To optimize a Shopify store for conversions, start with the parts of the store you fully control: the product page, the cart drawer and your payment options. Shopify locks most of checkout unless you are on Plus, so the biggest early wins usually come from the buy box, trust and shipping messaging near the add-to-cart button, and turning on the right express payment methods. Then test those changes, either with Shopify's native Rollouts or a testing app, instead of trusting best-practice lists.
This guide uses real results from our database of ecommerce A/B tests, most of them run on Shopify stores, to show what to change first. If you want to know where your store stands before you start, see our Shopify conversion rate benchmarks.
The Shopify-specific levers: theme, apps and checkout limits
Every Shopify store has the same three levers, and each one has its own limits.
- The theme. Your theme controls the homepage, collection pages, product pages and usually the cart drawer. This is where you have the most freedom, either through the theme editor or by editing Liquid code.
- Apps. Reviews, upsells, bundles, page builders and testing tools all plug in as apps. They are fast to install but add scripts, cost and another vendor to manage.
- Checkout. Checkout is hosted by Shopify. On standard plans you can change branding such as your logo, colors and fonts in the checkout and accounts editor, but adding custom blocks to the information, shipping and payment steps requires Shopify Plus.
The theme itself can be the biggest lever of all. Kasper Dolk tested a new Shopify theme with a BOGO offer against the old theme for a fashion brand: conversion rate rose 44.54% (from 2.44% to 3.53%) with a 99.7% probability to beat the old theme. Note that the offer changed along with the design, so the lift can't be credited to the theme alone.
Small theme changes matter too. Dave Diederen found that a sticky add-to-cart bar that scrolls shoppers back to the main buy box lifted conversion rate 11.67% and revenue per visitor 17.39%. Dave's point was that the version which scrolls back to the buy box beat a button that drops the product straight into the cart. Our sticky add-to-cart guide covers the patterns in more detail.
Payment settings are a lever many owners overlook because they are a toggle, not a design change. Dave Diederen worked with a brand that sat below 1% conversion rate for months after a full rebuild of the home, collection and product pages. Enabling Shop Pay with buy now, pay later moved conversion rate above 1%, and it stayed there.
What Shopify stores test most, from our data
Our database holds 285 ecommerce test results. Here is where they ran:
| Page type | Tests in our database |
|---|---|
| Product page | 128 |
| Collection page | 28 |
| Homepage | 27 |
| Site-wide | 23 |
| Checkout | 19 |
| Landing page | 19 |
| Cart | 18 |
| Navigation and menu | 14 |
Almost half of all tests are on the product page. That matches where practitioners think the money is: it is the page with the most traffic that still has buying intent, and it sits fully inside your theme.
By element, the most tested topics are headlines and copy (45 tests), hero sections (37), product images (37), layout (33), reviews (33), shipping messaging (32) and pricing and discounts (31). Shipping messaging is worth calling out because it is cheap to test on Shopify. Dave Diederen saw a 26.62% conversion rate lift from adding "Ships by [date]" and "Free shipping over $X" below the add-to-cart button.
Not every "obvious" change wins. Dave Diederen tested skipping the cart and sending shoppers straight to checkout, and conversion rate fell 10.23%. Dave's take: the cart is your last sales page, where upsells, free shipping progress and trust signals do their work.
Express checkout buttons show the same pattern. Milos saw a 9.26% revenue per visitor lift (+$11,970/month) by adding Shop Pay, PayPal and Apple Pay buttons under the buy box. Oliver Kenyon got the opposite result on another store: removing the Shop Pay "Buy Now" button and adding payment icons under Add to Cart was worth $44,562/month. Same element, different stores, different answers. That is the case for testing.
Shopify Plus vs standard checkout options
Shopify's pricing page lists Basic at $39/month, Grow at $105/month and Advanced at $399/month on monthly billing, and Plus starting at $2,300/month, as of November 2026. For CRO, the main difference is what you can put inside checkout.
| Checkout option | Basic, Grow, Advanced | Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Logo, colors and fonts | Yes | Yes |
| App blocks on Thank you and Order status pages | Yes | Yes |
| Custom blocks on information, shipping and payment steps | No | Yes |
| Advanced checkout customization features | No | Yes |
The old way to customize checkout, the checkout.liquid file, is gone. Shopify stopped supporting it for in-checkout pages on August 13, 2024, and for the Thank you and Order status pages on August 28, 2025. Checkout changes now go through checkout extensibility, which is app-based.
Plus stores have tested a lot inside checkout. Kasper Dolk reports that a checkbox upsell in the Plus checkout had a 50% take rate for fashion clients, meaning half of orders added it. Dave Diederen saw a 17.96% conversion rate lift and a 23.13% revenue per visitor lift from showing customer reviews on the checkout page.
Urgency in checkout is mixed. Kasper Dolk's post-purchase survey found that a checkout timer felt like too much pressure for a Dutch audience, and removing the countdown timer lifted conversion rate 25.61% and revenue per visitor 26.18%. Dave Diederen has results on both sides: one checkout timer added 3.16% revenue per visitor, and another cut it by 7.1%.
