When adding a video to your theme, you will have the option to autoplay it:
- Within Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
- Select Customize.
- Select Add section.
- Click Video, and then select Add.
- Scroll down to Autoplay, and select its checkbox.
However, you may notice when testing your storefront from various devices that even when autoplay has been enabled within your theme, your videos do not play automatically upon entering the page - unfortunately, this is due to browser restrictions.
Why Won't My Video Autoplay?
Should I Enable Autoplay?
At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong answer for whether you should to enable autoplay or not; it is ultimately a functionality trade-off with pros and cons, and only you can make this value judgement.
✅ Pros
- Draw customers in with engaging, eye-grabbing content.
- Present commercials and advertisements.
- Demonstrate how your product works immediately; a survey found that 73% of people are. more likely to make a purchase when they can see a video explaining how it's used.
- Display reviews and testimonials from customers.
❌ Cons
However, there is a reason so many browsers block the autoplay functionality. Autoplay can be unappealing for many users, as they can:
- Annoy users; a survey found that 71.2% of people find autoplayed videos 'annoying'.
- Drain the customer's battery on mobile devices.
- Increase data consumption on mobile devices.
- Take customers away from the site; if your customer uses a browser which disables autoplay, they may need to click on the video and be taken to an external video platform to view it.
- Behave inconsistently from user to user, depending on which browser they use.
- Appear differently according to whether your user has a mobile or desktop device.
- Reduce the page speed.
What Affects My Chances of Autoplay?
The bottom line is that, due to restrictions across so many browsers, there is no way to guarantee that your video will autoplay for your customers.
However, whether your video is muted or unmuted affects the chances of your videos being autoplayed.
Videos With Sound
We do not recommend enabling autoplay on a video with sound, as it will likely be blocked by the browser.
If you are insistent on adding an autoplaying video with sound, opt to use a standard Video section instead under Themes > Customize > Add section.
However, it's important to understand that this is a risk; the instruction to autoplay will likely be blocked by the browser, and there is unfortunately no way to guarantee this doesn't happen.
If you're adamant that this option is best for your store, we recommend contacting a Shopify expert to discuss the options you have for making your autoplay videos visible to as many users as possible.
Videos Without Sound
As you can see from the table above, the majority of browsers will still allow autoplay on videos without sound. Therefore, if video is an essential part of your store, consider muting your videos in order to increase your users' chances of viewing your content.
While it increases the chances, muting your videos does not guarantee they will be autoplayed on every browser - this is a limitation outside the theme's control.
Across Shopify themes, muted videos are frequently used for large, full-width video backgrounds that may have text or other elements over it. Here at Eight, we call this a Video hero or Video with Text Overlay, and this can be found under Themes > Customize > Add section.
Videos with Text Overlay are muted by default for this reason; this greatly increases the chance of your video autoplaying on your storefront for as many users as possible.
Our Recommendations
At the end of the day, every store has different priorities, and only you know what's best for yours.
If you choose to enable autoplay on your videos, we have some general recommendations for getting the most out of this functionality.
🌟 We recommend muting your videos, or using the pre-muted Video with Text Overlay feature.
🌟 We recommend using closed captions on your videos, as a substitute for the sound.
🌟 We recommend ensuring that your site still functions without your autoplayed video, in case a user enters your site on a browser that blocks it.
While it's possible to enable autoplay on a video within your theme, the ability to autoplay is ultimately controlled by the browsers - and all themes and video hosting services must adhere to it.
Browser Restrictions
As a general rule, most browsers disable the autoplay function on videos with sound - even when autoplay has been enabled within your theme.
Regrettably, enabling autoplay on your theme cannot override the autoplay block from browsers - this is the same for every theme across Shopify.
Historically, autoplay has been disabled for videos on mobile devices - however, this has now extended to the majority of desktop browsers. This is in order to:
There are many browsers to choose from, each with its own individual policy towards autoplay videos. However, similar patterns can be found through the autoplay policies of major browsers.
Main Browser Autoplay Policies
This table shows that, while autoplay on videos with sound is almost always blocked by the browser, muted videos are often allowed to autoplay.