Shopify CDN: Image Delivery Optimization Guide 2025

What is Shopify CDN?

Think of Shopify's CDN as a network of 200+ servers spread across the globe, each holding copies of your store's images and files. Upload an image in your Shopify admin, and boom—it's instantly distributed to edge locations from Tokyo to London to Sydney. No matter where your customers are browsing from, they get served from the nearest server. That's the magic behind those fast load times.

200+

Edge locations globally

50-80%

Faster load times vs no CDN

$0

Extra cost - included free

Why CDN Matters for E-commerce:

Geographic Speed: Serve images from servers closest to each customer globally
Reduced Server Load: Offload bandwidth from origin servers to edge locations
Better Reliability: Multiple redundant servers prevent single points of failure
Automatic Caching: Frequently accessed images cached for instant delivery
Format Optimization: Automatic WebP conversion for supported browsers
DDoS Protection: Built-in security and traffic spike handling

Here's the best part: Shopify partners with Fastly and Cloudflare—two of the biggest names in CDN technology. You get enterprise-level performance without paying a dime extra. It's included in every Shopify plan. And honestly? For 99% of stores out there, Shopify's built-in CDN is more than enough. You'd need seriously massive traffic before considering a third-party solution.

How Shopify CDN Works

So how does this actually work behind the scenes? Let's walk through what happens from the moment you hit "upload" to when your customer sees that crisp product image on their screen:

The CDN Delivery Process

Image Upload to Shopify

You upload a product image through Shopify's admin (or via API if you're fancy). It gets stored on Shopify's servers and immediately starts spreading to edge locations worldwide. Your image gets a unique CDN URL like cdn.shopify.com/s/files/...—that's your image's permanent address.

Global Distribution

Within seconds, your image propagates to edge servers in Tokyo, London, New York, Sydney—you name it. Over 200 locations in total. Each one keeps a cached copy ready to serve to nearby customers. It's like having your own global image delivery army.

Customer Visits Store

A customer in Japan lands on your product page. Their browser asks for an image. Instead of reaching all the way back to North America (or wherever your main server is), the CDN says "I got this" and routes them to the Tokyo edge server. Milliseconds instead of hundreds of milliseconds. That's the difference.

Intelligent Optimization

Now here's where it gets smart. The CDN checks what browser your customer is using. Chrome? Send them a WebP—smaller file, same quality. Safari? JPG it is. It also handles any resizing or cropping on the fly based on URL parameters you've set. All automatic.

Cache & Delivery

If the edge server already has that exact version cached, it delivers instantly. First-time request? The server generates the optimized version, caches it, then serves it. Either way, the next customer from that region gets it even faster. The cache sticks around for a full year—unless you update the image, which refreshes everything automatically.

Cache Hits (Fast)

This is the sweet spot. When an image is already cached on the edge server, it gets delivered in a blink—no need to fetch anything from the origin server. For well-optimized stores, this happens 95%+ of the time.

20-50ms

Typical cache hit response time

Cache Misses (Slower)

Occasionally, an image isn't in cache yet—maybe it's brand new, the cache expired, or it's the very first request from that region. The edge server has to grab it from the origin, cache it, then deliver. Takes a bit longer, but it only happens once per location. After that? Lightning fast.

200-500ms

First request (then cached)

Geographic Performance Example:

Customer Location	Without CDN	With Shopify CDN	Improvement
Tokyo, Japan	450ms	35ms	92% faster
London, UK	280ms	28ms	90% faster
New York, USA	120ms	22ms	82% faster
Sydney, Australia	520ms	42ms	92% faster

CDN URL Parameters & Transformations

Here's where things get fun. Shopify's CDN lets you transform images on the fly just by tweaking the URL. Need a thumbnail? Add a parameter. Want a square crop? Another parameter. You don't have to store multiple versions of the same image—the CDN handles it all. Once you understand these parameters, you'll have serious control over your image delivery.

Standard Shopify CDN URL Structure

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0123/4567/8901/products/product-name.jpg?v=1234567890

Domain:cdn.shopify.com

Shopify's CDN domain

Store Path:s/files/1/.../products/

Unique store identifier

Version:?v=1234567890

Cache busting timestamp

1. Width Parameter (Most Important)

The width parameter is your best friend. It resizes images to whatever pixel width you specify while keeping the aspect ratio intact. This single parameter can save you 50-80% of your bandwidth. Seriously—use it everywhere you can.

