Key takeaways
- Fix friction before adding features: speed, clarity and trust come first.
- Product pages and the mobile cart are where most stores lose sales.
- Show delivery costs, times and returns early — surprises at checkout cause abandonment.
- Express checkouts such as Shop Pay remove form-filling for returning shoppers.
- Test one change at a time and judge it on revenue per visitor, not clicks.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the process of turning more of your visitors into customers. For most Shopify stores it is the cheapest growth lever available: every improvement makes every marketing channel more profitable. Here are 15 tactics we use on client stores, grouped by where they apply.
Foundations
- 1. Make it fast: Slow pages lose shoppers before they see a product. Start with our store speed guide.
- 2. Say what you sell in seconds: A clear headline, product imagery and a direct call to action above the fold on mobile.
- 3. Show trust early: Reviews, recognisable payment options, delivery and returns promises near the top of the page.
Navigation and search
- 4. Simplify the menu: Name categories the way customers think, not the way your warehouse does.
- 5. Improve search: Search that handles typos and synonyms and shows products as you type.
- 6. Useful filters: Filters for size, colour, price and the attributes people actually choose by.
Product pages
- 7. Better images: Several angles, scale, detail and lifestyle shots — and video where it helps.
- 8. Answer questions on the page: Sizing, materials, care, delivery and returns, without leaving the product.
- 9. Social proof: Reviews with photos, and ratings shown on collection pages too.
- 10. Clear variant selection: Obvious swatches and out-of-stock states, with back-in-stock alerts.
Cart and checkout
- 11. No surprises: Show shipping costs and free-shipping thresholds before checkout.
- 12. Express checkout: Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay let returning shoppers buy in seconds.
- 13. Relevant add-ons: Complementary products in the cart, not random upsells.
After the visit
- 14. Recover abandoned carts: Automated emails and SMS — see our Klaviyo flows guide.
- 15. Learn from data: Use analytics, session recordings and customer feedback to find where people drop off.
How to test properly
Change one thing at a time, run each test long enough to cover full weeks of traffic, and judge results on revenue per visitor rather than clicks. Low-traffic stores are better off making clear best-practice fixes than running inconclusive tests.
Want an expert review? Our conversion rate optimisation service audits your store, prioritises fixes by impact and builds them into your theme. Read how to optimise a Shopify product page next, or request a CRO audit.
Jay Patel