Ecommerce CRO checklist: 25 checks before you test

Use it page by page, on your phone first, because that's where most of your visitors are. Tick what's fine, write down what isn't, and you'll have a backlog of fixes and test ideas within an afternoon.

Data first

1. Revenue in your analytics roughly matches your backend for the last month.
2. Add to cart, checkout and purchase events fire once, on every device.
3. You can see conversion rate by device, channel and landing page.

Homepage and navigation

4. A new visitor understands what you sell and why you're different within five seconds.
5. The menu uses the words your customers use, not your internal category names.
6. Search is easy to find, especially on mobile.
7. Delivery costs, delivery time and returns are mentioned before people reach the cart.

Category pages and search

8. Filters match how people actually choose (size, price, brand, use), and work on mobile.
9. Product cards show the information needed to compare: price, key spec, rating, stock.
10. Search handles typos and synonyms, and never shows an empty page without suggestions.
11. Sorting defaults to something useful, not just "newest".

Product pages

12. The main image is large, and people can zoom and see the product in use.
13. Price, delivery time and stock are visible without scrolling.
14. The add to cart button stands out and stays easy to reach on mobile.
15. The description answers real questions. Check your customer service emails for them.
16. Reviews are visible, including some critical ones.
17. Variant choices (size, colour) are clear and show what's in stock before people pick.

Cart and checkout

18. The cart shows the total, including delivery, as early as possible.
19. People can check out as a guest.
20. The form only asks for what you really need, with autofill working.
21. The payment methods your customers expect are there, and visible early.
22. Error messages explain what's wrong right next to the field.
23. Discount code fields don't send people off to search for codes.

Trust and speed

24. Pages load quickly on a normal phone connection, not just on office wifi.
25. Contact details, returns policy and secure payment are easy to find from every page.

What to do with the results

Split what you found into two piles. Clear bugs and obvious friction: just fix them. Things where you're not sure what works better: those are your test ideas. Score them with ICE or PIE, and check each one has enough traffic in the A/B test calculator.

If you'd like a second pair of eyes, this is roughly where a CRO audit starts, with research and data on top.