Key takeaways
- Optimise for field Core Web Vitals, not lab scores — mobile speed predicts conversion more reliably than desktop speed.
- Treat every checkout field as a question that must earn its place, and always offer guest checkout.
- Verify the purchase event fires once with the correct value, or every downstream decision is built on wrong numbers.
Most ecommerce losses are not caused by a broken button or a dramatic bug. They come from small, compounding friction: a slow hero image, a shipping cost revealed too late, a checkout that asks for an account. Individually each looks minor. Together they are the difference between a launch and a business.
Speed and Core Web Vitals
Every subsequent check is worthless if visitors leave before the page loads. We measure real field data rather than lab scores, because a perfect score on a development machine tells you very little about a customer on a mid-range phone with a weak connection.
- Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on mobile
- No layout shift as images and banners load
- Product images compressed and served in modern formats with responsive sizes
- Third-party scripts audited — every tag is measured against the revenue it produces
Product Pages That Answer Questions
A product page has one job: remove uncertainty. If a visitor cannot tell what the product is, what it costs to arrive, and whether it will fit their situation, they will leave to research rather than buy.
- Pricing, availability and delivery estimate visible without scrolling or clicking
- Variants presented as clear options rather than a dropdown of abbreviations
- Returns, warranty and shipping summarised next to the add-to-cart button, not buried in the footer
- Photography covering scale, detail and real-world use
The Checkout Path
Checkout is where intent is highest and abandonment is most common. We treat every added field as a question that must earn its place. Guest checkout is not optional for most stores — asking a first-time customer to create an account before they have paid is a request that rarely converts.
Every extra step in checkout is a place where a customer can talk themselves out of buying. Remove the steps you cannot justify, then optimise the ones that remain.
Trust Signals
New and unfamiliar brands compete against established names at checkout. The gap is closed with specifics: a real company address, accessible contact details, payment methods customers recognise, and third-party proof that other people have bought before.
Analytics and Measurement
A launch without measurement is a launch without feedback. We confirm that purchase events fire correctly, that revenue is not double-counted, and that someone on the team knows which report answers which question.
- Purchase event fires once, with correct value and currency
- Product and checkout funnel steps recorded
- Cross-domain tracking verified if you run paid ads
- A single agreed source of truth for revenue reporting
After Launch
The checklist is a starting point, not an ending. We review performance against the baseline captured at launch every month, and prioritise the next round of work by measured impact rather than by what happens to be easiest.
Frequently asked questions
What is an ecommerce conversion checklist?
An ecommerce conversion checklist is a repeatable set of checks run before a store goes live, covering the factors that most often suppress conversion: page speed, product page completeness, checkout friction, trust signals and analytics accuracy. Running the same list on every launch makes problems comparable across stores and stops the most common issues from shipping.
How many points should an ecommerce launch checklist have?
There is no fixed number, but a useful checklist covers five areas: performance, product pages, checkout, trust signals and measurement. Our own pre-launch audit runs 12 concrete checks across those areas — enough to catch predictable failures without turning into a generic best-practice list.
What is the biggest cause of ecommerce checkout abandonment?
Unexpected cost and unexpected friction. Buyers are most likely to abandon when shipping charges appear late in the flow, when they are forced to create an account before paying, or when the total changes between the cart and the payment step. Removing those three causes eliminates a large share of abandonment.
Should I run a conversion checklist before or after launch?
Before, as the final gate before go-live, and then again roughly 30 days after launch once real traffic data exists. The pre-launch pass catches structural problems; the post-launch pass catches issues that only appear under genuine traffic, such as slow product images and mobile layout shift.
How often should an ecommerce conversion audit be repeated?
At minimum annually, and whenever you change themes, add apps, or alter the checkout. Analytics implementation in particular should be re-verified after any plugin update, because tracking regressions are common and rarely noticed until reporting looks wrong.
Written by Immortify Digital, ecommerce development team at Immortify Digital.
The team that builds and launches Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce stores for growing retail brands.
