VTEX Site Clinic Delivers Core Web Vitals Wins for Worldwide Golf Shops

In the fast-paced world of ecommerce, time is money. Research shows that a 1-second delay in page load time can reduce conversions by up to 7%, while faster sites often see higher engagement and improved search rankings. Website performance isn’t just a technical consideration - it’s a business-critical priority. As the retail industry increasingly competes on user experience, meeting standards like Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV) has become essential for retaining customers and driving revenue growth.

Worldwide Golf Shops, a premier retailer of golf equipment and accessories, partnered with VTEX to tackle performance challenges and enhance their site’s user experience through VTEX’s Core Web Vitals Site Clinic. The improvements made during the 8-week program will help Worldwide Golf Shops improve their search rankings, improve user experience, and further reinforce the company’s position as a leading online golf retailer. 

Ecommerce websites today must strike a delicate balance between rich functionality and fast, seamless performance. For Worldwide Golf Shops, whose site hosts thousands of SKUs, pixel apps, and JS custom code, finding this balance presented unique challenges:

Complex Catalog and Third Party Dependencies

Worldwide Golf Shops maintains an extensive catalog of product listings, and shoppers expect detailed content and imagery on each product page. This level of detail posed risks to loading speeds and layout stability. Additionally, the store uses several custom scripts and third party pixels, which impacts overall site performance.

Critical Metrics Underperforming

Diagnostic testing revealed that site performance was lacking in several key areas:

• Slow server response times affected initial page loads, leaving users waiting.
• Large images and banners delayed the rendering of key page content.
• Dynamic content caused layout shifts, interrupting user interaction and frustrating customers.

Competitive Pressure

As one of the leading names in golf retail, Worldwide Golf Shops needed to deliver best-in-class digital experiences to stay ahead in a competitive marketplace.

These challenges not only threatened user satisfaction but also risked lowering the sites’s rankings in search engine results, directly impacting traffic and sales.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals (CWV) is a set of metrics that measure a website’s performance and user experience. 

• Time To First Byte (TTFB) measures the time between the request for a resource and when the first byte of a response begins to arrive. To provide a good user experience, TTFB should be 0.8 seconds or less.
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of the page first starting to load.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have an INP of 200 milliseconds or less.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1 or less.

Google uses these metrics as part of their search ranking algorithm, and prioritizes sites that perform well on CWV metrics. Since approximately 50% of website traffic - and 40% of ecommerce revenue - can be attributed to organic search, meeting these performance standards is essential to digital commerce success.

To address these issues, Worldwide Golf Shops collaborated with VTEX to execute a structured program called Site Clinic, aimed at optimizing Core Web Vitals performance. This approach leveraged the VTEX team’s technical expertise and deep understanding of the retailer’s operational needs to create strategic solutions that addressed site speed issues.

Performance-Centric Strategy

Over the course of several weeks, the VTEX Site Clinic program specifically addresses performance gaps related to key Core Web Vitals indicators. VTEX Field Software Engineers review and adjust site cache, 3rd party pixels, themes and banners. The program also includes re-assessment and tracking for any post-project action items.

Optimized Page Delivery

For Worldwide Golf Shops, VTEX Field Software Engineers implemented advanced caching techniques to reduce TTFB and deliver content to the user faster, particularly for high-traffic pages such as the homepage and product listings. The integration of asynchronous processes ensured that updates occurred in the background without disrupting user experiences.

Improved Asset Management

By streamlining the loading of images, fonts, and third-party scripts, VTEX reduced LCP delays. Techniques like lazy loading and font preloading allowed essential content to appear faster, engaging users from the moment they landed on the site.

Stabilized Layouts

By streamlining the loading of images, fonts, and third-party scripts, VTEX reduced LCP delays. Techniques like lazy loading and font preloading allowed essential content to appear faster, engaging users from the moment they landed on the site.

Comprehensive Monitoring and Reporting

Weekly Core Web Vitals reports provided insights into key performance trends, allowing the Worldwide Golf Shops team to track progress and proactively address potential regressions. Tools like Google Chrome User Experience (CrUX) Dashboards offered actionable data based on real user experiences, ensuring changes were aligned with customer needs.

Performance That Drives Growth

At the end of the two-month Site Clinic program, the Core Web Vitals performance improvements were striking:

Core Web Vitals Compliance
Homepage and key product pages transitioned from underperforming to meeting Google’s CWV thresholds, ensuring better search visibility and enhanced user satisfaction.

Enhanced User Experience
Faster loading times and stable layouts significantly improved customer engagement, reducing bounce rates and increasing time spent on site.

Scalable Improvements
The optimizations provided a foundation for sustained performance. As the site evolves, monitoring tools and best practices ensure that future changes align with user expectations.

Partnering for Ongoing Success

Performance optimization is a continuous journey. With VTEX’s tools and expertise, Worldwide Golf Shops is not only equipped to maintain its current market position, but also poised to scale as the business grows. By leveraging cutting-edge monitoring solutions and adhering to industry best practices, they will continue to deliver world-class digital commerce experiences for their customers.