Examples:

Thumbnail (400px):

product.jpg?width=400

Product page (800px):

product.jpg?width=800

Zoom view (2048px):

product.jpg?width=2048

Best Practices:

Use 400px for collection thumbnails
Use 800px for product page primary images
Use 1024-2048px for zoom/lightbox functionality
Never load full-size when smaller works - saves 50-80% bandwidth

2. Height Parameter

The height parameter constrains vertical size. Use it together with width, and the image fits within both dimensions without distorting. Honestly, you'll use width way more often, but height comes in handy for specific layouts.

Fixed height:

product.jpg?height=600

Constrain both dimensions:

product.jpg?width=800&height=600

Note: Image scales to fit within bounds, maintaining aspect ratio. Won't stretch or distort.

3. Crop Parameter

Ever notice how some product grids look messy because images are different shapes? The crop parameter fixes that. It tells the CDN where to crop from when you need exact dimensions. Super helpful for keeping your collection pages looking clean and consistent.

Crop Values:

crop=center

Crops from center (most common)

crop=top

Preserves top of image

crop=bottom

Preserves bottom of image

crop=left

Preserves left side

crop=right

Preserves right side

Example Usage:

product.jpg?width=400&height=400&crop=center

Perfect for product grids - creates square thumbnails by cropping from center, maintaining focal point.

4. Format Parameter

This parameter forces a specific image format. But here's the thing—you probably don't need it. Shopify's CDN already serves WebP to browsers that support it and falls back to JPG for older ones. Just let the CDN handle it automatically unless you've got a specific reason to override.

product.jpg?format=webp - Force WebP

product.jpg?format=jpg - Force JPG

product.jpg?format=pjpg - Progressive JPG

Bottom line: Trust the CDN to pick the right format. It's smart enough to detect what each browser supports and serve accordingly. Save yourself the hassle and only mess with this if you're testing something specific.

5. Pad Parameter

Want exact dimensions without cropping anything out? The pad parameter adds letterboxing (like those black bars on widescreen movies). Not super common for product images, but it's there if you need it.

product.jpg?width=800&height=800&pad_color=ffffff

Adds white padding to create exact 800x800 square without cropping. Less common for product images.

6. Combining Parameters

Now for the really powerful stuff—you can stack these parameters together. Just chain them with an ampersand (&) and you've got precise control over exactly how your images look.

product.jpg?width=800&height=800&crop=center&format=webp

Creates 800x800 square, cropped from center, as WebP format

banner.jpg?width=2400&height=1200&crop=center&format=pjpg

Creates 2400x1200 banner, cropped from center, progressive JPG for smooth loading

product.jpg?width=400&v=1234567890

400px width with version timestamp for cache busting

Pro Tip: Responsive Images

Pro move: serve different sizes based on the device. Mobile gets 400px, tablets get 800px, desktops get 1200px. This one trick alone can slash your mobile bandwidth by 60-80%. Your mobile users will thank you.

Quick Reference Table

Parameter	Example	Use Case
`width`	?width=800	Resize to specific width
`height`	?height=600	Constrain height
`crop`	?crop=center	Control crop position
`format`	?format=webp	Force specific format
`pad_color`	?pad_color=fff	Add padding/letterbox
`v`	?v=1234567890	Cache busting version

Automatic Image Optimization

Now let's talk about the stuff Shopify's CDN does automatically—without you lifting a finger. Understanding what happens behind the scenes helps you avoid wasting time on things the CDN already handles. Plus, it's pretty cool tech.

1. Automatic WebP Conversion

Here's something I love: upload a JPG or PNG, and Shopify's CDN automatically converts it to WebP for browsers that support it. No setup, no configuration, no extra work. Chrome users get the WebP version (25-35% smaller), while Safari users still get the original JPG. Everyone gets what works best for their browser.

How It Works:

You upload: product.jpg (JPG format, 2048x2048)

CDN detects browser: Chrome user visits your store (WebP supported)

CDN serves: Automatically converts to WebP and delivers (25-35% smaller)

Fallback: Safari user gets original JPG (no WebP support)

Browser Support Detection:

Chrome/Edge: WebP served
Firefox: WebP served
Safari 14+: WebP served
Old Safari: JPG/PNG fallback

Size Savings:

Original JPG:250 KB

Auto WebP:170 KB

Savings:32%

2. Responsive Image Sizing

Good Shopify themes are smart about this. They automatically request the right image size for each device. Mobile user? Here's a 400px version. Desktop? Here's 1200px. Same source image, perfectly sized for every screen. That's the beauty of modern responsive design.