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.
Should you upgrade to Plus for checkout access? For most stores, no. At $2,300/month, Plus only makes sense for CRO if the extra checkout options would pay for the plan, and that depends on your order volume. Exhaust the product page and cart first, since those are open on every plan.
Apps vs custom code
Most Shopify CRO changes can be built three ways: theme settings, an app, or custom Liquid code. Each has trade-offs.
- Theme settings are free and fast, but you get only what your theme designer built.
- Apps such as page builders, review apps and upsell tools let non-developers ship changes in hours. The cost is monthly fees and extra scripts on every page.
- Custom code needs a developer, but it adds nothing to your app stack and gives full control.
The build method can change results on its own. Oliver Kenyon rebuilt a client's best landing page natively in Shopify with Liquid and tested it against the exact same page made in a landing page builder. Same copy, images, structure and offer. The native version won: +9.9% conversion rate, +20.9% revenue per visitor and +10.0% average order value. Oliver says it is one of many such wins.
That does not mean page builders are always wrong. They make sense when you need to launch many landing pages for ads and have no developer. Two popular options:
- PageFly has a free plan with 1 page slot, and paid plans from $24/month, per its pricing page as of November 2026.
- GemPages has a free plan with 1 published page, and paid plans from $29/month ($23/month billed yearly), per its pricing page as of November 2026. Its A/B testing product, GemX, is sold separately.
Tools mentioned here
You only need one A/B testing tool to copy this result. Here's where we'd start.
Also works well
Some of these are affiliate links. We only list tools practitioners actually use to run tests like these.
Who page builders are not for: stores with a developer on hand, and stores whose ad traffic lands on a few key pages. In those cases, building natively is worth testing, given Oliver Kenyon's result. If you use a builder, run the page against a native version before committing to it.
Testing on Shopify: native Rollouts vs apps
Since June 5, 2026, Shopify can A/B test inside the admin through a feature called Rollouts, under Markets > Rollouts. You can schedule changes, roll them out to a share of visitors, and run Experiments that compare a control and a treatment.
According to Shopify's requirements page, the limits are:
- Rollouts need the Basic plan or higher, and Experiments need Grow or higher.
- A rollout can include theme replacements, checkout and customer account configurations, catalog changes such as prices, and discounts.
- You can't change Liquid templates as part of a rollout, and vintage themes and headless storefronts aren't supported.
- Experiments apply only to the online store, not other sales channels.
Native testing suits big changes, such as a new theme like Kasper Dolk's redesign test. It is a weaker fit for single-element tests, like moving reviews higher on the product page, because you would have to duplicate and edit a whole theme for each idea.
Testing apps fill that gap. They let you change one section or element, target specific pages and devices, and run several tests at once. The downsides are monthly cost and, for client-side tools, a script that has to load before the variant shows. Our Shopify A/B testing apps roundup compares the options, and our guide to A/B testing on Shopify covers setup and sample size.
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.
A sensible order for most stores: test the product page buy box first, then the cart drawer, then payment options, then the theme. If you would rather have someone run the program for you, browse the practitioners in our CRO experts directory.
Questions
What is Shopify conversion rate optimization?
Shopify conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of testing changes to your theme, apps, cart and checkout so more visitors buy. On Shopify it usually starts with the product page and cart drawer, because those sit fully inside your theme on every plan.
What should I change first to improve my Shopify conversion rate?
Start with the product page buy box: shipping messaging near the add-to-cart button, reviews above the fold and a sticky add-to-cart bar. In our database, Dave Diederen saw +26.62% conversion rate from adding ships-by-date and free shipping messaging below the add-to-cart button.
Do I need Shopify Plus to optimize checkout?
Not for basic changes. All plans can change checkout branding and add app blocks to the Thank you and Order status pages. Adding custom blocks to the information, shipping and payment steps requires Shopify Plus.
Can you A/B test natively on Shopify?
Yes. Since June 2026, Shopify Rollouts lets you A/B test whole themes and checkout configurations from the admin. Experiments need the Grow plan or higher, and you can't change Liquid templates as part of a rollout, so element-level tests still usually need an app.
Are page builders bad for Shopify conversion rates?
Not always, but test it. Oliver Kenyon rebuilt a landing page natively in Shopify and saw +9.9% conversion rate and +20.9% revenue per visitor against the same page made in a page builder.
Sources
- help.shopify.com/en/manual/checkout-settings/customize-checkout-configurations/checkout-st
- shopify.dev/docs/api/checkout-ui-extensions/latest
- www.shopify.com/pricing
- changelog.shopify.com/posts/the-checkout-liquid-theme-file-is-being-deprecated
- changelog.shopify.com/posts/schedule-publish-and-a-b-test-new-themes-and-checkout-and-cust
- help.shopify.com/en/manual/markets/rollouts/requirements-and-considerations
- pagefly.io/pages/pricing
- gempages.net/pricing