If a store is getting traffic but not enough sales, the cause is usually one of a small number of problems: products that are hard to find, product pages that do not work well on a phone, a slow or cluttered path to checkout, ads that send people to the wrong page, thin product content, tracking that cannot be trusted, or more ad spend being used to cover a store problem. These are the seven ecommerce mistakes we check first when we review a store, and each one can be diagnosed with data the business already has.
The list is deliberately short. Generic conversion tips (add a countdown timer, change the button colour) rarely fix a store that has a structural problem. For each mistake below we cover what it looks like, why it matters, what to check, and what a sensible fix looks like.
1. Unclear product and collection structure
What it looks like. Collections that mirror internal stock categories rather than how customers shop. Products listed in one long grid. Filters that do not apply to the products shown, or do not work on mobile. Site search that returns nothing for common terms.
Why it matters. Customers who cannot find the right product quickly leave, and search engines and shopping feeds have no clear category pages to show.
What to check. Site search reports for searches with no results. Analytics for collection pages with high exit rates. Whether the main navigation matches the words customers use.
A sensible fix. Rebuild collections around how people buy (by use, size, occasion or room, as well as by product type), tidy product titles and variants, and make filters work properly on mobile.
2. Weak mobile product pages
What it looks like. Images that are hard to see on a small screen, key information pushed below long descriptions, size or variant selectors that are fiddly, and an add-to-cart button that disappears as the customer scrolls.
Why it matters. In many consumer stores, phones bring most of the visits (your own analytics will confirm it), yet product pages are often designed and reviewed on a desktop.
What to check. Conversion rate by device. If mobile converts far below desktop on the same products, the page is the first suspect. Then go through the page on a real phone, as a customer would.
A sensible fix. Put the price, variants, delivery information and add to cart near the top. Use images that show the product clearly at phone size. Keep long descriptions, but structure them with headings so they can be scanned.
3. A slow or cluttered buying path
What it looks like. Pop-ups on arrival, slow pages, a cart that sends people back to shopping, account creation forced before checkout, delivery costs that only appear at the last step, and too few payment options.
Why it matters. Every extra step and every surprise at checkout gives a customer a reason to stop.
What to check. The drop-off between cart, checkout and payment. Page speed on mobile, using Google's Core Web Vitals as a guide. Whether delivery costs and timeframes are shown before checkout.
A sensible fix. Remove unnecessary steps and apps, allow guest checkout, show delivery costs early, and offer the payment methods your customers expect. On Shopify and similar platforms, a surprising amount of slowness comes from apps that are installed and forgotten.
4. Ad-to-landing-page mismatch
What it looks like. A product ad that lands on the homepage. A sale ad that lands on a page where the sale price is not visible. A search ad for a category that lands on an unrelated collection.
Why it matters. The customer clicked for a reason. If the page does not immediately confirm they are in the right place, many leave. Google Ads also counts landing page experience as one of the components of Quality Score, so a poor match can cost more per click as well.
What to check. Conversion rate by landing page for each paid campaign. The landing page URL behind every active ad.
A sensible fix. Send each ad to the most specific relevant page, and make sure the offer in the ad is visible on arrival.
5. Weak product content
What it looks like. One or two images on a plain background, supplier descriptions copied across, no dimensions, materials or care information, and no photography of the product in use.
Why it matters. Online, the images and copy have to do the job of picking the product up in a shop. Missing information leads to abandoned carts and to returns.
What to check. Customer questions and returns reasons. They usually show exactly which information is missing.
A sensible fix. Plan photography and copy around what customers need to know: scale, detail, use and context. Our article on product photography and video for ecommerce covers how we plan a shoot for the store, ads and marketplaces at the same time.
6. Poor measurement and tracking
What it looks like. Analytics and ad platforms reporting very different numbers of purchases, duplicated or missing purchase events, revenue that does not match the store's own sales reports, and decisions made from whichever report looks best.
Why it matters. If tracking is wrong, every other fix is guesswork, and ad platforms optimise towards bad data.
What to check. Compare purchases and revenue in the store, analytics and each ad platform for the same period. Test a purchase and confirm it is recorded once, with the right value, everywhere it should be.
A sensible fix. Repair the purchase tracking first, then add server-side tracking such as Meta's Conversions API or Google's enhanced conversions where it is appropriate.
7. Increasing media spend before fixing the store
What it looks like. Sales are flat, so the budget goes up. Cost per purchase rises, and the conclusion is that advertising has stopped working.
Why it matters. More traffic into a store that converts poorly usually means paying more for the same problem. When the store improves, the same budget goes further.
What to check. Whether conversion rate, average order value and repeat purchase have been looked at before the spend decision.
A sensible fix. Work through the store issues above first, then scale spend on the campaigns and products that are proven to work. Our article on how we structure an ecommerce growth funnel explains the order we look at things in.
Where to start
If you only have time for one check, compare conversion rate by device and by traffic source. It usually points straight at the biggest problem: a mobile product page, a mismatched campaign or a broken checkout step. If the problem turns out to be the platform itself, our guide to choosing an ecommerce platform covers what to compare before migrating.
If the store is getting traffic but conversion has stalled, we can review the site and identify where customers are dropping out. Our ecommerce work covers the store, its marketing and its measurement, and larger structural fixes often become a website design project.
Sources
- web.dev (Google), Web Vitals. Checked .
- Google Ads Help, About Quality Score for Search campaigns. Checked .