Automatic Sizing by Device:

Mobile (320-767px viewport):400-600px images

Tablet (768-1023px viewport):800-1000px images

Desktop (1024px+ viewport):1200-2048px images

This happens through the srcset attribute in modern themes. The browser automatically selects the best size based on screen resolution and viewport width.

3. Intelligent Caching

The CDN isn't just caching randomly—it's actually pretty clever about it. Popular images that get requested frequently? Those stay cached across all edge servers. Images that rarely get viewed? They might get purged to make room for more popular stuff. It's like a self-optimizing system.

Cache Behavior:

Default TTL: 1 year cache duration
Cache Key: URL + parameters + version
Popular Images: Stay cached across all edges
Rare Images: May be purged after inactivity

Cache Busting:

When you update an image in Shopify, the version parameter (?v=) automatically changes, forcing cache refresh globally.

Old: product.jpg?v=1234567890
New: product.jpg?v=1234567891

4. Progressive JPEG Rendering

Progressive JPEGs are neat—they load in multiple passes. First, you see a blurry version almost instantly, then it sharpens as more data arrives. It's way better than watching a traditional JPG load line by line from top to bottom. Makes your site feel faster, especially on slower connections.

Standard JPG:

Loads top-to-bottom sequentially. User sees nothing until significant data loads.

Progressive JPG:

Shows blurry preview immediately, refines progressively. Better perceived performance.

Enable with ?format=pjpg parameter, though most modern themes handle this automatically.

What CDN DOESN'T Do Automatically

Okay, real talk—Shopify's CDN is awesome, but it's not magic. There are things it won't do for you. Understanding these limits is crucial so you don't upload terrible images and expect the CDN to fix them:

✗
Heavy Compression: Upload a 5 MB monster and the CDN might deliver it as 1-2 MB. Still way too big. You need to compress before uploading—the CDN won't do it for you.
✗
Optimal Dimensions: CDN won't automatically resize uploads. Upload at correct size (2048x2048) to avoid waste.
✗
Format Conversion Before Upload: Upload as JPG/PNG, CDN converts to WebP on delivery. But uploading WebP can be slightly more efficient.
✗
Background Removal: CDN doesn't remove backgrounds or enhance images. Do this before upload.

Key Takeaway:

Think of it this way: the CDN's job is delivery optimization—picking formats, creating size variants, caching. Your job is upload optimization—compressing files, getting dimensions right, editing images properly. You both need to do your part for maximum speed.

Global Delivery & Performance

Let's zoom out and look at the big picture. Shopify's CDN has over 200 edge locations worldwide. Whether your customer is in Mumbai or Mexico City, they're getting images from a nearby server. That's what makes international ecommerce actually work in 2025.

Edge Location Coverage

Fastly and Cloudflare (Shopify's CDN providers) have strategically placed edge servers in all the major cities you'd expect. Your images get cached close to your customers, which means minimal latency no matter where they're shopping from.

North America

• New York, USA
• Los Angeles, USA
• Chicago, USA
• Toronto, Canada
• Mexico City, Mexico
• + 30 more locations

Europe

• London, UK
• Frankfurt, Germany
• Paris, France
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Stockholm, Sweden
• + 40 more locations

Asia-Pacific

• Tokyo, Japan
• Singapore
• Sydney, Australia
• Mumbai, India
• Seoul, South Korea
• + 35 more locations

Performance by Region:

North America20-40ms avg latency

Europe25-45ms avg latency

Asia-Pacific30-60ms avg latency

South America40-80ms avg latency

Africa & Middle East50-100ms avg latency

Performance Benchmarks

Want to see the actual difference? Here's real-world data comparing CDN delivery versus going straight to the origin server for a typical 200 KB product image:

Metric	Origin Server	Shopify CDN	Improvement
First Byte (TTFB)	250-500ms	20-50ms	80-90% faster
Full Download (200 KB)	800-1500ms	150-300ms	70-85% faster
Cache Hit Rate	0% (no cache)	95-98%	Instant repeats
Global Consistency	500-2000ms range	20-100ms range	Consistent worldwide

