How to Increase Ecommerce Sales: A Practical Checklist

How to increase sales on an ecommerce website

You increase ecommerce sales in three ways: bring in more of the right visitors, convert more of them into buyers and get each buyer to spend more and come back. The quickest wins usually sit in the middle, on the product pages and in the checkout, because those pages already receive traffic you have paid for. After that, retention through email and loyalty compounds every other improvement.

This refresh of our earlier post replaces the old version with a practical checklist ordered from fastest to slowest payoff. Figures come from Baymard Institute, Google and the FTC, checked as of October 2026, with sources at the end. PROSeCommerce, part of PROS Global in San Diego, designs and markets online stores for Shopify and other platforms, so the steps reflect what we check first on a client store.

Start with your numbers

Before changing anything, look at where sales are being lost. Every online store’s revenue can be broken into a simple formula:

Revenue = visitors × conversion rate × average order value

Repeat purchases multiply that over time. Improving any one of these numbers raises sales, and small gains in each one multiply together.

Pull these figures from your analytics and store reports for the last 90 days:

• Sessions by channel (search, ads, email, social, direct)
• Conversion rate overall and by device
• Add-to-cart rate and checkout completion rate
• Average order value
• Share of revenue from returning customers

If mobile converts far worse than desktop, or many shoppers start checkout but don’t finish, you already know where to begin.

Fix the checkout first

Baymard Institute, which tracks published cart abandonment studies, calculates an average documented online cart abandonment rate of 70.22% across 50 studies (list last updated September 2025). Many abandonments are unavoidable because people are browsing or comparing. But Baymard’s survey of US shoppers lists fixable reasons too, led by extra costs being too high (40%), slow delivery (20%), not trusting the site with card details (19%), being required to create an account (18%) and a too long or complicated checkout (17%).

Each of these can be addressed:

Show the full cost early

Show shipping costs, taxes and fees as early as possible, ideally on the product page or in the cart, so nothing surprises the shopper at the last step. A free-shipping threshold displayed in the cart gives people a reason to add one more item instead of leaving.

Offer guest checkout

Let people buy without creating an account. You can invite them to save their details after the order is placed.

Shorten the form

Ask only for what you need to fulfill the order. Baymard’s testing found that an ideal checkout can use as few as 12 to 14 form elements, while the average US checkout it benchmarked shows about 23. Remove optional fields, use address autocomplete and keep the layout to one clear column on mobile.

Add trusted payment options

Offer the payment methods your customers expect, including digital wallets that fill in details automatically. Show accepted payment methods and security reassurance near the payment fields.

Recover abandoned checkouts

Most platforms can email shoppers who leave after entering their email address. Shopify, for example, lets you send abandoned checkout emails manually or automatically. A short reminder with the items, the total and a link back to the cart is often enough; save discounts for testing rather than training shoppers to wait for one.

Make product pages do the selling

Product pages are where shoppers decide. A strong page answers every question a shopper would ask a salesperson.

Write useful product descriptions

Cover materials, dimensions, fit or compatibility, what is included, care instructions, warranty and shipping times. Lead with the benefit, then give the details in a scannable list.

Show the product clearly

Use several sharp images from different angles, a scale reference and, where it helps, a short video. Make sure images are compressed so they don’t slow the page down.

Use honest reviews and Q&A

Reviews answer questions you didn’t think of and reassure first-time buyers. Ask every customer for a review after delivery, show both positive and negative reviews and reply to complaints politely. Our guide to using customer reviews and social proof covers how to collect them. The FTC’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, in effect since October 21, 2024, prohibits fake reviews and paying for reviews that must express a particular sentiment, so never buy or write reviews.

Make the next step obvious

One clear add-to-cart button, visible without scrolling on mobile, with stock and delivery information next to it. See our product page optimization guide for a complete checklist.

Help shoppers find products quickly

Shoppers who can’t find what they want leave, even if you stock it. Good navigation and on-site search turn browsing into buying.

Keep navigation simple

Group products the way customers think about them, not the way your warehouse does. Use plain category names, keep the main menu short and make sure every product can be reached in a few clicks from the homepage.

