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How to Increase Shopify Conversions: 10 Proven Strategies

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Ayo is the founder of Why Matters, a Shopify agency based in Brighton. With over 20 years of experience in ecommerce, digital marketing, and ROI-driven growth, he has helped hundreds of Shopify brands build, launch, and scale their online stores. Why Matters is a certified Shopify, Klaviyo, and Recharge partner.

July 11, 2021

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Key Takeaways

  • The average Shopify store converts between 1.5% and 2%. Across 265 Shopify stores we audited, the median conversion rate was 1.7%, which means roughly 98 of every 100 visitors leave without buying.
  • Product pages and checkout are where the money is won or lost. Fix those before spending anything on the strategies further down this list.
  • Unexpected costs at checkout are the single most common reason carts are abandoned, and showing shipping early costs nothing to fix.
  • Abandoned cart email sequences typically recover 5 to 15% of lost sales and are the highest revenue-per-email automation available to any store.
  • Reviews are the strongest trust signal on a product page, and they also generate AggregateRating schema that puts star ratings in your search results.
  • Loyalty and referral programmes generate repeat revenue at a fraction of the cost of acquiring a new customer.
  • None of these strategies requires additional advertising spend. They improve the return on the traffic you are already paying for.

Quick Answer

To increase Shopify conversions, start with your product pages and checkout, because that is where purchase decisions are made and abandoned. Make the add-to-cart button visible without scrolling, show shipping costs before checkout rather than revealing them at the final step, display customer reviews on the page rather than hiding them in a tab, and remove any forced account creation. Then add an abandoned cart email sequence, which typically recovers 5 to 15% of lost sales. Once those foundations are working, layer on loyalty, referrals and social proof. A store converting at 1.5% that reaches 3% doubles its revenue from exactly the same traffic, with no increase in advertising spend.

Table of Contents

The average Shopify store converts between 1.5% and 2% of visitors into customers. Our own data puts it at the lower end of that range: across 265 Shopify stores we audited at Why Matters, the median conversion rate was 1.7%. That means for every 100 people who visit your store, roughly 98 leave without buying. The difference between a store converting at 1.5% and one converting at 3.5% is not more traffic. It is a better experience for the traffic you already have.

This guide covers the ten strategies we use with clients to close that gap, based on what we have seen work across hundreds of Shopify store builds and optimisations. They are ordered by impact, so start at the top.

If your conversion rate is already strong and traffic volume is the bottleneck, our guide on how to get more traffic to your Shopify store covers the other side of the equation. If you want to understand what your conversion rate actually means before changing anything, start with why your Shopify conversion rate matters and how to measure it.

1. Optimise Your Product Pages for Conversion

Every other strategy on this list drives visitors toward your product pages. If those pages do not convert, nothing else matters, which is why this comes first rather than last.

The elements that separate high-converting product pages from low-converting ones:

  • A clear, prominent call to action. The add-to-cart button should be visible without scrolling on both mobile and desktop. This sounds obvious and is wrong on a surprising number of stores.
  • High-quality images from multiple angles. Include lifestyle context showing the product in use, and enable zoom so visitors can inspect detail without leaving the page.
  • A detailed, benefit-led description. Answer the questions a buyer has before purchasing: materials, dimensions, care instructions, delivery times. Every unanswered question is a reason to leave and compare elsewhere.
  • Visible customer reviews. Displayed on the page, not hidden behind a tab that nobody clicks.
  • Trust signals. Clear return policy, delivery timeframe, and payment security badges, positioned near the buy button rather than buried in the footer.
  • Breadcrumb navigation. Shows visitors where they are and lets them navigate back to category pages instead of hitting the back button.

Mobile deserves separate attention rather than being treated as a smaller version of desktop, since it is where the majority of your traffic arrives. Our guides on Shopify product page design and mobile-first Shopify design go deeper on both.

