My PageSpeed score is low

How to read a PageSpeed or Lighthouse score on a Volume store, which theme settings actually affect it, and what usually costs the points.

A speed score measures your whole storefront — theme, apps, images, fonts and third-party scripts together. Volume ships fast; what gets added on top is usually what costs the points.

Measure it correctly first

Run the test on a published theme, on the live domain, in an incognito window. A preview link loads the theme editor's own scripts and always scores worse. Run it three times and take the middle result — single runs swing by ten points or more on their own.

Then check Shopify's Online Store speed report under Analytics. It is measured consistently over time and is far more useful than a one-off number.

The theme settings that actually matter

They all live in Theme settings → Animations and performance.

Performance

Preload links on hover — on by default. Volume starts fetching a page as soon as the cursor touches the link, so the click feels instant. The theme's own note: "Increases the perceived loading speed of pages."

Images

Lazy loading — Disable, Loader, Pixelate or Fade-in, scale-out (default Loader). Speed is Basic or Smooth, and Delay runs from 0 to 0.5s.

Smooth page load

Animation — Disable (default), Enable, or Enable only on Home page. When it is on, Area picks Entire page or Main content and Duration runs from 0.3s to 3s. A long fade delays the moment the page looks finished, which is exactly what the Largest Contentful Paint measurement is watching.

Setting Lazy loading to Disable does more than remove the loading effect: it also drops the browser's lazy-loading attribute from images in every section after the third. All of them then download immediately, which slows the page down instead of speeding it up. If you dislike the effect, Fade-in, scale-out with Delay at 0 is the least noticeable option — it keeps lazy loading on.

What typically costs the most

Apps. Every app embed adds scripts that run on every page. Uninstalling an app does not always remove its code — check Online Store → Themes → Edit code for leftover snippets, and the App embeds panel in the theme editor for embeds still switched on.

Images. Oversized uploads are the single most common cause. Keep files under roughly 500KB and use ratios consistently, so the browser is not re-laying out the page as images arrive.

Fonts. Each custom family and weight is a separate download. Shopify-hosted fonts are the fastest option; a heavy custom family for headings, body and subheadings is three downloads before anything renders.

Too much above the fold. A slideshow with six slides, an autoplaying video and an announcement bar all compete to load first. Sections further down the page are lazy-loaded; the first screen is not.

Banner background animations. Parallax and zoom effects are set in Theme settings → Animations and performance → Banner background animation and can be overridden per section. They cost the most on the first screen.

A low score is not the same as a slow store. Look at Core Web Vitals — LCP, CLS and INP — in the field data, which reflects real visitors, rather than at the single composite number from one lab run.