Cache Hit Optimization

Cache hit rate is huge for performance. When the edge server already has your image cached, delivery is instant. Miss the cache? Slower. Here's how to keep those cache hits as high as possible:

Best Practices for Cache Hits:

Consistent URLs: Same parameters = cache hit
Avoid Random Parameters: No timestamps or random IDs
Standard Sizes: Use common widths (400, 800, 1200)
Version Stability: Only change ?v= when image updates

Impact of Cache Misses:

Cache Hit (95%):30ms avg

Cache Miss (5%):250ms avg

Weighted Average:41ms

Bandwidth & Cost Savings

The CDN significantly reduces bandwidth costs by serving cached copies and optimized formats. Here's the financial impact for a typical Shopify store:

Example Store (10,000 visitors/month):

Avg images per visit:15 images

Avg size per image (unoptimized):500 KB

Total monthly bandwidth (no CDN):75 GB

With CDN optimization (WebP, cache, resize):12 GB

Bandwidth Saved:84%

While Shopify includes CDN bandwidth in all plans, reduced bandwidth means faster delivery, lower hosting costs for custom assets, and better scalability during traffic spikes.

Traffic Spike Handling

Black Friday hits. Your Instagram post goes viral. Traffic spikes 10x overnight. With a CDN, you don't even break a sweat. The distributed edge network handles the load like it's nothing. Without it? Your origin server would be on fire.

Without CDN:

• Server overload at 500+ concurrent users
• Slow response times during peaks
• Potential crashes during flash sales
• Need expensive server upgrades
• Load balancing complexity

With Shopify CDN:

• Handles 100,000+ concurrent users
• Consistent fast response during spikes
• Automatic load distribution
• No configuration or upgrades needed
• DDoS protection included

99.99%

Uptime guarantee with CDN redundancy

75-85%

Reduction in total bandwidth usage

95%+

Cache hit rate for optimized stores

Advanced CDN Techniques

Alright, you've got the basics down. Now let's get into the advanced stuff. These techniques aren't essential, but if you're chasing every last millisecond of performance (and honestly, why wouldn't you?), these are the moves that separate good stores from great ones.

1. Responsive Images with srcset

The srcset attribute is powerful. Modern themes use it to give the browser multiple image options and let it pick the right one based on screen size and pixel density. Mobile users don't waste data downloading huge desktop images. Everyone gets exactly what they need.

How It Works:

• Browser checks viewport width and device pixel ratio
• Selects appropriate image size from srcset options
• Mobile (375px) loads 400px image = 50 KB
• Desktop (1920px) loads 1200px image = 180 KB
• Result: 60-70% bandwidth savings on mobile

2. Preloading Critical Images

Use <link rel="preload"> to tell the browser to fetch critical above-the-fold images immediately, before parsing HTML. This improves LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) scores.

When to Preload:

• Hero/banner images above fold
• First product image on PDP
• Logo (if large)
• Critical UI backgrounds

Don't Preload:

• Below-fold content
• Secondary product images
• More than 1-2 images total
• Small icons or decorative images

3. Priority Hints (fetchpriority)

Modern browsers support fetchpriority to explicitly mark which images matter most. This helps browsers prioritize downloads when bandwidth is limited.

Hero image (high priority):

First product image (high):

Gallery thumbnails (low):

Use sparingly - only mark 1-2 images as high priority. Marking everything as high priority is the same as marking nothing.

4. Smart Lazy Loading Thresholds

Adjust when images start loading by controlling the lazy loading threshold. Load images slightly before they enter viewport for seamless experience.

// JavaScript for custom threshold const imageObserver = new IntersectionObserver((entries) => { entries.forEach(entry => { if (entry.isIntersecting) { const img = entry.target; img.src = img.dataset.src; imageObserver.unobserve(img); } }); }, { rootMargin: '200px' // Load 200px before entering viewport });

0px

Default (load when visible)

200px

Good (load just before)

500px

Aggressive (preload)

5. Adaptive Quality Based on Connection

Detect user's network speed and serve lower-quality images on slow connections. This requires custom JavaScript but can dramatically improve mobile experience.

// Detect connection quality const connection = navigator.connection || navigator.mozConnection || navigator.webkitConnection; if (connection) { const effectiveType = connection.effectiveType; let quality = 'high'; if (effectiveType === 'slow-2g' || effectiveType === '2g') { quality = 'low'; // Use ?width=400 and higher compression } else if (effectiveType === '3g') { quality = 'medium'; // Use ?width=800 } // Apply appropriate image URLs based on quality }

Quality Tiers:

2G/Slow Connection:400px, higher compression

3G Connection:800px, standard quality

4G/WiFi:1200px, full quality

6. Image Placeholders & Blur-Up

Show a tiny blurred preview while the full image loads. This improves perceived performance and reduces layout shift (CLS).

