E-commerce CRO: The Checkout & UX Audit Checklist

E-commerce CRO (conversion rate optimisation) means finding where shoppers drop out of your store and removing the reason. Most lost sales happen in the last few steps: around 70% of carts are abandoned, and nearly half of those shoppers leave because of costs they did not expect. This checklist audits every stage, from first page to order confirmation, so you fix the leaks that cost the most first.

Use it as a self-audit, as a brief for your team, or as the starting point for a proper UX audit. It works for Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and custom stores, and it is written for brands selling across the UK and the EU.

What is e-commerce CRO?

E-commerce CRO is the practice of increasing the share of visitors who buy, by improving the experience rather than buying more traffic. It combines analytics (where do people leave?), UX research (why do they leave?) and testing (did the fix work?). Because it raises revenue from the traffic you already pay for, it usually delivers a faster return than new acquisition spend.

What is a good e-commerce conversion rate?

Most e-commerce stores convert somewhere between 1.5% and 3% of sessions, with mobile usually lower than desktop. To calculate yours, divide orders by sessions and multiply by 100: 600 orders from 30,000 sessions is 2%. Treat industry averages as a sanity check only, and compare yourself with your own trend, segmented by device and channel. Our conversion rate benchmarks break the ranges down further.

The e-commerce UX audit checklist at a glance

Audit the store in the order a shopper experiences it. Each stage below has one job; if it fails that job, the stages after it never get a chance.

The checklist, stage by stage

1. Speed and mobile

• Pages become usable in under 3 seconds on a mid-range phone over 4G.
• Nothing jumps while loading: no late banners, fonts or images pushing buttons around.
• Buttons and links are at least 44px tall and not crowded together.
• Pop-ups do not cover the product on first visit; cookie and email prompts stay small.
• Core Web Vitals pass on the templates that matter most: product, category and checkout.

Speed is not a technical nicety: Deloitte’s Milliseconds Make Millions study found that a 0.1 second improvement in mobile site speed lifted retail conversions by 8.4%. Our Core Web Vitals playbook covers how to get there.

2. Landing and home pages

• Within five seconds a new visitor knows what you sell, who it is for and why you.
• Delivery costs, delivery times and returns are stated plainly above the fold.
• Paid campaigns land on the matching product or category, never the homepage.
• Your best sellers and main categories are one click away.

3. Search, navigation and category pages

• Site search tolerates typos, synonyms and plurals, and never returns an empty page.
• Category names use your customers’ words, not internal ones.
• Filters match how people choose (size, price, use case) and stay applied when going back.
• Product cards show price, key variants and stock status without opening the product.
• Sorting defaults to what sells, not newest first.

4. Product pages

• Images show scale, detail and the product in use, and zoom works on mobile.
• Price, variants, stock and the add to basket button are visible without scrolling on mobile.
• Size guides, fit notes or compatibility answers sit next to the variant picker.
• An estimated delivery date is shown, not just “3 to 5 working days”.
• Reviews are easy to scan, include some critical ones and can be filtered.
• The returns policy is summarised in one line with a link to the detail.

5. Basket

• The full cost, including delivery and any fees, is visible before checkout.
• Quantities and variants can be edited in place; removing an item is easy and undoable.
• The main button to checkout is unmistakable and repeated on long baskets.
• Promo code fields are low key, so shoppers without a code do not leave to hunt for one.
• The basket persists across devices and sessions for logged in and returning shoppers.

6. Checkout

• Guest checkout is the default; account creation is offered after the order.
• Every field earns its place: one name field where possible, no optional questions.
• Postcode or address lookup fills the address, with manual entry as a fallback.
• Errors are explained inline, next to the field, as the shopper types.
• Progress is clear, and the order summary with total cost stays visible.
• The keyboard matches the field on mobile: numbers for card and phone, email for email.
• Nothing surprising appears at the last step: no new fees, no late delivery charges.

7. Payment and trust

• Express wallets your customers use (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Shop Pay) appear early.
• Buy now, pay later options are shown where they fit your price point and market.
• Card forms look native and secure, with recognisable payment logos near the button.
• Cross-border shoppers see prices in their currency and duties explained before paying.
• Contact options and the returns promise are one tap away during checkout.

8. Post-purchase

• The confirmation page and email restate what was ordered, the total and the delivery date.
• Tracking is proactive, so customers do not need to contact support to find their parcel.
• Creating an account takes one field on the confirmation page.
• Returns are simple to start, which makes the next purchase easier to say yes to.

How do you reduce cart abandonment?

