How to increase your Shopify conversion rate: 15 fixes, in the order we check them

Your conversion rate is the share of visits that end in an order. 100 visits and 2 orders is a 2% conversion rate.

In Littledata's benchmark of 436 Shopify stores, the median store converts 1.4% of sessions. The top 20% convert above 2.7%, and the top 10% above 3.7%. So at 1%, there's a lot of room to grow. At 3%, you're doing well, and the next gains come from smaller, tested changes. Our ecommerce conversion rate benchmarks break it down by industry and device.

One warning: a big discount can raise your conversion rate and still lose you money. That's why we judge every change by revenue per visitor, which counts both your conversion rate and your average order value.

When we look at a store for the first time, we start with the numbers, not the design. Then we walk the store the way a shopper does: homepage, product page, cart, checkout.

There's no point polishing the product page if your tracking is broken, or if most shoppers leave on the homepage. The 15 fixes below follow that route. It isn't a ranking of which fix wins most often, because every store leaks in a different place. It's the path that finds the biggest leak before you spend time on small ones.

Place a test order and make sure it shows up in Shopify and in the other tools you use, like Google Analytics and your ad platforms. Look for strange days: zero sessions, a sudden spike, orders that never got tracked. If the numbers are wrong, every decision after this one is a guess.

A low conversion rate is sometimes a traffic problem, not a store problem. In Shopify Analytics, compare conversion rate by source and look at where visitors are located. Warning signs: one source sends lots of visits but almost no add to carts, visits from countries you don't ship to, or a viral post that brought people who were entertained, not shopping. If one ad campaign's visitors never buy, fix the campaign, not the store.

Shopify's Conversion rate breakdown report shows 4 steps: all sessions, sessions with cart additions, sessions that reached checkout and sessions that completed checkout. Find the step where you lose the most people over the last 30 days, then watch 15 to 20 session recordings of shoppers at that step (Microsoft Clarity is free). That drop tells you which fixes below to start with. Our guide to getting traffic but no sales walks through it step by step.

Visitors decide in a few seconds if they're in the right place, and a lifestyle photo with a clever slogan doesn't tell them. Say what you sell and who it's for, in plain words, and show your main reasons to buy, like free shipping or free returns. 18 of the 25 top stores we broke down use an announcement bar or a bar of selling points to do exactly that.

Help people sort themselves right away, with photo tiles or buttons like "Shop women" and "Shop men", or by need, like "For dogs" and "For cats". 20 of the 25 top stores we broke down use tiles or buttons like these on the homepage.

Name menu items the way shoppers talk, put your best collections in the main menu and make search easy to spot on mobile. On collection pages, let people filter and sort by size, price or use: 21 of the 25 top stores we broke down do.

This is where most stores have the most to gain. Our product page optimization guide goes deeper. Here's what we check first.

Most store owners check their store on a laptop. Look at sessions by device in Shopify Analytics to see how many of your shoppers use a phone. Then take yours and buy something, starting on the homepage. Write down every moment you wait for a page, hunt for a button or close a pop-up. Slow pages, pop-ups that cover the add to cart button and tiny tap targets are leaks you can find in 5 minutes.

Shoppers can't touch the product, so photos do the selling. Show several angles, show its size (on a person, in a hand, in a room) and keep the main photos clean. 21 of the 25 top stores we broke down use a plain background for their product photos.

Every unanswered question is a reason to leave. Will it fit? What does shipping cost? Can I return it? Put the answers near the add to cart button: a size guide if size matters, your shipping cost or free shipping line, and your returns promise. 12 of the 25 top stores we broke down show a guarantee or returns promise, and 9 show shipping or delivery details before checkout. And make add to cart the strongest button on the page. Only 3 of the 25 use a sticky one that follows you as you scroll, so test that idea rather than copy it.

Nobody wants to be the first customer. 23 of the 25 top stores we broke down show ratings and reviews on the product page. Put the star rating near the product name, where shoppers see it before they scroll. No reviews yet? Email your first buyers and ask.

This is the big one. In Baymard Institute's checkout research, 40% of shoppers who abandoned an order said extra costs like shipping, taxes and fees were the reason, the top reason on their list. Show shipping costs before checkout, on the product page and in the cart. If you offer free shipping above an amount, say so, and show shoppers how close they are. Here's how to set your free shipping threshold without hurting your margins.

The cart is where doubts come back. Repeat your returns and shipping promises next to the checkout button. In Baymard's research, 19% of shoppers who abandoned didn't trust the site with their card details, and 13% weren't happy with the returns policy. 19 of the 25 top stores we broke down mention security somewhere in their funnel, most of them at checkout (here's whether trust badges work). More cart fixes in our guide on how to reduce cart abandonment.

Shopify's checkout is already quick, and one-page checkout is the default, so most checkout fixes are settings. Adding custom text inside the checkout steps, like a guarantee next to the pay button, needs Shopify Plus. Our Shopify checkout guide covers what you can change on each plan.

Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal let returning shoppers pay without typing their card and address. Shopify can also show these buttons on the product page, so shoppers skip the cart. 24 of the 25 top stores we broke down offer several ways to pay. In Baymard's research, 9% of shoppers who abandoned said there weren't enough payment methods.

In Baymard's research, 18% of shoppers who abandoned an order left because the site wanted them to create an account, and 17% because checkout was too long or complicated. Check your Shopify settings and make sure shoppers can pay without signing in. Offer the account after the order, not before it.

Some shoppers will always leave. Shopify counts a checkout as abandoned once it's been left unfinished for more than 10 minutes after the shopper gave an email address, and it can send an abandoned checkout email automatically, with a link to finish the order. Turn it on, and make the email helpful: show what they left, answer the shipping and returns questions, and make finishing one click away.

Start with the step where you lose the most shoppers (fix 3). Within it, start with fixes that remove a worry: a hidden cost, an unanswered question, a forced account. They're cheap, quick and rarely backfire.

Store owners usually want to start with the page they like least. We start with the numbers. They tell us which page to look at, and the page tells us what to fix.

Want to see what a higher conversion rate is worth? Our revenue calculator does the math. Rather have someone walk your store for you? FunnelSpark, an ecommerce CRO agency for Shopify stores, does that in the P.R.O.F.I.T. Audit, a page-by-page video review of your store.