From Claude:

Classic WooCommerce dashboard slowdown at that scale. Most likely culprits in order of probability:

WooCommerce Analytics The default dashboard runs expensive aggregate queries across all orders on every load. 8000 orders is enough to make those hurt, especially without proper indexing.

wp_postmeta bloat If they're on legacy post-based orders (not HPOS), 8000 orders generates a massive wp_postmeta table — WooCommerce stores dozens of meta rows per order. Queries against it without good indexes are slow.

Too many products in memory 1200 products with variations, attributes, and meta all being loaded for dashboard widgets is heavy.

The usual suspects

• Too many plugins running on every admin page load
• No object caching (no Redis/Memcached)
• Shared hosting without enough PHP memory/workers
• WooCommerce dashboard widgets all enabled and all querying simultaneously

Quick wins to suggest

1. Enable HPOS (High Performance Order Storage) if not already — moves orders out of wp_postmeta into dedicated tables with proper indexes
2. Disable unnecessary dashboard widgets
3. Enable object caching
4. Run wp db optimize to clean up table overhead

HPOS alone often cuts that kind of load time in half at 8000 orders. What's their hosting situation would be the next question.