- Industry
- SaaS, Page Builder
- Founded
- 2015
- Headquarters
- Walnut, CA, USA
- Website
- getshogun.com
- Lower image bandwidth costs
- 86%
- Faster page load times
- 1.5×
- Plus 3 months saved in dev and infrastructure work
- $200,000+
Using Uploadcare, we have not had to build or support any media infrastructure ourselves. This part of the product is simply handled.
Finbarr TaylorCo-founder
Executive summary
Shogun is a drag-and-drop page builder for online stores. The platform handles large volumes of image content and needed a reliable way to reduce the weight of that media without adding engineering strain or slowing product development. By adopting Uploadcare, Shogun cut its image bandwidth by 86% and significantly reduced the infrastructure costs tied to delivering heavy e-commerce imagery.
The challenge: Shogun’s team faced growing strain from the bandwidth and processing demands of e-commerce images
At the time, Shogun was processing large volumes of image content each month, serving 96 terabytes of optimized imagery across the stores built on its platform. Without optimization, the company estimated that the volume would have quickly reached 476 terabytes, resulting in slow page performance and increased bandwidth costs.
Building an in-house system to upload, optimize, and deliver images at scale was not realistic. It would have required several full-time engineers working over months, increasing development costs and pulling focus away from Shogun’s core product. On top of that, it risked delaying product launches and introducing reliability issues that would directly affect customers.
The solution: how Shogun built a faster, more efficient media pipeline
The team evaluated several third-party providers and selected Uploadcare, which offered the quickest integration time and the strongest performance at scale. The solution allowed Shogun to focus on product development instead of building file-handling infrastructure.
How Uploadcare helped
- Easy integration: Shogun integrated Uploadcare File Uploader with a simple JavaScript setup and tailored the widget to their product needs, allowing users to upload multiple images right away.
- Image conversion and smart compression: Automatic format conversion and smart compression reduced image weight without sacrificing quality, improving page performance and lowering bandwidth usage.
- Adaptive image delivery: Automatic sizing ensured the right image dimensions were served across devices and layouts, eliminating the need to generate and manage multiple versions of the same asset.
- Global CDN delivery: A worldwide delivery network ensured fast and secure image delivery and automatically handled capacity increases as Shogun’s customer base grew.
- Integration
- Configuring File Uploader
- Setting up image processing
- Accelerating page load times
It was a very straightforward integration. Just a line of JavaScript. I think it only took us a couple of hours to get it working initially. The integration was lightweight and didn’t require a ton of work.
The results
After implementing Uploadcare, Shogun achieved clear performance gains that improved both platform efficiency and the shopping experience for the e-commerce brands using its page builder.
- Reduced bandwidth costs: By cutting image bandwidth by 86%, Shogun saved over $200,000 annually in infrastructure costs while delivering product imagery at scale.
- Improved e-commerce performance: Optimized images helped pages load 1.5x faster, giving Shogun’s clients faster, smoother e-commerce experiences that support stronger conversions and online sales.
- Cleared a major engineering investment: More than $200,000 and 3 months of engineering work were saved by avoiding building and maintaining an in-house image-handling system.
Using Uploadcare, we’ve basically taken a shortcut. We haven’t had to build any uploading or image-processing infrastructure ourselves, so we’ve saved a bunch of developers' work. This part of our software is just handled. It’s not something we need to worry about.