image quality.

Database Bloat

As your store operates, Magento silently accumulates data in background tables. After 1-2 years of operation, certain database tables can contain millions of rows that serve no functional purpose but slow down every query.

How to Check if Database Bloat Affects Your Store:

First, enable query logging by executing the following command in the Console:

php bin/magento dev:query-log:enable

Then, check your var/log/db.log file for slow queries.
Alternatively, you can run this MySQL query to see table sizes:

SELECT
    table_name,
    ROUND(((data_length + index_length) / 1024 / 1024), 2) AS "Size (MB)"
FROM
    information_schema.TABLES
WHERE
    table_schema = 'your_database_name' 
ORDER BY
    (data_length + index_length) DESC;

If report_event or customer_visitor tables exceed 500 MB, you have a bloat problem.

How to Clean Database Tables in Magento 2:

In order to clean logs older than 30 days, open the Console and execute the command below:

php bin/magento log:clean --days 30

After that, you can clear old visitor data with the following commands:

TRUNCATE customer_visitor; TRUNCATE report_event;

Missing or Misconfigured Caching

Magento is architecturally designed to be heavily cached. Without proper caching layers, Magento regenerates every page dynamically for each visitor—processing layout XML, executing database queries, and rendering blocks from scratch. This approach is highly flexible but devastatingly slow.

Two Critical Caching Layers:

Full Page Cache (FPC): Without proper full page caching, the homepage takes 800-1,500ms to generate server-side. With it enabled, the same page can be served in 50-150ms from cache. The best option is Varnish, which is included with most Magento Cloud and quality managed hosting. As a fallback, Redis-based FPC is still much better than nothing.
Content Delivery Network (CDN): Without a CDN, a customer in Australia requests images from your US server, resulting in 250-400ms latency per request. With it enabled, the same images are served from a Sydney edge server with only 15-30ms latency. As a bonus, CDN also handles traffic spikes and provides DDoS protection.

How to Check if Caching Issues Affect Your Store:

To test Full Page Cache, open the Console and run the following command twice in a row:

curl -I https://plumrocket.com/

Compare the X-Magento-Cache-Debug header in both responses. If the header shows “HIT”, the page is cached. If it shows “MISS”, the page is not cached. If you see “MISS” twice, FPC isn’t working properly.

How to Test CDN:

Use WebPageTest.org, set test location to different continent than your server.
Check “Time to First Byte” (TTFB)—should be under 500ms globally with CDN

How to Set Up Full Page Cache in Magento 2

Varnish (Recommended):

First, check if your hosting supports Varnish by executing the command:

php bin/magento varnish:vcl:generate

It is important to note that most Magento Commerce Cloud plans include Varnish by default.
For self-hosted environments, work with your server administrator to install Varnish 6.x or higher.

How to Set Up CDN for Magento 2:

Cloudflare: Offers a free tier and provides 10-minute DNS setup. This option is good for stores on a tight budget.
Fastly: Included with Magento Commerce and provides optimal integration. However, it can be expensive for self-hosted environments.
AWS CloudFront or KeyCDN: These services represent a middle-ground option between free and premium solutions.

Too Many Unused Extensions

Every Magento extension adds code that loads with your store—whether you actively use it or not. Extensions from the marketplace often ship with extra features, background processes, event observers, and database queries that run on every page load.

A store with 50+ installed extensions can waste 300-500ms per page just loading and initializing unused functionality. That’s half a second of delay before any actual content renders.

How to Check if Unused Extensions Affect Your Store:

To find a list of all installed modules on your Magento store, navigate to the following file location:

<magento_directory>/app/etc/config.php

This file contains all extensions installed on your website. Each line shows whether a module is enabled (value “1”) or disabled (value “0”). For example:

'Plumrocket_SocialLoginFree' => 1  // enabled module
'Plumrocket_SocialLoginFree' => 0 // disabled module

How to Disable Unused Extensions in Magento 2:

Open the Console and execute the following command:

php bin/magento module:disable Plumrocket_SocialLoginFree

Complete the process by executing these commands in the Console:

php bin/magento setup:upgrade
php bin/magento setup:di:compile
php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f
php bin/magento cache:flush

However, it is recommended to avoid turning off the Magento default plugins (starts with prefix Magento_ ), as well as making any other changes if you don’t have experience working with Magento.

Real Magento Speed Optimization Cases

Optimizing Magento 2 speed isn’t just about theory—it’s about real business impact. Below are two examples of how our performance-focused approach transformed Magento stores, improving load times, conversions, and revenue.

Case #1: +58% Conversions After Magento 2 Migration and Speed Optimization

Blast Zone store was running on Magento 1, which reached end-of-life and created multiple challenges: slow page speed, security vulnerabilities, malfunctioning extensions, and poor user experience. Migration to Magento 2 was necessary not only for security but also to prepare the store for higher performance.

So, to improve Magento site speed, we used the following approach:

Conducted a full Magento 2 migration while maintaining business continuity
Optimized theme performance by minifying and merging JS/CSS
Reduced render-blocking resources and set up lazy loading for offscreen images
Converted product images to WebP format and optimized sizes for mobile and desktop
Cleared database bloat and cleaned unnecessary log tables
Configured caching layers and CDN to serve content globally

As a result, the client seen significant improvements across key business metrics. Conversions increased by 58%, while the total number of transactions rose by 78%. Overall revenue grew by 69%. Core Web Vitals scores improved, reaching the green zone on desktop and moving from yellow to green on mobile devices. Additionally, the checkout process became three times faster, greatly enhancing the user experience.

A well-planned Magento 2 migration paired with performance optimizations creates tangible business results. Fast, reliable websites not only satisfy customers but also significantly increase conversions and revenue.

Case #2: 96% Faster Mobile Speed After Migrating to Hyvä Theme

The Magento 2 store suffered from a bloated, JavaScript-heavy theme that slowed mobile load times and hindered Core Web Vitals scores. Customers faced long waits, leading to higher bounce rates and lower conversions.

To speed up Magento 2 store, our approach was:

Migrated frontend to the lightweight Hyvä theme (Tailwind CSS + Alpine.js)
Optimized third-party extensions for compatibility and performance
Minimized unused JavaScript and CSS, reduced HTTP requests
Implemented lazy loading, next-gen image formats, and proper image sizing
Configured caching layers and monitored FPC/CDN hits for performance accuracy

The results were remarkable. Mobile page load times improved by 96%, while desktop performance increased by 51%. Total blocking time was reduced by 96%, significantly improving responsiveness. Conversion rate grew by 12%, and revenue also increased by 12%. In addition, Google Lighthouse scores reached up to 99, reflecting a highly optimized and performant store.

Even high-performing Magento 2 stores can experience huge speed gains by modernizing the frontend and optimizing core performance bottlenecks. For stores targeting mobile-first audiences, the right theme and optimization strategy can be a game-changer.

Need help optimizing your Magento store? Our Magento 2 Speed Optimization services have delivered up to 96% faster mobile page speed and double-digit conversion increases for real clients.