<img src="product.jpg?width=20" class="blur placeholder" style="filter: blur(20px)">  <img src="product.jpg?width=800" class="full-image" loading="lazy" onload="this.previousElementSibling.remove()">

Benefits:

• Instant visual feedback
• No layout shift (CLS = 0)
• Smoother perceived loading
• Placeholder only 2-5 KB

Implementation:

1. Generate tiny 20-40px version
2. Apply blur filter via CSS
3. Position behind full image
4. Remove when full image loads

Third-Party CDN Comparison

Let's address the elephant in the room: do you need a third-party CDN like Cloudinary or Imgix? The short answer for most stores is no. But let's dig into when it actually makes sense and when it's just burning money.

When Third-Party CDNs Make Sense

Good Reasons to Use Third-Party CDN:

Extreme Traffic: 1M+ visitors per month with image-heavy pages
Advanced Transformations: Need real-time face detection, smart cropping, or AI-powered optimization
User-Generated Content: Customers upload images that need automatic moderation and optimization
Multi-Platform: Using same images across Shopify, mobile apps, marketplaces with different requirements
Advanced Analytics: Need detailed image performance metrics and A/B testing

Bad Reasons to Use Third-Party CDN:

✗"Shopify CDN isn't fast enough" - It's actually world-class for most stores
✗"I want better image optimization" - Fix source images first, CDN won't magically optimize bad uploads
✗"My developer recommended it" - Often adds unnecessary complexity and cost
✗"I need WebP support" - Shopify CDN already does this automatically

Feature	Shopify CDN	Cloudinary	Imgix	Cloudflare
Cost	$0 included	$99-500/mo	$99-500/mo	$20-200/mo
Edge Locations	200+	250+	100+	300+
WebP Auto	✓ Yes	✓ Yes	✓ Yes	✓ Yes
Resize/Crop	✓ Basic	✓ Advanced	✓ Advanced	✓ Basic
Smart Crop (AI)	✗ No	✓ Yes	✓ Yes	✗ No
Setup Complexity	None	Medium	Medium	Low
Shopify Integration	Native	App required	Custom dev	Proxy setup
Analytics	Basic	Advanced	Advanced	Basic
Video Support	✓ Yes	✓ Advanced	✓ Yes	✓ Yes

Recommendation for Most Stores

Just use Shopify's CDN. It's enterprise-grade, free, requires zero setup, and handles pretty much everything you need. Save your money and spend it on things that actually move the needle—better product photos, proper compression tools, or literally anything else.

Better Investment Than Third-Party CDN:

Automated Image Prep ($99/mo): Tools like Ailee that optimize images before upload provide 10x more value than alternative CDNs
Professional Photography ($500-2000): Better source images improve conversions more than any CDN
Theme Optimization ($1000-3000): Fast theme with proper lazy loading beats any CDN switch

If You Do Use Third-Party CDN

If you genuinely need advanced features, here's how to implement without breaking your store:

1. Proxy Implementation (Recommended)

Keep images in Shopify, proxy requests through third-party CDN. This maintains Shopify admin compatibility while adding CDN features.

cdn.shopify.com/image.jpg → cloudinary.com/fetch/cdn.shopify.com/image.jpg

2. Sync Implementation

Automatically sync Shopify uploads to third-party CDN. Requires app or custom development.

3. Replacement Implementation (Not Recommended)

Upload to third-party CDN only, paste URLs into Shopify. Breaks admin preview and future workflows.

Optimization Best Practices

Okay, we've covered a lot. Let's bring it all together with a practical checklist you can actually use. Follow these and you'll be in the top 10% of Shopify stores for image performance. No joke.

The Complete CDN Optimization Checklist

Before Upload (Most Important)

Resize to 2048x2048: This is the sweet spot. Never go bigger—the CDN creates all the size variants from this base image.

Compress to 100-200 KB: Use TinyPNG, Ailee, or whatever tool you like. Just get those JPGs under 200 KB before upload.

