The website couzina.gr is a popular Greek online store with many years of experience and a strong presence in the field of kitchen furniture and electrical appliances. The website runs on PrestaShop and was facing significant delays in loading times. This made it difficult for visitors to complete their purchases smoothly and quickly, while also limiting the organic visibility of the site in search results. In March 2025, the eshop contacted us and decided to transfer its website to the fully managed environment of dedicated hosting that we offer.
Since then, we implemented a series of targeted optimizations, not only at the server level but also in cache and image management. Our goal was to significantly improve performance, strengthen Core Web Vitals, and overall create a significantly more efficient and faster user experience.
This case study presents the impressive results we achieved at couzina.gr based on real user metrics data. At the same time, it highlights how the right hosting infrastructure can achieve spectacular increases in speed and performance without any coding changes to the website.
Holistic Website Performance and Core Web Vitals Improvement
Loading speed is the most important success factor for any e-commerce store. Google evaluates website speed as one of the most important ranking factors in organic results (SEO). A fast e-commerce website offers smooth navigation, reduces shopping cart abandonment, and increases completed purchase rate. At the same time, performance improves the conversion of visitors into customers and enhances the credibility of an online store.
To measure how quickly and smoothly a website loads for visitors, Google uses Core Web Vitals. These are key metrics that evaluate factors such as server response time, content display speed, and page stability during loading. These metrics reflect the actual user experience, as they are based on real user and visit data, known as Real User Metrics (RUM). Today, they are the standard for objective measurements to evaluate the speed and overall performance (not just the home page or other individual pages) of a website.
In this case study, we used data from Google’s Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), which is based on actual user visits to all pages of the website from different devices. These results are compiled and accessible through Google Looker Studio. The results show a clear improvement in page speed, significantly reduced response times and a smoother browsing experience, immediately after migrating couzina.gr to our hosting infrastructure. CrUX data is refreshed every 28 days, reflecting the measurable and immediate increase in speed, confirming the effectiveness of our optimizations.
The Challenge
Before migration of the website to our managed hosting infrastructure, we observed the following issues in Google Core Web Vitals:
- Only ~8% of visits with “green” TTFB (server response time)
- Only ~34% of visits with “green” FCP (First Contentful Paint)
- Almost 1 in 3 visits (32.8%) and more with “red” LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
Overall, the majority of visitors experienced slow loading times, which negatively affected sales.
Summary of Results
We analyze three important web vitals metrics that clearly relate to website speed: LCP, FCP, and TTFB. As recorded by Google, the improvement is impressive.
Below is a table summarizing the results:
| Core Web Vitals Metric | Before (February 2025) | After (May 2025) | Percentage Improvement |
| LCP (green) | ~42% of visits | ~84% of visits | +99% faster content loading |
| FCP (green) | ~34% of visits | ~77% of visits | +122% improvement in perceived speed |
| TTFB (green) | ~8% of visits | ~48% of visits | +500% faster server response |
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Reduction of LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
The LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) metric measures the time it takes for the largest visible element of a website to appear on the screen. It is a key indicator of loading speed, as it reflects how quickly visitors see the main content of the website and get a sense of complete loading.
Google considers LCP performance to be excellent when the loading time is less than 2.5 seconds (green in the graphs). Conversely, times greater than 4 seconds are classified as problematic (red in the graphs).
Couzina.gr, hosted on our infrastructure, achieved a “green” LCP in ~84% of visits, while at the same time “red” was drastically reduced from ~32.8% to ~4.51%. Fast LCP loading contributes to a good first impression of the eshop on its visitors.
Reduction of FCP (First Contentful Paint)
The FCP (First Contentful Paint) metric measures the time it takes for the first visible element of the website to appear on the user’s screen. It is a key metric for understanding page speed and visitor retention on a website.
Google defines an optimal FCP time as less than 1.8 seconds (green color in the graphs). On the contrary, times above 3 seconds are considered problematic (red color in the graphs).
Below is the impressive FCP improvement for couzina.gr, as “green” exceeded ~77% and “red” fell below ~6.7% of total visits.
Reduction of TTFB (Time to First Byte)
The TTFB (Time to First Byte) metric measures the server response time, specifically the time it takes for the server to send the first data (the first byte) to the browser. This is the most important metric for hosting performance, as it directly affects all other speed metrics.
According to Google, a response time of less than 0.8 seconds is considered excellent (green color in the graphs), while values above 1.8 seconds are classified as problematic (red color in the graphs).
After the migration of couzina.gr to our hosting infrastructure in March, the improvement in TTFB is evident in the graph. The “green” TTFB rose from ~8.5% in February to ~48% in May. At the same time, the “red” TTFB decreased dramatically from ~54% in February to ~7.78% in May, in other words an impressive reduction in delays of over 67%.
Performance Optimizations
Choosing the right managed hosting is one of the most important factors for the loading speed of an eCommerce website. In the case of couzina.gr, we utilized our optimized managed PrestaShop hosting on a bare-metal dedicated server, combined with a series of specialized technical interventions tailored to the needs of this particular online store. Our goal was to maximize the speed of the PrestaShop environment in a reliable manner and reduce delays, as recorded in Google’s measurements. The actions taken include:
- Utilization of 100% nginx web server with operating system level improvements for immediate response, high performance and advanced cache mechanisms.
- Modern hardware with dedicated resources such as extremely fast processors (CPU), memory (RAM), Data Center Edition NVMe/SSD disks, and high-speed networking for optimal server performance.
- Multiple database optimizations specifically for PrestaShop.
- Utilization of TrustServers Private CDN, which combines different technologies and operates on our in-house infrastructure. Specifically, Private CDN optimizes image size by converting them to avif and webp automatically – without any website involvement – and reducing latency and photo size.
- Continuous monitoring and protection of the hosting environment, ensuring security and operational stability.
A High-Performance Website Benefits Your Business
The increase in the loading speed of the PrestaShop eshop couzina.gr is impressive and fully documented by Google’s measurements. It is worth noting that the improvement was achieved without any code changes to the website. All that was needed was an upgrade to premium managed hosting. This proves that a high-performance eshop does not always require large investments or radical code changes, just good hosting!
Faster loading of an e-commerce website offers significant benefits to your business:
- Customer Satisfaction & Retention: Visitors enjoy faster and smoother navigation, which improves the user experience and increases repeat purchases.
- Improved Conversion Rates: The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who complete a desired action, such as a purchase. Reducing loading time increases the likelihood of completing a purchase.
- Improved Google Ranking / SEO: Faster loading leads to an improvement in Core Web Vitals, helps the website rank better in search engine results, and increases visibility in AI-powered search. The result is an increase in organic traffic.
Is your PrestaShop website slow, negatively affecting your sales? Our team offers tested solutions for maximum performance. Contact us to discuss your needs.
