For every second your BigCommerce store takes to load, you risk losing sales. Slow page speeds lead to frustrated customers and missed opportunities. While numerous factors—from oversized images to excessive code—can impact your site’s performance, a common culprit is having too many separate apps installed. Each standalone app adds code and external requests that slow down loading times, ultimately hurting your conversions.
The Problem with Multiple Apps
Imagine installing 10 different apps to add features like sticky add-to-cart, product badges, and countdown timers. Each app communicates with external servers and injects code into your store. This creates multiple “handshakes” and resource requests that can quickly add up. Before you know it, what once loaded in around a second may now take many times more, driving potential customers away and killing your conversion rates.
Enter Crucials: The All-in-One Solution
Crucials was built to tackle this exact problem. Rather than juggling multiple apps from various providers, Crucials combines 30+ essential tools—upsells, cross-sells, sticky add-to-cart, trust badges, cart recovery features, and more—into one unified platform. This consolidation delivers a smoother, faster, and more reliable shopping experience for your visitors.
Putting Crucials to the Test
To illustrate the difference, let’s consider a scenario where we put multiple tools to the test specifically on a BigCommerce store:
1. Clean Store (No Extra Apps):
Start with a fresh BigCommerce store running the theme Roots Original. Using PageSpeed Insights to measure, it takes about 1.1 seconds for the page to render—fast, clean, and efficient.
2. Multiple Individual Apps Installed:
Add 10 separate apps on BigCommerce App Store to handle:
- Sticky add-to-cart
- Currency converter
- Upsell
- Cross-sell
- Related products
- Product badge
- Announcement bar
- Countdown timer
- Popup
- Size chart
Each app introduces new scripts and external requests. Before long, what was once a 1.1-seconds load time might balloon up to 3.2 seconds. That’s a 3x slowdown!
3. Crucials Installed with Equivalent Features:
Remove all those separate apps, return the store to its baseline state, and then install Crucials. Activate a similar set of 10+ features. Now measure the impact. Instead of 3.2 seconds, load times remain relatively low—around 1.2 seconds, which is just 0.1 seconds slower compared to a clean installation. No bloated code, no messy uninstall leftovers, and no conflicting scripts.
Why Crucials Outperforms Other Solutions?
1. Optimized Codebase:
Crucials’ apps are built to work together seamlessly. The code is optimized, minified, and carefully structured to minimize load times.
2. Reduced External Requests:
Instead of each tool calling out to different servers, Crucials consolidates requests. You don’t get 10 different handshakes, just one unified system that efficiently serves everything you need.
3. Fewer Compatibility Issues:
With all features under one roof, you avoid the compatibility nightmares that come from mixing multiple apps. Less conflict means smoother, faster performance.
Results That Speak for Themselves
• Without Multiple Apps: ~1.1 seconds load time.
• With 10 Separate Apps: ~3.2 seconds load time.
• With Crucials (Equivalent Features): ~1.2 seconds load time.
That’s a dramatic improvement—and a difference your customers will notice.
Conclusion: Faster Store, Happier Customers
Crucials offers a unified, performance-focused approach to enhancing your BigCommerce store. Instead of piecing together multiple apps that slow down your site, choose a single platform that delivers all the features you need while preserving your store’s speed and user experience.
Try Crucials today and see the difference for yourself. Faster load times mean higher conversions, more satisfied customers, and a thriving online business.