Make site search work

Shoppers who use search often know what they want. Make the search box easy to see on mobile, handle misspellings and synonyms, show product images in results and never return an empty page: suggest popular or related items instead.

Add useful filters

On category pages, let people filter by the attributes that matter for your products, such as size, color, price, material or compatibility, and show how many items match each filter.

Be clear about shipping and delivery

Delivery speed and cost affect the decision to buy. Baymard’s survey found that 20% of shoppers who abandoned a purchase did so because delivery was too slow. Show estimated delivery dates on product pages and in the cart, offer a faster option for people who need it and explain your shipping costs in one simple table. If you can’t ship quickly, say so honestly and set expectations, because a late order damages trust more than a longer stated delivery time.

Speed up the site, especially on mobile

Slow pages lose shoppers before they see a product. Google’s Core Web Vitals give clear targets measured on real visits: Largest Contentful Paint (loading) within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) of 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability) of 0.1 or less, at the 75th percentile of page loads.

Common fixes include compressing and correctly sizing images, removing apps and scripts you no longer use, limiting large sliders and pop-ups, and choosing a well-built theme. Our guide on how to speed up your Shopify store goes step by step.

Raise average order value

Getting each customer to spend a little more is often easier than finding new customers.

• Bundles: group items that are used together and price the bundle attractively.
• Cross-sells: suggest genuinely related items on product pages and in the cart.
• Upsells: offer a better version or larger size when it truly suits the buyer.
• Free-shipping thresholds: set the threshold a little above your current average order value.
• Volume pricing: for consumables, offer a better price for larger quantities or subscriptions.

Keep offers relevant. Pushing unrelated products clutters the page and can lower conversion.

Bring back customers with email and loyalty

A customer who has bought once already trusts you, so repeat sales usually cost less than new ones.

Build an email list from day one

Offer a clear reason to subscribe, such as early access, useful guides or a first-order offer, and send a welcome series that introduces your best products.

Automate the key flows

Set up welcome, browse abandonment, cart abandonment, post-purchase and win-back emails. These run in the background and keep producing sales. Segment by purchase history so people get relevant messages; our guide to Shopify email segmentation shows how.

Commercial email in the US must follow the CAN-SPAM Act, including a clear way to opt out and your valid physical postal address in every marketing email.

Reward loyalty

A simple points program, member-only offers or early access to new products gives regular customers a reason to keep buying from you instead of a competitor.

Bring in more of the right visitors

More traffic only helps if your store converts it, which is why traffic comes after the steps above. Once the store converts well, scale the channels that bring buyers:

• Search engine optimization: optimize category and product pages for the terms shoppers use. Our Shopify SEO checklist is a good starting point.
• Shopping and search ads: show your products to people already searching for them.
• Social media and creators: show products in use and reach new audiences.
• Content: buying guides and how-to articles attract shoppers early in their research.

Our article on how to get more website traffic covers these channels in more detail.

Build trust at every step

Shoppers buy from stores they trust. Show clear contact details, a real returns policy, accurate delivery estimates and secure checkout. Publish your shipping and returns terms in plain language and stick to them. Baymard’s survey found that an unsatisfactory returns policy led 13% of shoppers who abandoned a purchase to leave, so clear terms matter.

All advertising claims, discounts and “limited time” offers must be true. This is general information, not legal advice; check with a qualified attorney if you are unsure how consumer-protection rules apply to your store.

Test, measure and repeat

Make one change at a time where you can, measure the effect on conversion rate and revenue, and keep what works. A/B testing tools help on high-traffic pages; on smaller stores, compare results over equal periods and watch for seasonal effects. Our Shopify conversion rate optimization guide explains how to plan tests.

A simple order of work for most stores:

1. Check analytics and find the biggest drop-off.
2. Fix checkout friction and surprise costs.
3. Improve the top ten product pages by revenue.
4. Speed up mobile pages.
5. Add bundles and cross-sells.
6. Set up automated email flows.
7. Scale traffic channels that convert.

Frequently asked questions

Grow sales from the store you already have

Most stores can raise sales without doubling their ad budget by fixing checkout friction, improving product pages, speeding up mobile and building repeat business. If you would like a second pair of eyes on your store, contact PROSeCommerce for help with design, conversion and marketing.