We have launched over 150 stores. These nine things separate the ones that sell from the ones that sit there.
1. Sub-3-second load on mobile
Every extra second past three costs roughly 7% of conversions. Compress images, lazy-load below the fold, cache aggressively.
2. Guest checkout
Forcing account creation is the single biggest cart-abandonment cause we see. Offer the account after the purchase.
3. Real product photography
Stock images kill trust instantly. Even phone photos on a clean background beat generic stock.
4. Trust signals above the fold
Return policy, delivery time, secure-payment badge and a real phone number. Visible without scrolling.
5. Working search with typo tolerance
Searchers convert at 2–3x browsers. If your search returns nothing for a misspelling, you are losing your best buyers.
6. Filters that match how people shop
Price, size, colour, availability. Not your internal category tree.
7. Abandoned cart recovery
A single email 4 hours later recovers 8–12% of abandoned carts. It is the cheapest revenue you will ever build.
8. Order tracking the customer can self-serve
"Where is my order?" is the number one support ticket. Solve it with a page, not a phone line.
9. Analytics and pixels installed correctly
Test the purchase event fires before launch. Half the stores we audit have a broken conversion event.