The story below is illustrative. It is a composite based on patterns we see when we audit Shopify stores. The numbers are examples, not data from any one store.
Imagine Dan. He runs a Shopify store selling refurbished tech in the UK. Traffic is steady, his ad spend is climbing, and the product range is good. Yet orders are flat.
One evening he does something he rarely does: he buys from his own store, on his phone, as if he were a stranger. He picks a product at £100.00. The product page says £100.00. The cart says £100.00. Then he taps checkout and the total jumps by £20.00 in “estimated taxes”.
He winces. If it surprised him, what did it do to the customers who left?
That evening, Dan found one of the most common Shopify store mistakes there is. It was not the only one. This guide walks through five, in the order we would fix them, with steps you can follow yourself. If you would rather have someone else do it, there is an offer at the end.
A note on evidence: the examples here are illustrations built from common patterns in Shopify audits. They are not rules, and your store will differ. Measure your own store before acting.
Mistake 1: Showing the real price only at checkout
The story moment. Dan’s customer saw £100.00 on the product page and £100.00 in the cart. The cart said “shipping calculated at checkout”. At checkout, £20.00 of “estimated taxes” appeared. Nobody likes being surprised at the final step.
What goes wrong. Shoppers decide to buy based on the price they were shown. When the total changes late, the price feels dishonest, even if the charge is perfectly legitimate. Extra costs appearing at the end of the journey are widely reported as a leading reason people abandon checkout. The Baymard Institute has published research on this; check their current figures directly before quoting any number.
Why it hurts conversion. This is a trust problem and a decision problem. The shopper has already compared you with other tabs. A late surprise sends them straight back to those tabs.
How to fix it:
- Do the test yourself. Add a product to the cart, go to checkout as a UK customer, and note every line that appears for the first time.
- Check your tax settings. In Shopify admin, open Settings > Taxes and duties and confirm whether prices include tax for your market. UK shoppers expect to see VAT-inclusive prices. If your catalogue prices are ex-VAT but you charge VAT at the end, that is where the surprise comes from.
- Say it early. If prices include tax, state it near the price (“Inc. VAT”). If they do not, say so clearly.
- Show shipping status before checkout. A short line on the product page and in the cart, such as “Free UK delivery over £X” or “Delivery from £X, calculated for your address”, removes the guess. Use your real rates.
- Re-run the test on desktop and mobile, and check that cart and checkout totals match what you promised.
Related reading: Shopify checkout optimisation is a whole topic in itself. Start with price clarity and build from there.
Mistake 2: Putting sold-out products at the top of your collection pages
The story moment. Dan clicks into his main collection. The first page has many products, and a good share of the first screen is marked sold out. The top rows offer him nothing to buy.
What goes wrong. Collection pages are where shoppers browse and compare. If the first products they see are unavailable, the page feels empty and your best-looking items are wasted. Shoppers do not read a long list; they judge the top few rows.
Why it hurts conversion. Every sold-out card is a dead click. It slows discovery, and on a store with one-off or refurbished stock it can make the whole range look picked over. This is a core part of Shopify product page conversion: customers who reach a product page they cannot buy rarely come back.
How to fix it:
- Change the default sort. In Products > Collections, check the sort order. “Best selling” often keeps sold-out bestsellers at the top. Consider a manual order or an “In stock first” approach.
- Push out-of-stock items to the end. Many Shopify themes have a setting for this, and several collection-sorting apps do the same. Test the one you choose before you commit.
- Hide what will not return. If a product is discontinued, unpublish it or redirect it to the closest alternative, rather than leaving a dead page.
- Add back-in-stock alerts on any sold-out product you will restock. This turns a lost visit into an email address.
- Show a “similar available items” block on sold-out product pages.
Mistake 3: No visible reviews or ratings on product pages
The story moment. Dan’s best-selling product has happy customers. But on its product page there is no star rating anywhere. Behind the scenes, the page’s structured data describes the product but not its offer or rating.
What goes wrong. For a tech purchase, especially a refurbished one, shoppers want proof from other people. With no visible rating, they are asked to trust your word alone. The page’s code also tells search engines little: a common setup has basic Product schema only, with no Offer and no AggregateRating.
Why it hurts conversion. Reviews do two jobs. On the page, they reduce doubt at the moment of decision. In search results, valid review markup can make your listing eligible for star ratings, which helps people choose your result. Google decides whether to show them, so treat that as eligibility, not a promise.
How to fix it:
- Choose a review app that fits your theme and collects verified reviews. Ask for reviews by email after delivery.
- Display the average rating near the product title and the full reviews lower down. Put it above the fold on mobile.
- Add structured data. Product schema should include
offers(price, currency, availability) andaggregateRating(rating value and review count). Many review apps do this automatically; some themes also output their own, which creates duplicates. Check for that. - Validate it. Use Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator on a live product URL.
