If your Atlas theme is showing a slow loading speed or poor performance in Shopify’s speed report, here’s what you need to know.
Understanding Theme Speed Metrics
Loading Speed
This measures how quickly your store’s content appears. Faster loading means a better first impression.
Interactivity
This measures how quickly your customers can interact with your store — like clicking, scrolling, or navigating. Lower numbers mean a smoother, more responsive feel.
Visual Stability
This tracks whether your layout shifts while loading. A lower score means your layout stays in place, which reduces customer frustration.
Why Your Atlas Theme Might Score Lower
Atlas is a rich, conversion-focused theme. It’s more advanced than Shopify’s default themes like Dawn or Debut. That means it includes more animations, interactive features, and design enhancements — which naturally results in slightly slower load times.
That doesn’t mean something’s broken. Most Atlas stores still fall within Shopify’s “Good” performance range. But it won’t benchmark as fast as very basic themes with fewer features.
How to Improve Your Store’s Speed
Limit animations
Reducing sections that use live effects (like animated stars or carousels) will significantly improve performance.
Compress product images
Use Shopify’s built-in compression or a tool like Crush.pics to optimize your media.
Remove unused apps
Every app adds code to your store, even if you’re not actively using it.
Keep font and video usage light
Stick to fewer fonts and avoid large video files on autoplay.
Minimize third-party embeds
Too many tracking pixels, chat widgets, or embedded tools can drag speed down.
Final Note
Atlas is optimized for real-world selling — not just test scores. A store that loads 0.3 seconds slower but converts better will always win. That said, if you think your speed is unusually low or something isn’t working properly, email us at support@helloatlas.io and we’ll check it out.