Shopify image fetchpriority hints and the Core Web Vitals
Default auto priority (99.9%), fetchpriority="high" (38.8%), and fetchpriority="low" (12.8%): how image priority hints are deployed across the web and how they move Largest Contentful Paint.
38.8% of Shopify sites use fetchpriority="high" image fetchpriority hints, and 97% of those sites have a good LCP, against 97% of all Shopify sites.
LCP pass rate
Sites with fetchpriority="high" image fetchpriority hints have a good LCP most often: 97%, against 97% of all Shopify sites. Sites with fetchpriority="low" fetchpriority hints have it least often, at 96%.
Image fetchpriority hints usage
Default auto priority is the most used: 99.9% of Shopify sites. Fetchpriority="high" is 38.8% of Shopify sites.
How image fetchpriority hints affect the four LCP phases
Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between fetchpriority="high" and fetchpriority="low" sits in element render delay: 299 ms median for fetchpriority="high" against 326 ms for fetchpriority="low". Overall median field LCP is 1.3s for fetchpriority="high" (TTFB 309 ms, load delay 576 ms, load duration 147 ms, render delay 299 ms) versus 1.3s for fetchpriority="low".
Image fetchpriority hints per framework
On jQuery, 100% of sites use default auto priority image fetchpriority hints, and 95% of jQuery sites have a good LCP, against 97% of all sites. On Vue, 100% of sites use default auto priority, and 97% of Vue sites have a good LCP.
Vue 933 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 100%fetchpriority="high" 40%fetchpriority="low" 15%97%
jQuery 3,144 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 100%fetchpriority="high" 22%95%Image fetchpriority hints or the framework
Does the framework explain the image fetchpriority hints difference?
On jQuery, 97% of sites with fetchpriority="high" image fetchpriority hints have a good LCP, against 95% of jQuery sites with default auto priority. Within jQuery, sites with fetchpriority="high" and default auto priority have a good LCP about equally often. On Vue, 96% of sites with fetchpriority="high" image fetchpriority hints have a good LCP, against 97% of Vue sites with default auto priority. Within Vue, sites with fetchpriority="high" and default auto priority have a good LCP about equally often.
How fetchpriority="high" and fetchpriority="low" reorder image fetches
In Chromium, <img> requests start at Low priority until layout determines which images sit inside the viewport. Setting fetchpriority="high" (38.8% of sites) elevates the request to High priority during HTML parsing, while setting fetchpriority="low" (12.8% of sites, 96% good LCP) keeps offscreen carousel or thumbnail images from competing with critical resources.
Understanding image fetchpriority hints
Apply fetchpriority="high" only to the single above-the-fold LCP image, and use fetchpriority="low" on secondary carousel slides or product thumbnails that are fetched early. Across the web, 99.9% of sites have default-priority images (97% good LCP), 38.8% ship at least one fetchpriority="high" image (97% good LCP, heavily concentrated on WordPress), and 12.8% use fetchpriority="low" (96% good LCP).
By Arjen Karel · 8,246 crawled Shopify sites (3,818 with desktop Chrome field data, 8,223 sites with image fetchpriority hints, October 2026). How we measured.