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Shopify CRO Checklist

The changes that move conversion rate on a Shopify store, grouped by where they sit in the journey. Tick what you have done; your progress is kept in this browser. Nothing here is measured from your store — it is a checklist of practices, not a report.

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Storefront & first impression

What a first-time visitor sees before they scroll
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The homepage states what you sell and who for, above the fold
A visitor should not have to scroll or guess. Name the product category and the customer in the first screenful.
One primary call to action, not four competing ones
Shop, subscribe, book, read the blog and follow on Instagram in the same band splits attention and lowers all of them.
Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5s on mobile
Check it in the Express Site Check or PageSpeed Insights. Hero video and uncompressed banners are the usual cause.
Search is visible and returns useful results for misspellings
Searchers convert at a much higher rate than browsers; a search box that returns nothing for a typo loses them.
Shipping, returns and payment options are stated on the homepage
These are the three questions that stop a first purchase. Answer them before the product page.

Product page

Where the decision is actually made
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Six or more images including scale, detail and in-use
Studio shots alone leave size and texture to the imagination, which is where returns come from.
Reviews on the page, including the mediocre ones
A wall of five stars reads as filtered. A visible three-star review with a reply raises trust rather than lowering it.
Delivery date and cost shown before Add to Cart
"Free shipping over $X" plus an estimated arrival date. Unexpected shipping cost is the most cited abandonment reason.
Out-of-stock variants are visible, not hidden
Show them greyed with a back-in-stock signup rather than removing them, so the range still reads as complete.
Sizing or specification guide opens without leaving the page
A new tab loses the cart. Use a drawer or modal.
Add to Cart stays reachable on mobile as you scroll
A sticky bar with price and the button; long product pages otherwise bury the action.

Cart & checkout

The most expensive metres of the journey
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Guest checkout is available and offered first
Forcing account creation before payment is one of the largest single drops in ecommerce.
Express wallets enabled (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal)
They remove the address and card forms entirely on mobile, which is where most of the traffic is.
No cost appears for the first time at the final step
Shipping, tax and any surcharge should be visible or estimated in the cart.
Every form field is one you genuinely need
Company, second address line and phone are optional for most stores. Each required field costs completions.
Validation errors say what to do, inline, without clearing the form
Test a wrong card number and a mistyped postcode on a real phone.
Abandoned-cart recovery is running and its first email is within an hour
Set it up in the Email Engine. Later than a few hours and the intent has usually gone.

Measurement

So the next change can be judged rather than argued about
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GA4 is connected and recording purchases
Without it the Analytics Brain has nothing to report — it will say so rather than showing you zeros.
Mid-funnel events exist: view item, add to cart, begin checkout
Sessions and purchases alone cannot tell you which step is leaking.
One experiment running at a time, with the snippet installed
Launch it from CRO Lab. Overlapping tests on the same page make both results unreadable.
Required sample size worked out before the test starts
Use the calculator in CRO Lab. Deciding when to stop after you have seen the numbers is how false winners get shipped.

Progress is stored in this browser only, so it will not follow you to another device. This is a checklist of practices, not an audit of your store — nothing on this page is measured from your site. For measured results, run the Express Site Check in SEO Intelligence or connect GA4 for the Analytics Brain.