Greta Profumerie

Greta.shop, a popular e-commerce platform built with Prestashop, faced a critical issue affecting the user experience, customer satisfaction, and loss of revenue.
The shopping cart system took up to 10 seconds to load.
Furthermore, a major brand had threatened to pull its products unless the issue was resolved promptly.

Client: Greta Profumerie
Service: Speed Optimization + Custom Dev + Server
Date: Jan 2024

The Challenge

The core issue revolved around the global speed of the website, the impossibility to handle small volumes of visitors simultaneously, and the slow performance of the add-to-cart feature. In some instances, users saw items from another customer's cart due to the way data was being stored and accessed. The company's inability to resolve this issue resulted in substantial losses, a threatened loss of a key vendor, and posed significant operational risks. Prior to working with Zoyero, the company enlisted the help of a large, reputable agency that were unable to resolve the issue. Greta.shop required a solution that could not only improve the cart loading time but also ensure data integrity and handle peak traffic loads without compromising performance.

Our Approach

After the discovery, debugging and development, only one issue remained; the add to cart action required too much time. Zoyero cloned the website to a staging area and began our customized deep-dive investigation. During this deep-dive, it was found that a third-party plugin was causing the bottleneck. The plugin used for an extra conditional shipping fee was generating over 5,500 database requests each taking only 0.05 seconds, which made it challenging to diagnose initially because a simple slow query log wasn't able to record them.

The Solution

Debugging: Debugged the issue; replaced the problematic plugin. Optimized the "Add to Cart" feature: reducing the load time and increasing the speed by 5x. Efficient Interactions: Ensured that PHP scripts interacted efficiently with the database, leveraging efficient SQL queries. Ensured smooth server operation: eliminated most of CMS bottlenecks. Cache Implementation: Implemented efficient caching mechanisms to ensure only non-cacheable requests reached the server, without affecting user’s personal data and cart. Optimized Database Requests: Eliminated redundant queries, optimized slow queries and streamlined the data fetching process. Server was misconfigured: the server had been installed with a generic control panel without tuning the services to the website. Zoyero installed a new server with a LEMP stack (Linux, NGINX, Percona server and PHP) and tuned the services to the website.

Results & Impact

The case of Greta.shop exemplifies how careful debugging, performance optimization, and a customer-centric approach can overcome significant technical challenges. By identifying the bottleneck and implementing strategic fixes, Zoyero not only resolved the immediate issue but also laid the foundation for continued growth and customer satisfaction. Zoyero’s obsession with speed proved crucial, and was essential in achieving success.