2. Remove Friction from Your Checkout

Your checkout is the last thing between a visitor and a purchase, and it is where the highest-intent traffic on your entire store gets lost. A customer who reaches checkout has already decided they want the product. Anything that makes them reconsider at that point is pure wasted opportunity.

The friction points that cost the most sales:

  • Unexpected shipping costs. This is consistently the leading cause of cart abandonment. If a visitor sees a £30 product and a £35 total at checkout, many will leave rather than feel caught out. Show shipping costs on the product page, or offer free shipping above a threshold, typically £30 to £50 for UK stores.
  • Forced account creation. Requiring registration before purchase is one of the most damaging things you can do to conversion rate. Offer guest checkout as the default and invite account creation after the order is placed.
  • Too many form fields. Every field is a chance to abandon. Ask only for what you genuinely need to fulfil and contact.
  • Limited payment options. Offer the methods your customers expect. Shopify Payments covers cards, and adding PayPal plus a Buy Now Pay Later option such as Klarna or Clearpay removes a reason to hesitate on higher-value orders.
  • No visible progress indicator. Customers abandon when they cannot tell how much longer the process will take.

Test your own checkout on a phone, on mobile data rather than wifi, as though you were a first-time customer. Most merchants have not done this since launch, and it is usually where the problems are.

3. Use Customer Reviews as Your Strongest Trust Signal

Social proof is one of the strongest conversion levers available. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey found that 97% of consumers use reviews to guide their purchase decisions, and 85% say positive reviews make them more likely to use a business. Your best sales representatives are not on your payroll. They are your happy customers.

Make it easy for buyers to leave a review by sending a friendly post-purchase email at around day 14, offering a small discount or loyalty points in return, and featuring reviews prominently on product pages rather than burying them in a tab.

Apps like Judge.me, Loox, and Yotpo integrate with Shopify and automate the collection and display process. Reviews also generate AggregateRating schema, which displays star ratings directly in your Google search results and measurably increases organic click-through rate even when your ranking position does not change.

4. Recover Abandoned Carts with Smart Email Sequences

Cart abandonment is the single largest source of lost revenue for most Shopify stores. Industry data consistently shows that 60 to 70% of shoppers who add items to their cart leave without completing the purchase. They are not uninterested. They are distracted, comparing options, or simply lost the moment.

Automated abandoned cart emails bring them back. According to Klaviyo's 2026 Omnichannel Benchmark Report, automated email flows generate nearly 41% of total email revenue from just 5.3% of sends, and abandoned cart flows are typically the highest revenue-per-email flow available to any Shopify store.

Email Timing What It Should Do
Email 1 1 to 2 hours after abandonment Friendly reminder showing the cart contents. No discount yet, since many recover without one.
Email 2 24 hours later Add social proof and address common objections such as shipping cost or return policy.
Email 3 48 to 72 hours later Final nudge with urgency, or a small incentive if your margins allow it.

Klaviyo is the strongest platform for building these flows on Shopify, with native integration that pulls cart data, product images and customer behaviour directly into the email. For a full guide, see our Shopify email marketing guide. Worth checking your deliverability at the same time, since recovery emails that land in spam recover nothing, which our guide on how to stop your Shopify emails landing in spam covers in full.

5. Build a Loyalty Programme That Rewards Repeat Purchases

Acquiring a new customer costs five to seven times more than retaining an existing one. A well-structured loyalty programme increases both retention and average order value by giving customers a tangible reason to come back.

Effective formats for Shopify stores include a points-based system where every purchase earns points redeemable against future orders, tiered levels that unlock progressively better perks as customers spend more, surprise gifts or exclusive codes for your highest-value customers, and early access to new product launches for members.

Apps like Smile.io handle the mechanics of points, tiers and reward distribution. For stores also running subscriptions, pairing loyalty with a subscription offer through Recharge creates one of the most effective compounding retention loops available. Our Shopify Subscriptions service page explains how we set these up, and our guide on how to get Shopify repeat customers covers the wider retention picture.

