Two stores and a 45 MB homepage in. One custom storefront out.
Labbox makes magnetic electronic blocks that snap into working circuits — Circuit Explorer kits, and board games co-developed with Hape. The range was split across two platforms: four kits on a Shopware store, each language edition sold as its own product, and the flagship Reactor Rescue board game on a separate Shopify store, where every button on the Shopware homepage's hero sent visitors. That homepage weighed 45 MB because product photos were served as full-size PNGs of up to 10 MB each. We redesigned the storefront from the brand out and built it from scratch as a custom Shopline theme: one store and one cart for all ten products, a filmed circuit library, an educator hub, and a homepage at 1.3 MB.
Before
After
Homepage weight on desktop (Lighthouse). Product photos were served as full-size PNGs of up to 10.3 MB each.
Stores. The kits sold on Shopware, the flagship board game on a separate Shopify store with its own cart — now one Shopline store and one cart for all ten products.
Lighthouse Performance, desktop homepage. On mobile it moved from 46–52 to 65–74 across two runs each.
Third-party hosts on the homepage. Google Ads, Microsoft Clarity, Tag Manager and Typekit out; Google Fonts, Stripe, Cloudflare Insights and our build-review widget remain.
Nine dimensions, scored 0–10 from what we measured and clicked through. “Before” is the Shopware store plus the separate board-game store it links to. “After” is the Shopline storefront as it stands today behind the storefront password — including the items still on the punch list.
The old homepage was a banner for a product it didn't sell. Its hero — “The Board Game where you build REAL Circuits to win!” — and both its buttons led to a separate Shopify store, under a cookie modal, on a page with no H1. The new homepage opens on what Labbox is, puts the Kickstarter and Hape proof in the first screen, and sends its two buttons to the two ranges — both in the same store.
Cookie modal accepted for the full page — on first visit it covers the centre (see the hero above).
Published theme behind the storefront password. The review cards lower down are placeholder slots until Labbox supplies real quotes.
On Shopware the shop was one category: a carousel of four Circuit Explorer kits, and the page's only H1 was one product's name. Board games, bundles and spare parts weren't in it at all. The new shop lays the whole range out in five collections and explains the kit ladder in a sentence.
The only shop page on the main store.
One of five collections. Prices show in USD until the store currency switches to EUR.
The old product page sold a language set, not a kit: “Circuit Explorer Lab Kit (ES, FR, EN)” and “(EN, DE, IT)” are different products at different URLs. The new page sells one Lab Kit and asks which language the cards should be in — then answers the questions a parent has before paying €199.99.
The ES · FR · EN edition — the EN · DE · IT one is a separate product.
One product, five languages. Price shows in USD until the currency switch.
Reactor Rescue is Labbox's lead product — the one the old homepage was built around — but it sold on a separate Shopify store with its own cart, fonts and checkout, so a game and a kit meant two checkouts. On Shopline it gets a campaign-style product page inside the same store, with the Explorer Edition offered in the buy box.
The separate Shopify store every homepage hero button led to.
Same store, same cart as the kits. Price shows in USD until the currency switch.
Labbox's filmed exercises are its best content, and schools are a whole audience. The old site listed the exercises as a long numbered column per kit and had no page for educators at all. The new site files every circuit by kit and level, groups them into paths, gives each exercise its own page, and gives educators a page of their own.
One long list per kit.
Filtered library, paths, one page per exercise.
New. The Class tier is still priced “TBC” pending Labbox.
Old About page.
Founders' story; the photo slot is awaiting the image from Labbox.
Empty cart on Shopware.
Empty cart on Shopline — one cart for games and kits.
Homepage unless stated. Desktop 1440px and mobile 390px, Chromium, 8 Oct 2026. Lighthouse 12.8, throttled; page weight is Lighthouse's total transfer. Mobile Lighthouse scores move by up to ten points between runs, so the homepage figures are the range of two runs each. The Shopline store measured behind its storefront password.
| Metric | Before · labbox.education (Shopware) | After · labbox.myshopline.com |
|---|---|---|
| Stores to buy from | 2 (Shopware + a Shopify board-game store) | 1 |
| Homepage weight · desktop / mobileBefore: product and banner photos served as full-size PNGs — 10.3, 9.3, 8.2, 7.2 and 4.8 MB on the desktop homepage. | 45 MB / 15 MB | 1.3 MB / 1.2 MB |
| Kits page weight · mobile | 38 MB | 1.1 MB |
| Product page weight · mobile | 38 MB | 1.4 MB |
| Requests · desktop | 104 | 49 |
| Third-party hostsBefore: Google Tag Manager, Google Ads ×4, Microsoft Clarity ×4, Typekit ×2, Google Fonts, cdnjs, YouTube, a Shopware media host. After: Google Fonts, Stripe, Cloudflare Insights and our build-review widget. | 15 | 4 |
| Third-party cookies | 9 | 0 |
| H1 on the homepage | None | 1 |
| Language editions | A separate product per language set | One product, EN · DE · ES · FR · IT picker |
| Lighthouse Performance · mobile (two runs) | 46–52 | 65–74 |
| Lighthouse Performance · desktop | 56 | 92 |
| Lighthouse Best Practices | 79 | 100 |
| LCP · mobile (two runs)New: the hero photo isn't sized for phones — punch list. | 79–80 s | 4.0–7.3 s |
| LCP · desktop | 11.5 s | 1.7 s |
| Total blocking time · mobile (two runs) | 270–430 ms | 10–80 ms |
| Lighthouse Accessibility · home / product pageNew theme blocks pinch-zoom and has some low-contrast small text — punch list. | 97 / 78 | 90 / 90 |
| Fonts | Greycliff CF + Peachy Keen (Inter + Oxanium on the games store) | Archivo |
| Page for educators | None (/educators is a 404) | Yes · classroom-set pricing + quote |
| Footer year | © 2017 - 2025 | © 2026 |
Lighthouse 12.8, throttled, first full run on 8 Oct 2026, mobile preset unless stated. A repeat run of both mobile homepages gave 46 before and 74 after — read the mobile Performance scores as ranges. The page-weight gap does not move between runs.
