Carved Culture made significant improvements to its online store, combining a premium Shopify theme with hands-on website speed optimisation.
As our product catalogue grew, we wanted to make browsing easier for customers and reduce the time they spent waiting for pages to load.
From Wix to Shopify
Our first website was built using Wix, giving Carved Culture an early online presence. We soon realised that we needed a platform better suited to running an expanding ecommerce business and moved to Shopify.
We initially used a free Shopify theme. It gave us a functional first version of the store without a major upfront investment and helped us learn what our customers needed.
Before and After the 2020 Redesign
These original screenshots show how our store changed during the 2020 upgrade.
Investing in a Better Shopping Experience
As we introduced more products, we encountered limitations in the free theme. In 2020, we invested in a premium Shopify theme to give us greater flexibility, improved navigation and better ways to present product photography. Changing the theme was only part of the work. We also began identifying the slowest pages on our website and improving them one by one.
Reducing Page Loading Times
Some of our slowest pages had taken up to seven seconds to load. Through targeted improvements, we reduced loading times on some of those pages to around 2.4 seconds—approximately a 66% reduction in loading time based on our measurements at the time.
We learned how to compress images, prepare product and blog photography specifically for the web, and use more efficient image formats where appropriate instead of relying only on standard PNG or JPEG files. We also removed unnecessary images and visual elements that added weight without helping customers understand the products. These changes helped us create leaner pages that were easier to browse.
The Tools Behind Our Improvements
We used Google Lighthouse to assess page performance and understand where our website could be improved. Morningscore also helped us identify slow-loading pages worth investigating. These tools helped us prioritise the pages that needed attention, but the improvements came from making practical changes: compressing images, choosing web-friendly formats and removing unnecessary page elements.
Building for the Future
This work taught us that a better website is not simply about buying a new design. It requires ongoing attention to performance, content and the customer experience. Our first website helped us begin. The free theme helped us learn. The 2020 upgrade and speed improvements helped us build a stronger foundation for Carved Culture's continued growth.