Convert to WebP (optional): CDN does this automatically, but uploading WebP is slightly more efficient

Use descriptive filenames: "red-running-shoe.jpg" beats "IMG_1234.jpg" every time. Google notices this stuff.

Square aspect ratio: 1:1 ratio prevents cropping issues across templates

Theme Configuration

Use width parameters: Load 400px thumbnails, 800px main images, not full 2048px

Enable lazy loading: Add loading="lazy" to below-fold images

Implement srcset: Serve responsive sizes based on viewport

Preload hero images: Use <link rel="preload"> for above-fold critical images

Add ALT tags: Every image needs descriptive alt text for SEO and accessibility

URL Parameter Usage

Collection thumbnails: ?width=400&crop=center

Product page main: ?width=800

Zoom/lightbox: ?width=2048

Banners: ?width=2400&height=1200&crop=center

Performance Monitoring

Test with PageSpeed Insights: Monthly audits to catch regressions

Monitor LCP scores: Target under 2.5s for Largest Contentful Paint

Check mobile performance: Test on real devices and throttled connections

Review top pages: Optimize homepage, best-selling products, top collections first

Common Mistakes to Avoid

✗

Uploading 5 MB images: The CDN won't save you. Compress first or watch your store crawl.

✗

Loading full-size everywhere: Why load 2048px when 800px works? Use those width parameters we talked about.

✗

Lazy loading above-fold images: Hero images should load immediately with loading="eager"

✗

Using PNG for photos: PNGs are 5-10x bigger than JPGs for the same product photo. Just... don't.

✗

Inconsistent image dimensions: Mixed aspect ratios cause layout issues and wasted bandwidth

✗

No ALT text: Missing alt tags hurt SEO and accessibility

✗

Too many images per page: Even optimized images add up. Aim for 5-8 per product page, not 15+.

Performance Targets Summary

Page Speed Metrics:

Lighthouse Score:90+

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint):<2.5s

Total Page Weight:<2 MB

Image Load Time:<1.5s

Image Specifications:

Product Images:100-200 KB

Dimensions:2048x2048 px

Format:WebP/JPG

Images per Page:5-8

70-85%

Total bandwidth reduction with full CDN optimization

40-60%

Faster page loads vs unoptimized images

25-40%

Conversion rate improvement from speed optimization

Shopify CDN: Image Delivery Optimization Guide 2025

Table of Contents

What is Shopify CDN?

200+

50-80%

$0

Why CDN Matters for E-commerce:

How Shopify CDN Works

The CDN Delivery Process

Image Upload to Shopify

Global Distribution

Customer Visits Store

Intelligent Optimization

Cache & Delivery

Cache Hits (Fast)

Cache Misses (Slower)

Geographic Performance Example:

CDN URL Parameters & Transformations

Standard Shopify CDN URL Structure

1. Width Parameter (Most Important)

Examples:

Best Practices:

2. Height Parameter

3. Crop Parameter

Crop Values:

Example Usage:

4. Format Parameter

5. Pad Parameter

6. Combining Parameters

Pro Tip: Responsive Images

Quick Reference Table

Automatic Image Optimization

1. Automatic WebP Conversion

How It Works:

Browser Support Detection:

Size Savings:

2. Responsive Image Sizing

Automatic Sizing by Device:

3. Intelligent Caching

Cache Behavior:

Cache Busting:

4. Progressive JPEG Rendering

Standard JPG:

Progressive JPG:

What CDN DOESN'T Do Automatically

Global Delivery & Performance

Edge Location Coverage

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

Performance by Region:

Performance Benchmarks

Cache Hit Optimization

Best Practices for Cache Hits:

Impact of Cache Misses:

Bandwidth & Cost Savings

Example Store (10,000 visitors/month):

Traffic Spike Handling

Without CDN:

With Shopify CDN:

Advanced CDN Techniques

1. Responsive Images with srcset

How It Works:

2. Preloading Critical Images

When to Preload:

Don't Preload:

3. Priority Hints (fetchpriority)

4. Smart Lazy Loading Thresholds

5. Adaptive Quality Based on Connection

Quality Tiers:

6. Image Placeholders & Blur-Up

Benefits:

Implementation:

Third-Party CDN Comparison

When Third-Party CDNs Make Sense

Good Reasons to Use Third-Party CDN:

Bad Reasons to Use Third-Party CDN:

Recommendation for Most Stores

Better Investment Than Third-Party CDN:

If You Do Use Third-Party CDN