An ecommerce CRO checklist should follow the path a shopper takes: sitewide elements first, then collection pages, the product page, cart, checkout and post-purchase. At each step, check for missing information, extra friction and unclear offers. Then treat every failed check as an A/B test idea, not a guaranteed fix. Each check below is tied to a real test result from our database.
The order matters. A sitewide problem touches every session, so fix it first. After that, work down the funnel, because a leak on the collection page means fewer people ever reach your product page.
A note on the numbers: every result here comes from one store. A change that won for one brand can lose for yours, as the countdown timer results in the checkout section show. Use this list to find what to test, then test it.
1. Sitewide checks
These elements show up on every page, so small problems here add up across your whole store.
- Your announcement bar names an offer and links somewhere. Dave Diederen saw +14.46% CVR after adding a "Shop Now" CTA to the announcement bar and linking it to the offer. A bar that says "Sale on" but goes nowhere wastes your most-seen spot.
- Trust signals sit right under the navigation. Ruben of Tailored Commerce added a trust bar below the navigation (local shipping, "patented since 2014", 34,000+ customers) and recorded +55% conversions.
- Shipping costs are clear and set on purpose. In Baymard Institute's survey, 40% of US shoppers who abandoned an order did so because extra costs were too high. Free shipping isn't always the answer, though: Dave Diederen saw +9.17% RPV after removing a free-shipping threshold and charging shipping on every order.
- Text is easy to read for your actual audience. If your buyers skew older, check font size and images. Bigger text and age-matched photos both won RPV tests in our database.
- Pages pass Core Web Vitals on mobile. Google's "good" thresholds are an LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads.
- Navigation only holds links that lead to a sale. Peter Christensen removed the "Track Order" link from the main navigation and saw +30% RPV.
- You haven't removed list-building tools without testing. This check cuts the other way. Dave Diederen removed an email popup, and that version lost: -20.51% RPV.
2. Collection page checks
Collection pages are where shoppers pick a product. The main questions: can they see products right away, and can they tell which ones are worth clicking?
- Products appear above the fold. Oliver Kenyon shrank the top section of collection pages so products showed above the fold and measured +$45K/month. Tall banners and long intro copy push the grid down.
- Shoppers can add to cart from the card. Oliver Kenyon's test of Quick Add buttons on collection product cards came in at +$135,307/month.
- One clear bestseller stands out. Dave Diederen put a "Bestseller" badge on only the single #1 product instead of 3-4 products and saw +$96,856/month. When every card has a badge, none of them stands out.
- Filters are easy to reach on mobile. Make sure shoppers can filter and sort without scrolling back to the top.
- Each card shows the price, rating and main image clearly. Hidden prices and cropped images make shoppers click through just to check basic facts.
Want results like this on your store?
Oliver Kenyon at Conversionwise. Oliver co-founded Conversionwise and has spent 13 years helping ecommerce brands turn clicks into customers.
3. Product page checks
Product page tests make up the largest share of our database. For the full list, see our product page checklist. These are the checks that matter most:
- The price sits directly under the product title. Dave Diederen reports a ~90% win rate across 20+ brands for this change.
- The title states a benefit, not just a product name. Changing the title to a benefit-led "Achieve [outcome] with [product]" format gave Dave Diederen +15.61% CVR.
- Reviews show up early. In another of Dave Diederen's tests, moving the existing review section directly below the above-the-fold section lifted CVR by +11.76%.
- Delivery timing is shown below the add-to-cart button. A shipping info bar below the ATC with a "Ships by" date and localized country gave Dave Diederen a 10%+ CVR uplift. Baymard lists slow delivery as the second most common reason for abandoning an order, at 20%.
- Your guarantee and returns policy sit near the button. Oliver Kenyon added 60-day guarantee and easy returns blocks under Add to Cart and saw +€63,000/month.
- Bundle offers are easy to understand. Some offers backfire. Milos changed a 2-pack offer to "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" at the same price, and RPV fell by -52.38% (-$104,679/month).
Want results like this on your store?
Dave Diederen at Syntra Labs. Dave builds and tests Shopify stores at Syntra Labs, and shares most results in public.
4. Cart checks
By the time shoppers reach the cart, they want to buy. Your job here is to answer last-minute doubts and stay out of the way.
- Reassurance sits under the checkout button. Dave Diederen added "30-day money-back guarantee" under the checkout button and saw +£68,640/month.
- Free-shipping messages are worded as a reward. Changing "Free shipping will be applied at checkout" to a "Congrats! You unlocked FREE shipping" message gave Dave Diederen +11.08% CVR.
