A blog can be almost entirely cached. A shop cannot, because carts, accounts and checkout are personal to each shopper. That is why a store that felt fine with 20 products can crawl at 2,000.
What we already do for you
- Redis object cache, which is the biggest single factor for a shop, because it stops WooCommerce asking the database the same questions over and over
- Page caching for your catalogue pages, which are the same for everyone
- The global CDN for product images, which are usually most of a shop's page weight
- Guaranteed CPU and memory that no other customer can take, which matters most exactly when you are busiest
What you should do
Give the shop enough resource. A real WooCommerce store belongs on Premium (3 GB memory, 4 cores) rather than Starter. Checkout is not cacheable, so every simultaneous shopper is real work.
Cut your plugins. Every active plugin adds queries to every uncached page. Shops accumulate plugins. Go through the list and remove what you no longer use.
Compress your product images. A 4 MB photograph scaled down in the browser still transfers 4 MB. Export at the size you actually display and use a modern format.
Turn off what you do not need. Product review counts, cart fragments and dashboards that recalculate sales figures on every admin page all cost time.
Watch your search and filtering. Layered navigation and product search across a large catalogue are expensive. If a filter page is slow, that is usually why.
Keep your database tidy. Old sessions, expired transients and abandoned carts pile up. Clear them out.
Testing changes
Use staging (Pro and above) and try changes there. Never disable a plugin on a live shop at midday to see what happens.
If it is still slow
Email [email protected] and tell us which page is slow and for whom. We will look at what is happening on your account and tell you what is actually taking the time.
The assistant in your control panel can see your actual account and answer about your sites, your plan and your usage. For anything else, email [email protected] and a person will answer.