6. Launch a Referral Programme to Turn Customers into Advocates

There is no better marketing than a happy customer telling their friends. Nielsen's 2015 Global Trust in Advertising study, covering 30,000 respondents across 60 countries, found that 83% of people trust recommendations from friends and family, making it the most trusted form of advertising there is. A referral programme gives your best customers a reason and a mechanism to share.

Platforms like ReferralCandy reward customers with discounts, freebies or store credit when they refer a friend who purchases, and automate the tracking, reward distribution and sharing across email, text and social.

The compounding effect is what makes this worth building. You acquire warm leads who arrive with a personal recommendation already attached, and your existing customers feel more invested in your brand for having recommended it.

7. Run Strategic Giveaways to Build Your Email List

Giveaways boost engagement, build your email list and create shareable moments around your brand. The key is making the prize directly relevant to your product rather than a generic gift card that attracts entrants who will never become customers.

Make them shareable by offering extra entries for tagging friends, sharing, or following your brand. This creates organic reach into audiences you would not reach through paid advertising alone. Tools like KingSumo integrate with Shopify and automate the process from entries through to winner selection.

One of our clients, a Shopify coffee brand, ran a Facebook competition offering a year's subscription to coffee with newsletter signup as an entry requirement. Their email list grew from 1,200 to 9,800 subscribers in one month. The prize matched the product, so every entrant had a genuine interest in coffee, producing a highly relevant list rather than a generic one. For more on converting that list, see our guide on how to get more Shopify email subscribers.

8. Turn Instagram into a Direct Sales Channel

Instagram is not just a place for brand imagery. It is where customers discover and buy. But if your posts are not shoppable, you are asking customers to leave the app, navigate to your store and find the product themselves. Most will not take those extra steps.

Use Instagram Shopping to connect your product catalogue directly to your feed, so customers go from inspiration to checkout in seconds rather than clicks. Every post, story and reel becomes a potential sales touchpoint.

Use a mix of lifestyle content and user-generated content to keep the feed authentic. Polished studio shots have their place, but real-world content from real customers consistently drives higher engagement and conversion.

9. Review Your Pricing Strategy

If shoppers are adding products to their cart but not completing the purchase, pricing may be a contributing factor. This does not mean racing to the bottom, since pricing too low damages perceived value. But you should know your competitive landscape.

Ask yourself whether your prices are in line with competitors for comparable products, whether you are clearly communicating why your product is worth the price, and whether your value proposition is visible on the product page or whether the customer only sees a number.

Tools like Prisync monitor competitor pricing automatically. The goal is not to be cheapest. It is to ensure your pricing reflects quality, communicates value, and does not create unnecessary hesitation at the point of purchase.

10. Align Your Brand with a Cause That Resonates

Customers increasingly want to buy from brands that stand for something. Aligning with a cause builds emotional connection and gives buyers an additional reason to choose you over a competitor selling a similar product.

Shopify's Give & Grow app lets you donate a portion of each sale to a charity that reflects your brand's mission, with a built-in impact calculator that shows customers the difference their purchase makes in real time.

Make the donation story visible on your product pages and at checkout rather than assuming customers will go looking for it on an about page. Transparent, visible purpose only increases conversion if people actually see it. Our guide on how to build a sustainable Shopify store covers how to make these claims specific enough to be credible.

The Ten Strategies Compared

Not everything here is equally urgent. If you are deciding where to start, work down this table rather than picking whatever looks most interesting.

Strategy Effort Cost Typical Impact
Product page optimisation Medium Low High, affects every visitor
Checkout friction Low None High, affects your highest-intent traffic
Customer reviews Low, then ongoing Free plans available High, and lifts organic click-through too
Abandoned cart emails Low, set once Email platform cost High, recovers 5 to 15% of lost carts
Loyalty programme Medium App subscription Medium, builds over months
Referral programme Medium App plus reward cost Medium, needs an existing customer base
Giveaways Medium Prize plus promotion Medium, builds list rather than direct sales
Instagram Shopping Low to set up None Varies by product category
Pricing review Low Optional tool Varies, diagnostic rather than a fix
Cause alignment Low Donation percentage Low to medium, depends on your audience

Why Matters Perspective

After working with hundreds of Shopify merchants, the most consistent pattern we see is that conversion is rarely a single-fix problem. Stores that convert well do not have one magic feature. They have ten things working together: fast load times, clear product pages, visible trust signals, a checkout that does not fight the customer, smart email recovery, and loyalty mechanics that bring people back.

