E-commerce growth audit
E-commerce sells stuff. Revenue is direct sales × repeat-purchase rate. Mobile is 60-70% of traffic and 40% of revenue. The 7-factor framework applies — calibrated for conversion-rate-optimization specifically.
What changes for e-commerce
- Acquisition: SEO on product/category queries + paid ads (Meta, Google Shopping) + organic social. Volume matters but ICP precision matters more — buyer intent beats traffic volume.
- Activation: ≥25% of product-page visitors add to cart. Hero on PDP must BE the product, not marketing fluff. Mobile-perfect or 50% of revenue evaporates.
- Engagement: 3+ product views per session is healthy. Bounce on PLP <55%. Sort/filter usage is the strongest engagement signal — buyers who filter are buyers who buy.
- Retention: repeat-purchase rate ≥20% within 90 days is the compound lever. First-order AOV matters less than 12-month LTV.
- Advocacy: reviews (≥0.1 per customer) + share/refer-a-friend. Photos of customers with the product compound trust faster than text reviews.
- Monetization: CVR × AOV × sessions = revenue. Math floor: if CVR <1% on PDP, optimize that before anything else. Cart-abandon rate is the single biggest leak.
- Performance: checkout latency <500ms per step. Mobile LCP <1.5s mandatory. Every 100ms = ~1% conversion lost on mobile.
Common e-commerce growth-friction patterns
1. Surprise shipping cost at checkout (#1 cart abandon)
50%+ of cart abandons trace to unexpected shipping. Show shipping cost on PDP, in cart, before payment. Free shipping threshold (€50 / €75) is the single highest-ROI UX change — adds 10-20% AOV via threshold-chasing.
2. Required signup before checkout
35% of buyers abandon when forced to create an account. Guest checkout MUST be available. Post-purchase auto-create the account from email if you want their data.
3. Mobile checkout broken
Tap targets <44px. Form fields too tall (keyboard hides Submit). Apple/Google Pay not enabled. Each of these costs 5-20% mobile conversion. Test on actual phone, not Chrome DevTools — DevTools lies about touch responsiveness.
4. Reviews missing or fake-looking
Zero reviews on a PDP = no purchase. 5 reviews all 5-star = looks fake = no purchase. Mix is the trust signal. Show customer photos + verified-buyer tags + variation across 1-5 stars.
Run your e-commerce audit
60-second 7-factor wizard. Mobile-test the result — every score gets validated against actual mobile performance.
Related
- Audit for marketplaces (two-sided)
- Audit for consumer SaaS
- Activation deep-dive — TTFV + first-action
- Monetization deep-dive — CVR × AOV × repeat