# We ran Lighthouse on 269 Shopify stores. The median mobile score was 48.

We ran the Google PageSpeed Insights (Lighthouse) mobile audit against 269 live Shopify and direct-to-consumer stores in July 2026.

## Key findings

- Median mobile Performance score: **48**
- 53.4% of stores score under 50; only 9.4% score 90 or above
- Median Largest Contentful Paint: **10.0s** (Google's "good" bar is 2.5s); 88.3% of stores are Poor on LCP
- Median SEO score is 92 while median Performance is 48: stores nail SEO and fail speed
- Cumulative Layout Shift is mostly fine (82.2% good): the problem is loading speed, not layout

## The biggest names are just as slow

Not one seeded recognizable brand cracked 50 on mobile:

| Store | Performance | LCP |
|---|---|---|
| Death Wish Coffee | 12 | 15.4s |
| Steve Madden | 25 | 23.3s |
| PopSockets | 27 | 16.5s |
| Dr. Squatch | 27 | 8.3s |
| Kylie Cosmetics | 31 | 18.9s |
| Jeffree Star | 32 | 28.7s |
| ColourPop | 34 | 6.4s |
| Gymshark | 39 | 22.2s |
| Fashion Nova | 41 | 12.6s |
| Pura Vida | 41 | 9.3s |
| Skims | 42 | 7.2s |
| Ruggable | 43 | 5.0s |
| Allbirds | 45 | 15.1s |
| Chubbies | 47 | 8.9s |

## Median Lighthouse scores (269 stores, mobile)

| Category | Median | % scoring 90+ | % under 50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | 48 | 9.4% | 53.4% |
| Accessibility | 84 | 29.4% | 0% |
| Best Practices | 73 | 30% | 3.7% |
| SEO | 92 | 58.7% | 5.9% |

## Core Web Vitals (share Good / Needs improvement / Poor)

| Metric | Median | Good | Needs improvement | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint | 10.0s | 7.9% | 3.8% | 88.3% |
| First Contentful Paint | 3.2s | 8.6% | 34.2% | 57.2% |
| Total Blocking Time | 521ms | 30.1% | 24.1% | 45.9% |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | 0.00 | 82.2% | 7.4% | 10.4% |

## The audits nearly every store fails

| Lighthouse audit | Stores failing | Fix guide |
|---|---|---|
| Network dependency tree | 93.7% | · |
| First Contentful Paint | 91.4% | https://lighthouse-md.com/audits/first-contentful-paint |
| Use efficient cache lifetimes | 91.4% | · |
| Largest Contentful Paint | 91.1% | https://lighthouse-md.com/audits/largest-contentful-paint |
| Render-blocking requests | 90.7% | · |
| errors-in-console | 90.3% | · |
| Time to Interactive | 89.6% | · |
| Improve image delivery | 88.8% | · |
| Reduce unused JavaScript | 85.5% | https://lighthouse-md.com/audits/reduce-unused-javascript |
| Speed Index | 84% | · |
| Reduce unused CSS | 83.3% | https://lighthouse-md.com/audits/reduce-unused-css |
| Avoid enormous network payloads | 80.7% | · |

## Methodology

269 stores, PageSpeed Insights API (Lighthouse 13.4.0), mobile strategy, one run each, July 2026. Store list from the public TeamDukaan/performance Shopify dataset (https://github.com/TeamDukaan/performance), seeded with recognizable global brands. The list skews toward DTC and India-market stores; read the aggregates as a broad cross-section, not a global top-269 ranking. Third-party blocking time excluded (not returned by the API on this sample). Dataset: https://lighthouse-md.com/reports/shopify-lighthouse-performance-2026-data.csv

Audit your own store at https://lighthouse-md.com.