The stores that struggle are almost never struggling because of their products. They are struggling because the experience between arriving and completing a purchase has friction the owner has stopped noticing. When you work inside your store every day, the problems become invisible. A slow page feels normal. A confusing navigation feels obvious. An extra checkout step feels harmless.

That blindness is the single strongest argument for getting external eyes on your store. We have seen brands achieve 25% lifts in conversion rate through changes that cost nothing in additional ad spend, simply by fixing things the owner had walked past a hundred times. Our free SEO audit includes a conversion funnel review alongside the technical and on-page work, and our ecommerce agency services cover the implementation if you want it handled.

If you would like help identifying where your store is losing sales, email us and we will take a look.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good conversion rate for a Shopify store?

The average Shopify conversion rate sits between 1.5% and 2%, and across 265 Shopify stores we audited the median was 1.7%. A rate above 3% is considered strong performance, and above 4% puts you in the top tier. However, conversion rate varies significantly by product category, price point and traffic source. Paid social traffic typically converts lower than organic search or email traffic, so compare like with like before concluding you have a problem.

What is the biggest reason Shopify visitors do not buy?

Unexpected costs at checkout, particularly shipping, is the most common single reason. Close behind are a slow or complicated checkout process, lack of trust signals such as reviews and a clear return policy, and a poor mobile experience. Each of these is fixable without additional advertising spend.

How much can abandoned cart emails recover?

A well-configured abandoned cart sequence typically recovers 5 to 15% of abandoned carts. According to Klaviyo's 2026 benchmarks, abandoned cart flows are the highest revenue-per-email automated flow available to Shopify merchants, generating significantly more revenue per recipient than broadcast campaigns.

Should I offer free shipping to increase conversions?

Free shipping above a minimum order value, typically £30 to £50 for UK stores, is one of the most effective conversion levers available. If offering it on all orders is not viable on your margins, display shipping costs clearly on product pages instead, so the total is never a surprise at checkout.

How do customer reviews affect Shopify conversion rates?

Reviews increase conversion through three mechanisms. They build trust through social proof, they generate AggregateRating schema that displays star ratings in Google search results and increases click-through rate, and they create fresh unique content on your product pages that search engines value. Stores with prominent reviews consistently outperform those without.

Should I fix my conversion rate or drive more traffic first?

Fix conversion first. If your store converts at 1.5%, every pound you spend driving traffic is working at roughly half the efficiency it could be. Doubling conversion rate produces the same revenue increase as doubling your ad budget, except the improvement is structural and keeps paying on every future visitor rather than stopping when the budget does.

How long does it take to see results from conversion changes?

Checkout and product page fixes show up in your data within days, because they affect every visitor immediately. Email flows need two to four weeks to accumulate enough sends to judge. Loyalty and referral programmes build over months. Monitor conversion rate for two to four weeks after any change before deciding whether it worked, since weekly traffic patterns can mask the effect.

Final Thoughts

Getting traffic to your Shopify store is only the beginning. The real opportunity lies in making every visitor count. By fixing your product pages and checkout first, building trust through reviews, recovering abandoned carts through email, and rewarding loyalty and referrals, you create a store that converts at a rate most competitors cannot match.

None of this requires a larger advertising budget. It requires attention to the experience you deliver. Small improvements, applied consistently from landing page through to post-purchase email, compound into significant revenue gains because they apply to every visitor, every day, permanently.

Start with the two at the top of the list. They cost the least and affect the most people.

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