Trust, or the lack of it
People don't hand card details to a shop they don't trust, and trust is built in seconds. No reviews, no clear returns policy, no contact details, a logo that looks knocked up in ten minutes: any of these and a first-time visitor quietly leaves.
Add real reviews near the buy button, a plain-English returns and shipping policy, and visible contact details. You're not persuading them your product is good, you're reassuring them you're a real business.
Friction in the buy path
Every extra step between 'I want this' and 'done' loses a slice of buyers. Forced account creation, a fiddly cart, surprise costs at the last step, a checkout that fights them on mobile: each one is a leak.
Walk your own checkout on your phone, as a stranger would. Count the taps. Anywhere you hesitate, a real customer has already gone.
Surprise shipping costs
Unexpected shipping at checkout is one of the biggest cart-killers there is. Someone gets to the final step, sees a delivery charge they weren't expecting, and bails.
Show shipping early, not at the death. If you can, build it into the price and offer 'free' delivery, or state the threshold clearly up front. Certainty sells; nasty surprises don't.
Mobile is where most of it goes wrong
The majority of your traffic is almost certainly on a phone, and mobile is where clunky stores quietly haemorrhage sales. Buttons too small, text too tight, images that shove the buy button off-screen, a checkout that won't autofill.
Test the whole journey on your actual phone, on mobile data, not just a shrunk desktop window. The gap between desktop and mobile conversion is often the whole problem.
Find your specific leak
You don't have to guess. Your Shopify analytics and GA4 show where people drop: product page, add to cart, checkout, payment. The biggest fall between two steps is your priority leak.
Session-recording tools (many have free tiers) let you watch real visitors hesitate and leave. Ten minutes of watching usually tells you more than any checklist.