The 10-Point Store Teardown: How We Audit a Store in 20 Minutes
You can find most of what's costing you sales in about 20 minutes — you don't need a full redesign, you need a systematic look. We run every store through the same 10-point teardown: first screen, speed, mobile, product pages, trust, checkout and COD, navigation and search, offer clarity, tracking, and content/SEO. The fixes that come out of it are almost always a specific handful, not a rebuild. Here's the exact checklist so you can run it on your own store today.
Go through it as a first-time buyer, on a mid-range phone.
The 10 points
- 1. The first screen. Does your above-the-fold say what you sell, why to trust you, and what to do — in three seconds?
- 2. Speed. Time the load on mobile data. Page speed is conversion, and it's usually the images.
- 3. Mobile experience. Most traffic is mobile — is the whole journey built for a thumb, not a mouse?
- 4. Product pages. Does the product page sell the benefit, handle objections, and look complete?
- 5. Trust. Reviews, clear policies, real contact, COD — the trust signals a first-time buyer scans for.
Want us to find what’s leaking your sales?
Send us your store. We’ll record a 10-minute teardown of the exact spots costing you orders — free, no pitch.
- 6. Checkout and COD. Place a real order — is checkout short, is COD obvious, does confirmation fire? This is where ready buyers vanish.
- 7. Navigation and search. Can a buyer find what they want in a tap or two? Dead ends lose sales.
- 8. Offer clarity. Is there a clear reason to buy now, or just products on a shelf?
- 9. Tracking. Are the pixel and analytics firing? You can't fix what you can't see.
- 10. Content and SEO. Clean URLs, titles, and content that pulls in free traffic — the compounding channel most stores ignore.
The one test that does half the job
Buy from your own store, on your own phone, as a stranger would — click in like an ad visitor, browse, add to cart, check out with COD, and notice every moment you hesitate or feel friction. That single pass surfaces most of points 1–6 at once. Your annoyance is data; where you almost quit is where your customers do.
Free: the Scroll-to-Sale Checklist
The 1-page checklist we run on every store before it goes live — 37 conversion checks, in plain language. No cost.
Download the checklist →Turn the audit into a fix list, not a rebuild
The point of the teardown is a prioritised list of specific fixes — usually speed, checkout, trust and product pages — not a decision to start over. A full redesign is only warranted when the structure itself can't get you there; most of the time the audit hands you three or four high-impact fixes that lift conversion for a fraction of the cost. Run it, fix the top issues, re-check, repeat.
The bottom line
A 20-minute, 10-point teardown — first screen, speed, mobile, product pages, trust, checkout/COD, navigation, offer, tracking, content — finds most of what's leaking your sales, and a real test order finds the rest. Fix the specific issues before you consider a rebuild. Want us to run the teardown on your store and hand you the prioritised fix list? Send us your store.
Frequently asked questions
How do I audit my own ecommerce store?
Go through it as a first-time buyer on your phone and score ten things: the first screen, speed, mobile experience, product pages, trust signals, checkout and COD, navigation and search, offer clarity, tracking, and content/SEO. Most of what's costing you sales shows up in that pass — the fixes are usually a handful of specific issues, not a rebuild.
What's the fastest way to find why my store isn't converting?
Place a real order on your own store on a mid-range phone and watch where you hesitate or get annoyed. Combined with a quick check of speed, trust and product-page clarity, that surfaces most conversion leaks in about 20 minutes — far faster than guessing or assuming you need more traffic.
What are the most common conversion problems?
A weak first screen, slow load, a painful mobile checkout, thin product pages, missing trust signals, and unclear or hidden COD. These recur on store after store, and fixing them usually lifts conversion more than any amount of extra ad spend on a leaky store.
Do I need a full redesign to fix my store?
Usually not. Most conversion problems are specific and fixable — speed, checkout, trust, product pages — without starting over. A full redesign is only warranted when the structure itself is the problem, so audit and fix the specifics first before considering a rebuild.
Want us to find what’s leaking your sales?
Send us your store. We’ll record a 10-minute teardown of the exact spots costing you orders — free, no pitch.