Online stores with less than 1 second loading time
Only with Magento and Hyvä Theme
The new Magento Hyvä theme provides a new basis for creating dynamic, responsive and, above all, particularly fast online stores with Magento. As a long-standing Magento agency and Adobe Solution Partner, we have taken a look at the current status of implementation and explain below what works with Hyvä - and what doesn't.
As of October 2023, over 2,100 stores have already been implemented on Magento with the Hyvä theme.
The Magento store from Klyd published in April 2023 has a loading time of less than one second on the homepage.
Google's 3 second rule
Back in September 2016, Google highlighted slow website loading times as a conversion killer and an obstacle to online shopping in its blog post "The need for mobile speed", based on analyses of its Google Ads. The study cited highlights the following three core statements as the biggest blockers for conversions:
- 53% of visits are likely to be abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load
- One in two people expect a page to load in less than 2 seconds
- 46% of respondents say that waiting for pages to load bothers them the most when browsing the internet on mobile devices
Faster is better!
In January 2018, Google published that the loading time of a website or online store is used as a ranking signal for Google. . In short, the previous assumption was always that the faster a page loads, the better it ranks on Google's search results pages (source: Page speed as a ranking factor for mobile search)
Up to this point, however, this was only a "perceived truth", which was even officially relativized by Google in July 2020 with the video "Page Speed: SEO Mythbusting". Until November 2020, the truth was that although the loading time of a website is still an important criterion for users, it does not have a particularly strong impact on Google's ranking.
In November 2020, Google then published a schedule for the "Web Core Vitals". From May 2021, Google will therefore give user-friendliness and especially the loading time of a website a high priority in the ranking.
But why is a faster loading time also better?
Google has established the following key statements by constantly measuring the loading times of websites:
- "If the page load time increases from 1 to 3 seconds, the bounce rate increases by 32%". This means that a website should load within a maximum of 3 seconds, otherwise a third of all users will abandon the website.
- "If the page load time increases from 1 to 6 seconds, the bounce rate increases by 106%." This means that if a website takes more than 6 seconds to load, more than twice as many users abandon the website as before.
In the e-commerce environment in particular, a slower website effectively costs conversions or purchases.
Hyvä - A new approach
With the Hyvä theme (Hyvä = the Finnish word for "good"), the complete frontend approach of Magento 2 has been overhauled. All JavaScripts were removed and the focus was placed as much as possible on modern browsers and thus the possibilities of modern stylesheets (Tailwind CSS) and very lean JavaScripts (AlpineJS). Hyvä was officially released on 12.02.2021 as part of a release party.
This pays off immediately, even during initial installation, without major adjustments. A demo Hyvä store immediately achieves a mobile score of over 80 points in the Google Pagespeed Check without any effort. On desktop computers, the score is already 98 out of 100 points.
By making an adjustment on the server, we were even able to achieve mobile scores of 98/100 and desktop scores of 100/100 in Google Pagespeed Insights for our Hyva demo store within a few minutes.
Accessibility as standard
Hyvä Theme 1.3
Version 1.3 of the Hyvä Theme for Magento brings a number of new features and improvements, especially in terms of accessibility and usability. Here are some of the key changes that will help comply with the Accessibility Reinforcement Act announced for June 2025:
Web Accessibility Improvements:
- Introduction of a "skip navigation" link that becomes visible on focus.
- Improvements to keyboard navigation, primarily in the top menu and mobile menu.
- Improved screen reader support, including announcements of focus changes and flash messages.
- Increased color contrasts for better visibility and readability.
- More accessible product review forms and summaries.
Changes to the design and user interface:
- Adjustments to the header, such as improved search function and customer menu.
- Improvements to the display of product galleries and sliders.
- Adjustments to the shopping cart and checkout process for a better user experience.
Technical optimizations:
- Fixing various bugs and issues that occurred in previous versions.
- Improvements in the handling of configuration options and templates.
- Updates in terms of compatibility with Magento modules.
Further adjustments:
- Improvements in the use of Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js.
- Adjustments to the documentation and upgrade instructions.
web-vision as official Hyvä Gold Partner
We at web-vision are simply delighted with the performance and flexibility of the Hyvä theme. We assume that the speed of implementation and the otherwise time-consuming pagespeed optimization can be significantly reduced. As a Solution Partner from the very beginning, we have since become a Hyvä Gold Partner.
As of 08/2024, around 2,500 online stores based on Magento 2.4 with Hyvä Theme have already been developed and published.