The average e-commerce conversion rate is 1.5–4%. Most teams spend their optimisation budget on ads that bring more traffic to a site that converts at the same rate. That is the wrong order of operations.
Here is what actually moves conversion rates, based on hundreds of A/B tests across platforms we have built and optimised.
Page speed is the highest-leverage intervention. A one-second improvement in load time increases conversions by 7% on average. This is not a design or product problem — it is an engineering problem. Core Web Vitals are a direct proxy for conversion rate.
Checkout friction is the real killer. The average cart abandonment rate is 70%. Most of it happens at checkout. Reduce form fields to the absolute minimum. Add Apple Pay and Google Pay. Show security signals at the point where users are most anxious. Guest checkout is not optional.
Product page clarity beats beautiful design. High-quality product images with zoom, honest size guides, specific shipping and return policies, and real customer reviews convert better than a perfectly designed page with vague information.
Social proof must be specific to be useful. “500 happy customers” is weaker than “Sarah from London bought this last week”. Recency, specificity, and relevance of reviews outperform volume.
