Summary

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A majority of Shopify site owners are heavily reliant on Shopify applications in order to extend the functionality of their Shopify store. This is primarily because in order to scale, they leverage these tools to enhance their user experience with the aim of boosting conversion rate optimisations for their e-commerce website. Although, a majority of these owners tend to overlook, the visual stability. A common problem that is caused by these applications is CLS also known as cumulative layout shift, which is a core web vital that tends to have a negative impact on both user-experience and accessibility and SEO rankings.

This article explores how Shopify applications can potentially affect your website's visual stability and why CLS metric matters. We also explore how you can minimize layout shifts for an enjoyable consumer journey.

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What Is Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)?

In simple words, a cumulative layout shift, is a metric from the Google's Core Web Vitals that measures the unexpected movement of elements on a webpage. This usually happens when:

  • Images, ads, or iframes load both dynamic and shift content.
  • Fonts are loaded asynchronously, leading to significant reflows.
  • Buttons, text, or form fields are shifting their initial position due to late-loading elements.

This can lead to a high cumulative layout shift score, which means that your website has a poor visual stability, which leads to frustrated customers and reduced rankings in Google SERP.

Image showing the CLS Metric

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How Shopify Apps Contribute to CLS

Majority of these applications lead to this negative side as they tend to offer widgets, and dynamic elements by injecting scrips that often a time impact the page layouts. Here are a few means through which they lead to visual instability:

1. Asynchronous Loading of Third-Party Placements

Most of these applications tend to load their scripts asynchronously, this means that the content shows once the main page has loaded. This can shift elements once the application has finally injected its interface, be it a chatbot widget, a carousel or a pop-up for upselling. Let's have a look at an example:

The solution can be quite simple, to use apps that load scripts synchronously or tools such as Vidjet that focus on lazy loading with specific algorithms to prevent these shifts by using the right measurements.

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2. Lazy Loading Without Proper Measurements

Applications that implement lazy loading without, actually, defining dimensions for their images and videos, which leads to layout shifts when the content appears. With tools such as Vidjet, Shopify store owners that are seeking to host videos on their website, work wonders due to the fact that dimensions are defined and tailored to ensure la

Some apps implement lazy loading for images and videos without defining their dimensions, causing layout shifts when the content appears.

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3. Dynamic Content Injection

In addition to these two pain points, a majority of the applications, also tend to inject dynamic content such as popups, banners or discount offers without ensuring that space is reserved in the DOM.

Example:

  • A discount timer banner appears at the top of your Shopify site once the page has loaded, pushing everything towards the bottom.

The fix?

  • Reserve space for these using CSS min-height properties.

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4. Custom Fonts & Third-Party Scripts

E-commerce stores also tend to depend on custom fonts alongside third-party scripts. These can cause Flash of Unstyled Text (FOUT) or Flash of Invisible Text (FOIT), triggering CLS issues.

For Example:

  • A store loads a Google Font late, causing text to reflow once the correct font is rendered.

The fix?

  • Use font-display: swap; to ensure a fallback font is shown until the custom font loads.

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5. Third-Party Ads and Embedded Videos

Ads and video players, especially those loaded from external sources, can shift layouts when they are injected dynamically.

Example:

  • A Shopify store embeds a YouTube product demo, but the video’s container loads after the surrounding content, causing shifts.

Solution:

  • Use aspect-ratio CSS properties to define fixed size and dimensions for videos, images and iframes.
Image showing how Embed codes work

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How to Minimize CLS Issues in Shopify Apps

In order to make sure that users have an enjoyable shopping journey, follow along with these practices:

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Prioritize Apps with Optimized Script Loading

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Reserve Space for Dynamic Elements

  • Ensure that you are implementing CSS min-height properties to make space for those components that are loading late.
  • Alongside this, for images and videos, make sure that you set dimensions to prevent reflow issues.

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Optimize Lazy Loading Strategies

  • Implement proper lazy loading, using loading="lazy".
  • Use placeholders to prevent elements from moving when images load.

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Use a Performance-Optimized Video Player

If your ecommerce store is looking to leverage video content for product showcases, Vidjet's optimized player can be the right choice. This is because not only is it lightweight, and loads without any layout shifts but also because it is optimized for CLS to ensure a smoother interaction preventing a penalty for your Core Web Vitals.

The beauty about the player is that it is tailored solely for e-commerce brands and Shopify to enhance UX with no performance issues.

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Final Thoughts

As we reach the end of this article, it goes without saying that these apps are a necessity for those online brands that are looking to boost conversions and enhance their user experience. But, at then same time, they can also have a negative impact on visual stability if it is not optimized in the right manner. CLS- related issues must be kept in check in order to prevent SEO rankings from reducing and frustrated customers.

If you’re looking for a video player that will optimize your site’s stability, check out Vidjet and watch your Shopify stores boost conversion rates and sales, without reducing speed or setting a low standard for visual experience!

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