- Only mark up real reviews. Never mark up reviews you wrote yourself or imported without permission. Follow Google’s review snippet guidelines.
Mistake 4: Letting apps and third-party scripts slow your store down
The story moment. Dan has tried a lot of apps over the years. A popup tool, a loyalty widget, two analytics tags, a chat plugin, a currency converter. Some he forgot he installed. When he finally tests his homepage, it makes far more requests than he expected and is slow to settle.
Measure, do not guess. Page-speed numbers vary with location, connection and time of day. Use a tool such as PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest on your own pages to get your own baseline. Do not compare your store with anyone else’s score.
What goes wrong. This is Shopify app bloat. Each app can add scripts, styles and requests, and many keep running after you “uninstall” them if their code is left in your theme. Slow pages hurt Shopify page speed conversion: shoppers wait, get frustrated, and leave. Google publishes guidance and its own research on how speed relates to engagement; read the current Core Web Vitals documentation rather than relying on a quoted percentage.
Why it hurts conversion. Heavy pages delay the moment a shopper can tap “Add to cart”, especially on mobile networks. It also hurts the Shopify mobile conversion rate, where devices are less powerful than your laptop.
How to fix it (and how to prove it worked):
- Measure first. Run your homepage, a product page and a collection page through PageSpeed Insights and WebPageTest. Note the Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS), total requests and page weight. Save the results.
- List every app and ask three questions: does it make money or save time, is anyone using it, and does it have a lighter alternative?
- Remove what fails. Uninstall, then check your theme code (Online Store > Themes > Edit code) for leftover snippets. Take a backup of the theme first.
- Defer or delay non-critical scripts. Chat, popups and heatmaps rarely need to load before the page is usable. Load them after interaction or after a short delay, where your tools allow.
- Compress and size images, and avoid autoplay video above the fold.
- Measure again with the same tools, from the same location, on the same pages. Keep the before and after side by side.
If you want to reduce apps on your Shopify store safely, do one at a time and re-test after each, so you know what caused any change.
Mistake 5: Widgets that get in the way, and trust issues at checkout
The story moment. Back at Dan’s cart on desktop, a chat widget sits over the bottom-right corner, exactly where the order total is. Then, at checkout, he notices a marketing email box is already ticked.
What goes wrong. Two small things, each with a cost:
- A widget covers key information. A chat widget can sit on top of the cart total on desktop. Shoppers cannot buy what they cannot read, and a covered total looks careless.
- A pre-ticked marketing opt-in. A box ticked in advance is a trust issue for shoppers, and it may be a consent risk. UK and EU rules on electronic marketing and data protection are strict about valid consent. This is not a legal finding. Check your setup with a legal adviser or data protection specialist.
Why it hurts conversion. Checkout is where shoppers are most cautious. Anything that looks pushy, hides a number or reads as a trick lowers confidence at the worst moment.
How to fix it:
- Test every key page (product, cart, checkout entry) at common desktop and mobile sizes, with every widget open and closed.
- Move or minimise the widget. Shift it away from totals and buttons, or show it only on help pages and after a delay.
- Untick marketing consent by default. Make opting in a clear, optional choice with plain wording on what they will receive.
- Show trust signals where doubt peaks: delivery and returns summary, warranty, accepted payment methods and contact details close to the buy button and the cart total.
- Review your Shopify checkout settings (Settings > Checkout) for marketing options, and check how your customer-privacy settings and cookie banner work together.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my Shopify store not converting?
There is rarely one cause. Common ones are price surprises at checkout, weak product pages without proof, slow pages, poor mobile experience and unclear delivery information. Start by walking through your own store as a customer and noting each point of doubt, then work through the five mistakes above.
How do I reduce apps on my Shopify store?
Measure your speed first, list every installed app, and remove those that are unused or duplicate another tool. Uninstall one at a time, check your theme for leftover code, and re-test after each change. See Mistake 4.
What is a good Shopify conversion rate benchmark?
Benchmarks vary widely by industry, price point, traffic source and device, and published figures differ. We do not quote a single number here. Shopify and independent research firms publish benchmark data; use a primary source and compare against your own store’s history first.
Fix the leaks before you pay for more traffic
Dan’s story is illustrative, but the pattern is real: small problems stacked on top of each other quietly cost sales. Fixing them one by one works. Knowing which to fix first is the hard part.
That is what a Shopify CRO audit is for. Shopikings is a Shopify CRO agency working with e-commerce and local businesses in the UK, US and Canada. Our e-Commerce CRO Audit is $299, and it includes a free 30-minute consultation where we walk you through what we found and how we would improve your conversion rate.
Visit shopikings.com to see how we work with Shopify stores.
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Shopikings Team