Everything we found on the current site, what we changed, and where each item stands today. Filter by severity or area.
| Severity | Finding | What we did | Area | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| high | The flagship product sells on a different store Board Games in the nav, and the homepage hero's “Pre-order Now” and “Learn more”, all go to games.labbox.education — a separate Shopify store with its own cart, checkout and fonts. |
Reactor Rescue, its Explorer Edition and Buzz Trace live in the same Shopline store and cart as the kits. | Commerce | Fixed · live theme |
| high | A 45 MB homepage Product and banner photos served as full-size PNGs — 10.3, 9.3, 8.2, 7.2 and 4.8 MB on the desktop homepage; kits and product pages 26–38 MB; mobile LCP 79–80 s on Lighthouse's throttled phone. |
Photos through the Shopline image CDN as WebP; homepage 1.3 MB on desktop, 1.2 MB on mobile. | Tech | Fixed · live theme |
| high | Each language edition is a separate product “Circuit Explorer Lab Kit (ES, FR, EN)” and “(EN, DE, IT)” are different products at different URLs; every kit title carries its language set. |
One product per kit with an EN · DE · ES · FR · IT picker, held as real variants. | Merchandising | Fixed · live theme |
| high | No page for educators /educators returns a 404; there is no route for a teacher or school to buy or ask for a quote. |
Educators page with classroom-set pricing and a quote request; the Learn library filed by kit and level. | Audience | Fixed · live theme |
| Medium | Hape and the Kickstarter result are missing from the main store Neither is named in the homepage text; the 2,200-backer figure appears only on the separate games store. |
3,812% funded, Built with Hape, 2,200 backers and Project We Love in the first screen and the ticker; Hape on the product pages. | Trust | Fixed · live theme |
| Medium | Pages without a proper H1 No H1 on the homepage or Learning Resources; the kits category's only H1 is a product name. |
One H1 per page, written for that page. | Home | Fixed · live theme |
| Medium | The exercise library is one long list 124 numbered entries on one page behind a kit switcher; no levels, no learning paths. |
Circuit library filtered by kit and level, three learning paths, twelve exercise pages that can be linked to. | Learn | Fixed · live theme |
| Medium | Two stores, two typographies Shopware: Greycliff CF + Peachy Keen. Games store: Inter + Oxanium. Footer “© 2017 - 2025”. |
One design system on every page: the Reactor Rescue campaign's purple-navy palette, Archivo, one image frame for every product photo. | Brand | Fixed · live theme |
| Medium | Fifteen third-party hosts and nine third-party cookies Tag Manager, Google Ads ×4, Microsoft Clarity ×4, Typekit ×2, cdnjs, YouTube and more on the homepage; Best Practices 79. |
4 hosts, no third-party cookies, Best Practices 100. | Tech | Fixed · live theme |
| high | Store currency is USD while the design quotes euros Prices render as $199.99 and $89.00 beside copy that says “save €39.98” and €396; both old stores charge in euros (€199.99, €89,00). |
Switch the store's currency to EUR before launch. | Commerce | Launch blocker |
| Medium | Review cards and the founders' photo are placeholders Homepage review cards read “[Review placeholder — parent …]”, “[First name]”, “[Role]”; About shows an “awaiting asset” photo slot. |
Labbox to supply real, attributed quotes and the founders' photo. | Trust | Client decision |
| Medium | The hero photo is slow on phones Mobile LCP 4.0–7.3 s on the homepage and 6.1 s on the product page; Lighthouse estimates about 400 KB saved by sizing images for the screen. |
Responsive image sizes and a preload for the hero image. | Mobile | Open · build fix |
| Medium | The theme blocks pinch-zoom Viewport meta sets maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no; Lighthouse Accessibility 90 on every page. |
Remove the zoom lock from the theme layout. | Accessibility | Open · build fix |
| low | Some small text fails contrast Lighthouse colour-contrast fails on the homepage, kits page and product page. |
Lift the muted text colours until every pair passes. | Accessibility | Open · build fix |
| low | Collection page titles read only “Labbox” The kits collection's page title is “Labbox”; product and content pages carry their own names. |
Put the collection name in the page title. | SEO | Open · build fix |
| low | Classroom tiers not yet priced On Educators, the Class tier (8 units) shows “€ TBC”. |
Labbox to confirm the tier prices; the page states them as soon as they are known. | Pricing | Client decision |
You should hear it from us rather than find it later. The punch list to launch, with owners.
We audit before we quote: a full CRO / UX read of your current store, page by page, with every figure measured — then the plan to fix it.
