CRO, checkout & site fixes
We find where the funnel leaks between product page and payment, fix the mechanics, and test the steps that actually decide the sale.
What breaks
Checkout is slow precisely where patience is thinnest
Cart and checkout typically carry the heaviest script load in the store, and they are reached by visitors who have already decided to buy. Every second of delay at that point converts intent into abandonment, and it is the most expensive traffic in the store to lose.
Costs appear too late
Shipping, tax and duties revealed at the final step are the most common single reason a cart is abandoned. The visitor does not object to the amount so much as to the surprise — the same total presented earlier converts substantially better.
Mobile layout has small defects nobody sees
A form field that zooms on focus, a sticky bar covering the button, a keyboard that hides the field being typed into. These are invisible on a desktop QA pass and fatal on the device most of your traffic uses.
Apps quietly conflict
Upsell, review and popup apps each inject their own scripts. Over time they collide, and the result is a checkout that fails intermittently for a subset of visitors — the hardest kind of problem to notice, because most sessions work fine.
Hover, tap or tab a step to see what is lost there.
Illustrative of the shape of a funnel, not measured from a client account. Real percentages vary widely by category, price point and traffic source — the value is in which step drops hardest, not the absolute numbers.
How we find it
Funnel step measurement
Drop-off measured at each step from product view to payment, so remediation is aimed at the step that actually loses people rather than the one that feels worst.
Real-device testing
The full purchase path walked on mid-range Android and iOS over throttled mobile data, which is where these defects live.
Script and app audit
Every third-party script inventoried against what it costs in load time and what it demonstrably contributes. Some earn their place; many are left over from an experiment nobody ended.
Error and edge-case review
Console errors, failed requests and payment edge cases captured across browsers, including the combinations that only fail for a minority.
How we fix it
Make checkout the fastest part of the store
Non-essential scripts deferred or removed from cart and checkout entirely, critical CSS inlined, and the payment path kept deliberately light.
Move costs forward
Shipping and tax surfaced early, thresholds made explicit, and the total made predictable before the final step so nothing arrives as a surprise.
Repair the mobile path
Input types and font sizes corrected so fields do not trigger zoom, tap targets sized properly, sticky elements kept clear of controls, and express payment options placed where a thumb reaches.
Test what decides the sale
Structured tests on the steps with the largest measured drop-off, one variable at a time, with the decision rule agreed before the test runs.
The operating rhythm
What actually happens, and how often. Published because “ongoing optimisation” is what everyone says and almost nobody defines.
- Week one
- Funnel instrumented so drop-off is measured per step, and the full purchase path walked on real mid-range devices over throttled data.
- Weeks two to four
- Outright defects fixed first — they need no statistical test, because broken is broken. Speed work on cart and checkout lands in the same window.
- Ongoing
- One structured test at a time on the step with the largest measured drop, with the decision rule agreed before it starts and the result written down either way.
Scope
What is included
- Step-by-step funnel measurement from product view through to purchase
- Real-device testing on mid-range Android and iOS over throttled connections
- Third-party script audit with a cost-versus-contribution verdict on each
- Checkout and cart speed work, and mobile input repair
- A structured testing programme with pre-registered decision rules
- Every change made on a duplicate theme and reversible
What we need from you
- Staff access to the store admin and theme
- Access to your analytics so drop-off can be measured rather than guessed
- A staging or duplicate theme we can work in
- Sign-off on anything that touches the payment path before it goes live
What changes after
- Checkout stops being the slowest page in the store.
- Cost surprises move earlier, where they cost you fewer completed carts.
- The mobile purchase path works on the devices your traffic actually uses.
- Changes are validated against measured drop-off rather than argued about.
These describe the mechanism of improvement, not a guaranteed outcome. Results depend on your product, margin and market — the written guarantees are in section 7 of the Terms.
Questions
Can you change Shopify checkout?
Shopify limits how far checkout itself can be modified, and we work within those limits rather than pretending otherwise. Most of the available gain sits in cart, in what loads on the way to checkout, and in how costs are communicated beforehand — all of which are fully in scope. On Plus, more of checkout is directly editable and we use that where you have it.
Will you break my store?
Changes are made on a duplicate theme, reviewed by you, and published deliberately. Anything that touches payment is tested end to end with a real transaction before it goes live, and every change is reversible. We would rather ship a day later than take a store offline.
How much traffic do I need before testing is worth doing?
Enough for a result to mean something — below roughly a few hundred checkouts a month, most tests will not reach significance before the market moves underneath them. That is not a reason to do nothing: at lower volumes the gains come from fixing outright defects, which needs no statistical test because a broken mobile field is broken regardless. We will tell you which situation you are in rather than selling you a testing programme you cannot power.
Go deeper on the mechanism
Find out whether this is your bottleneck
The free diagnostic scans your storefront and tells you where the problem actually is — which is often not where it feels like it is.