thread Very slow website load times in Online Store

Very slow website load times

Tommer — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 13:48:51 GMT

Hello,

This is a plea for someone to finally handle this slowness. Users have been complaining for years about how slow these websites are.

As you can see in the screenshots below it's clearly because of unused JavaScript sitting there, mostly weebly's own code.

This should be an easy fix.

We are losing sales every day!

Please! and thank you.

The url is https://www.buckabeebrownies.com/

Re: Very slow website load times

Minion — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 10:22:52 GMT

Are you able to use something like Cloudflare account with the Square website? I use the free version on my WordPress site, but I am not so sure how the back end of these sites are. I also ran your site in GTmetrix as well,( see screen shot below) . Feel free to check it out and see if there are any other things that you are able to modify on your end that you can.

Is your review section a plugin/app or is simply reviews that you have copy and pasted into its own section? Apps and plugins are great , but they are heavy and slow down sites.

Also check through some of the answers/responses in this thread, Granted your site isn't very big , a call into support may be able to help you out as well.

Re: Very slow website load times

Tommer — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 14:37:12 GMT

@Minion thank you for the reply.

I will look into cloudflare but I'm afraid of interruptions to analytics and tracking info.

I think that a lot of the delay is Square's own code which is marked "unused", and also their slow servers (loading the dashboard takes forever).

I would expect Square to fix these issues as there are many paying customers like me with these issues. Not to mention that due to lack of integrations and limited api, using the Square online is the only option for a real sync (inventory and orders) between the POS and the website.

Thank you again for the reply and recommendations!

Re: Very slow website load times

Minion — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 15:22:49 GMT

@Tommer wrote:
@Minion thank you for the reply.
I will look into cloudflare but I'm afraid of interruptions to analytics and tracking info.
I think that a lot of the delay is Square's own code which is marked "unused", and also their slow servers (loading the dashboard takes forever).
I would expect Square to fix these issues as there are many paying customers like me with these issues. Not to mention that due to lack of integrations and limited api, using the Square online is the only option for a real sync (inventory and orders) between the POS and the website.
Thank you again for the reply and recommendations!

Not a problem, Sorry I couldn't offer more help. But yes like you said, generally it will come down to Squares servers and what they are allowing each user for bandwidth/usage per month.

I've gone through a decent number of hosts over the years trying to find a nice balance between price and speed.and have been happy with my current one for 2 years now.

Let me know if you find anything if Cloudflare is able to be used (their support is top notch btw, don't hesitate to contact/chat with them). Or if Square CS is able to see if there is any issues or things you can implement to speed up the site.

Re: Very slow website load times

Adventstills — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 04:16:13 GMT

Curious if you were able to resolve this... I have a new Square-hosted webpage, and it gets the same "1" rating you get, with the same basic causes. Were you able to reach a human at Square or Weebly?

Thanks,

- Kelly

Re: Very slow website load times

hellohellobye — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 10:31:10 GMT

Tommer, what did you end up doing here? We're moving out store online and seeing similar performance issues. I'm hesitant to invest in ads with the page loading so slow.

Re: Very slow website load times

Tommer — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 17:32:31 GMT

July 2023 update

It's been almost a year since my OP but unfortunately things have not changed.

Square is obviously aware that websites on their platform are very slow and that's why they added the three dots loading animation.

I find it shameful.

It is impossible to quantify how many sales we've lost due to the site being so slow, but we are locked in the ecosystem as there are no good alternatives for POS and ecommerce that are worth the switch.

If you are reading this and do not have a Square POS, I would recommend to avoid their ecommerce platform.

Re: Very slow website load times

Minion — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 23:00:23 GMT

@Tommer wrote:
July 2023 update
It's been almost a year since my OP but unfortunately things have not changed.
Square is obviously aware that websites on their platform are very slow and that's why they added the three dots loading animation.
I find it shameful.
It is impossible to quantify how many sales we've lost due to the site being so slow, but we are locked in the ecosystem as there are no good alternatives for POS and ecommerce that are worth the switch.
If you are reading this and do not have a Square POS, I would recommend to avoid their ecommerce platform.

Sorry to hear about your site issues @Tommer . Square servers ideally do need an update, and hopefully something would be on the way soon to help balance out all of the things that Square has cooked into their site to help increase speed and load times.

I didn't try your site on mobile, but on my laptop it loaded decently. To me, it loaded fast enough that if I were interested in your products, (which they look delicious by the way) the site speed wouldn't have been an issue, I have seen and been to far worse sites that are loaded with slow times, pop ups, ads etc.

Looking at your site stats, if you are able to reduce the size of the section listed in the screen shot below, that would help with the some speed, and help the end user experience with layout shifting.

Re: Very slow website load times

Tommer — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 13:52:36 GMT

@Minion I do appreciate your input, for the second time now. And thank you for your kind words.

However, the images I use are always relatively low res (the one mentioned is 800x800), and always comperes them with tinypng.com.

Still, in any page test I run it's the unused JavaScript that causes the most delay. Square is clearly not giving the ecommerce platform enough attention (still waiting on automatic welcome email to subscribers) and I cannot recommend this product to anyone.

Re: Very slow website load times

Kat8 — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 01:16:29 GMT

I wonder if anyone from square monitors these forums. This problem has been going on for years but has become so important now that google has changed its ranking guidelines. I I have tested the websites of competitors and the only ones that fail miserably are those from square. My competitors who dont use square look great! What to do? Life with square is one disappointment after another. This is a MAJOR issue to all of us and i don’t understand why they’re not working on this 24/7. And like you, i would recommend that anyone who is serious about their business look elsewhere!