- Nothing is pre-ticked that adds to the total. Hiding a pre-ticked shipping protection checkbox gave Dave Diederen +6.39% CVR. Baymard found that 12% of shoppers abandon when they can't see or calculate the total cost up front.
- The cart step still exists. Skipping the cart can sound like less friction, but when Dave Diederen sent shoppers straight to checkout, CVR fell -10.23%.
- Cart upsells are relevant and easy to skip. One add-on that fits the order beats a carousel of random products.
5. Checkout checks
Baymard puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at 70.22%. Among shoppers who abandoned, 18% left because the site wanted them to create an account and 17% because checkout was too long or complicated. Our checkout checklist goes deeper; these are the core checks.
- Guest checkout is available and the form is short. Baymard counts 23.48 form elements in the average US checkout, against an ideal of about 12-14.
- Payment options are visible next to express checkout. Dave Diederen showed card and other payment method icons under the express checkout buttons and saw +7.81% RPV. Shoppers who don't use Shop Pay or PayPal need to see that cards work too.
- Trust points sit below the pay button. Adding 3 USPs (guarantee, orders shipped, delivery speed) below the Pay Now button gave Dave Diederen +9.90% CVR. Peter Christensen added a customer trust count and 3 USPs with icons, and checkout conversion moved from 69% to 76% (the test was still running).
- Social proof carries into checkout. In one of Dave Diederen's tests, showing customer reviews on the checkout page gave +17.96% CVR.
- Urgency elements have been tested, not assumed. Countdown timers show why every check should become a test. Dave Diederen saw +3.16% RPV adding a countdown timer to checkout on one store and -7.1% RPV on another. Kasper Dolk removed a checkout countdown timer and recorded CVR +25.61% and RPV +26.18%.
Want results like this on your store?
Kasper Dolk at Maison Commerce. Kasper runs Maison Commerce, which builds CRO programs, landing pages and themes for fast-growing ecommerce brands such as ICON and HiStrips.
6. Post-purchase checks
After the order, the customer has just shown they trust you, which makes it a good moment for one more offer.
- A one-click upsell follows the order. Dave Diederen added a 1-click complementary post-purchase upsell and saw a 16.64% upsell conversion rate. The key word is complementary: offer something that goes with what they just bought.
- A short survey asks what almost stopped them. One question on the thank-you page ("What nearly kept you from buying today?") gives you ready-made test ideas for the checks above.
- Order confirmation emails repeat the delivery date and returns policy. This sets clear expectations and cuts down on support tickets.
7. How to turn a failed check into a test
A failed check tells you where to look. It doesn't tell you the fix works on your store. Here is how to turn it into an experiment.
- Write the problem as a hypothesis. For example: "Because shipping costs only appear at checkout, showing a delivery date and cost under the add-to-cart button will raise revenue per visitor." Our guide to writing an A/B test hypothesis covers the format.
- Find a matching test. Search the test database for the same page type and element. Look at both wins and losses.
- Check you have enough traffic. Put your current conversion rate and the lift you hope to detect into the sample size calculator. If the test would take months, test a bigger change or a page with more traffic.
- Pick revenue per visitor as your main metric. Several results above, like the free-shipping and bundle tests, would look very different judged on conversion rate alone.
- Run full weeks and don't stop early. Weekday and weekend shoppers behave differently, and early leads often fade.
- Log the result, win or lose. A losing test still tells you something about your customers.
If you'd rather have someone run the whole process, a structured CRO audit works through this list on your store and ranks the fixes by likely impact. The practitioners behind these results take on client work.
Want results like this on your store?
Peter Christensen at Scaling CRO. Peter runs Scaling CRO, which has run 1,000+ A/B tests for 8-figure ecommerce brands.
Questions
What should an ecommerce CRO checklist include?
Checks for every step a shopper takes: sitewide elements like announcement bars, trust signals, shipping costs and page speed, then collection pages, product pages, cart, checkout and post-purchase. Each check should point to something you can test.
In what order should I work through a CRO checklist?
Start with sitewide issues because they affect every session, then go down the funnel from collection pages to checkout. A leak higher up means fewer shoppers ever reach the later steps.
Is there a Shopify CRO checklist?
Yes, this checklist works for Shopify stores. Several of the cited tests use Shopify features, such as Shop Pay express checkout buttons and Shopify Plus checkout upsells.
Should I make every change on a conversion checklist right away?
No. Treat each failed check as a test idea. The same change can win on one store and lose on another: a checkout countdown timer gave +3.16% RPV in one of Dave Diederen's tests and -7.1% RPV in another.
What is the most common reason shoppers abandon checkout?
In Baymard Institute's survey, extra costs being too high was the top reason, cited by 40% of US shoppers who abandoned an order. Slow delivery came second at 20%.