Why Your Mobile Ecommerce Conversion Rate Is So Low

Mobile Isn't the Secondary Website

For many ecommerce brands, mobile is where the majority of browsing begins.

That's why I don't think of mobile optimisation as:

“Does the desktop website technically work on a phone?”

I think:

“Would I actually enjoy shopping like this?”

There's a huge difference.

Start With Your Navigation

Can customers quickly reach:

• New arrivals?
• Best sellers?
• Core collections?
• Search?
• Their cart?
• Don't force somebody through a maze

Mobile navigation should prioritise the things customers actually use.

Check Your Product Images

Beautiful editorial imagery can become completely useless after a mobile crop.

Faces disappear.

Products disappear.

Text embedded in images becomes unreadable.

Every key image needs to be reviewed at real mobile dimensions.

Watch the Popups

Popup software often looks perfectly acceptable during setup.

Then you open the live website on an iPhone.

• Newsletter popup
• Cookie banner
• Chat widget
• Country selector
• Browser toolbar

Suddenly the customer can see about four centimetres of the actual website.

Be selective.

Make Buying With a Thumb Easy

Buttons should be easy to tap.

Variants should be easy to select.

Important elements shouldn't sit too close together.

The Add to Cart button shouldn't disappear somewhere below a huge block of content.

Filters should be easy to open and close.

Think about physical usability.

Page Speed Matters More on Mobile

• Large editorial images
• Videos
• Review apps
• Popups
• Tracking scripts
• Animations
• Personalisation apps
• Upsell tools

Every time you add something to Shopify, ask whether the value it provides is worth the additional complexity.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes you're slowing the store down to power a feature barely anybody uses.

Test the Entire Journey

Don't stop at the homepage.

My mobile test looks more like:

Homepage → Collection → Product → Add to Cart → Cart → Checkout.

Then I test:

• Search
• Filters
• Back button
• Changing quantities
• Removing products
• Variant selection
• Payment options

This is where you find the annoying little problems that dashboards don't show you.

Look at Mobile Conversion Separately

Suppose desktop converts at 2.5%.

Mobile converts at 0.8%.

And mobile represents most of your traffic.

Your overall conversion rate might look disappointing.

But now you know where to look.

That's far more useful than redesigning everything.

Your Customer Doesn't Care About Your Theme

This is worth remembering.

They don't care that you spent £400 on a Shopify theme.

They don't care that an animation took three days to develop.

They don't care that the homepage won a design award.

They care whether they can find a product they want and buy it without becoming frustrated.

Mobile ecommerce optimisation is mostly about respecting that.