You reduce cart abandonment by removing the reasons shoppers give for leaving: unexpected costs, forced accounts, long or confusing checkouts, slow pages and payment worries. Some abandonment is simply browsing and cannot be removed, so focus on the part the experience causes. In order of impact for most stores:

• Show the full cost early. Put delivery costs on the product page and in the basket, not at the final step.
• Offer guest checkout. Ask for an account after the order, never before it.
• Cut the form. Fewer fields, address lookup and inline validation shorten the path for everyone.
• Add express payment. Wallets skip most of the form entirely on mobile.
• Make it fast on mobile. Most traffic is mobile, and slow checkout pages leak the most.
• Recover the rest. A well timed basket reminder email recovers some of the shoppers who were interrupted.

Is a one-page checkout better than a multi-step checkout?

Not automatically. What slows shoppers down is the number of fields and how clearly each one is asked, not the number of pages. A tidy multi-step checkout with visible progress often performs as well as a single page, and it can be easier to follow on mobile. Reduce and simplify the fields first, then test the layout on your own traffic before you rebuild anything.

Shopify CRO: what is different?

Shopify gives you a fast, trusted checkout out of the box, so Shopify CRO is mostly about everything before it. The common leaks are specific to the platform:

• App bloat. Every review, upsell and pop-up app adds scripts. Audit them and remove what does not earn its weight.
• Theme limits. Product and collection templates often hide delivery dates, size help or stock status. Add them.
• Accelerated checkout. Make sure Shop Pay and the other express buttons are enabled and visible on product and basket pages.
• Checkout customisation. Changes inside checkout are limited to what Shopify allows, so trust and clarity work happens earlier in the journey.

How to run an e-commerce UX audit in five steps

• 1. Map the funnel in analytics. In GA4, build a funnel from product view to add to basket, begin checkout and purchase, split by device. The biggest drop is where you start.
• 2. Review each stage against this checklist. Walk the store as a new customer on a phone, then on desktop, and note every point of friction.
• 3. Watch real sessions. Session recordings and heatmaps show where people hesitate, rage click or give up, which analytics alone cannot.
• 4. Prioritise. Score each issue by impact, confidence and effort. Fix the cheap, high impact problems first.
• 5. Test and measure. A/B test the changes that carry risk, ship the obvious fixes, and track the funnel week by week.

If you want a broader template for non-store products, our general UX audit checklist covers navigation, forms, content and accessibility, and the principles behind converting store design are in e-commerce design that increases conversion.

When should you hire an e-commerce CRO agency?

Bring in an e-commerce CRO agency when you have steady traffic but conversion sits below your category, when the funnel shows a clear leak your team cannot explain, before a replatform or redesign, or when nobody in house owns the experience end to end. A good partner starts with research and a prioritised audit, not a list of button colours, and measures success in revenue per visitor.

At Biotik, that is how we work: a focused UX audit of the store, then design and testing through conversion rate optimisation, delivered by a small senior team. For what an audit typically costs, see our UX audit cost guide, and for the revenue at stake, the cost of bad UX.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate an e-commerce conversion rate?

Divide the number of orders by the number of sessions in the same period and multiply by 100. A store with 30,000 sessions and 600 orders in a month converts at 2%. Segment the figure by device, channel and new versus returning visitors before you judge it, because a single blended number hides where the real leaks are.

How can I increase my e-commerce conversion rate quickly?

Start with the checkout, because that is where committed buyers leave. Show the full cost, including delivery, before the checkout; offer guest checkout; cut every form field you do not need; add the express wallets your customers use; and fix mobile speed. These changes remove friction for people who already want to buy, so they usually pay back faster than redesigning the homepage.

Should I force customers to create an account?

No. Forced account creation is one of the most common reasons shoppers abandon a checkout. Offer guest checkout as the default path, then invite customers to save their details with a single password field on the confirmation page, once the order is already placed.

What is a good cart abandonment rate?

The average documented cart abandonment rate is around 70%, according to the Baymard Institute, so a figure in the 60s is healthy for most stores. Much abandonment is browsing behaviour you cannot remove, which is why the useful target is the part caused by the experience: surprise costs, forced accounts, long forms and slow pages.

How long does an e-commerce UX audit take?

A focused e-commerce UX audit typically takes 5 to 10 working days, depending on the size of the catalogue, the number of templates and whether it includes analytics and session recording analysis. The output should be a prioritised list of fixes ranked by impact and effort, not just a list of problems.

Is a one-page checkout better than a multi-step checkout?

Not automatically. The number of fields and the clarity of each step matter more than the number of pages. A well-structured multi-step checkout with clear progress often performs as well as a single page. Reduce and simplify the fields first, then test the layout on your own traffic.