How to improve your Shopify conversion rate
Raise your Shopify conversion rate by finding the funnel step that leaks most, fixing that first and measuring against your own baseline, not someone else's.
What this is for
Your conversion rate is the share of visits to your online store that end in an order. Shopify calculates it from sessions, not from people, which matters when you compare periods. source, checked 28 September 2026
This guide does not give you a target number to hit, because no primary source publishes a reliable one for Shopify stores and yours depends on what you sell, what it costs and where your traffic comes from. Instead you will measure your own starting point, find the step of the funnel where most shoppers drop out, fix that step, and check whether the fix moved the number.
Time needed and what you need
Time needed: about 3 hours, then 2 to 4 weeks of measuring. Reading the reports and choosing a fix takes an afternoon; knowing whether it worked takes several full weeks of traffic.
- Shopify staff access with the Reports permission
- At least two full months of store data, so you have a baseline to compare with
- A list of the changes made to the store recently: new apps, theme edits, price changes, promotions
- A phone, to buy something from your own store the way customers do
The steps
Work down the funnel in this order. The point is to spend your effort on the step that loses the most shoppers, not on the change you happen to like.
1. Record your own baseline
In your Shopify admin, open Analytics, then Reports, and open Conversion rate over time. Group it by month and write down the last few months. That is your baseline. Compare yourself with it, not with a figure from a blog post.
If your comparison crosses late September 2026, be careful. Shopify changed how it counts sessions then, and asks you to treat data from after the change as a fresh starting point. source, checked 28 September 2026
2. Split the rate into funnel steps
Open the Conversion rate breakdown report. It shows all sessions, then sessions with cart additions, sessions that reached checkout and sessions that completed checkout, each measured against total sessions. source, checked 28 September 2026
Now work out the rate from each step to the next yourself: cart additions divided by sessions, reached checkout divided by cart additions, completed divided by reached checkout. The smallest of those three ratios, compared with your own past months, is where to look first.
3. Break it down by device and landing page
Open Sessions by device and Sessions by landing page for the same period. A funnel that is healthy on desktop and weak on mobile points at the mobile layout or speed. A landing page with many sessions and few cart additions points at that page or at the traffic sent to it.
4. Fix the leakiest step first
Match the fix to the step. Few cart additions means the product pages are not convincing people: audit your product pages. Many cart additions but few checkouts means the cart is losing them, often to a delivery cost they see late. Many checkouts but few completed orders means the problem is in checkout itself, which Shopify measures on its own. source, checked 28 September 2026
- Low cart additions: photos, copy, price, stock, the first screen on mobile
- Low cart to checkout: shipping cost, delivery time, surprise fees, a cluttered cart
- Low checkout completion: payment options, account requirements, form errors
5. Speed up the templates that carry the traffic
Look at speed for the page types most of your sessions land on. Slow responses to a tap, such as picking a variant or opening the cart, are measured by Interaction to Next Paint, and Google's line for a good experience is under 200 milliseconds. source, checked 28 September 2026
Shopify's own advice for heavy pages starts with the theme: fewer sections on a template, and pagination on large collections. source, checked 28 September 2026
6. Put the delivery cost and returns before the checkout
Buy something from your own store on your phone and note the first moment you learn the delivery cost, the delivery date and the returns policy. If the answer is at checkout, move it earlier: on the product page near the button and again in the cart. A free delivery threshold only helps if shoppers see it before they decide.
7. Check the traffic, not only the pages
A new ad campaign or an influencer post can pull the rate down while bringing in more orders, because it adds many visitors who were only curious. Before you blame the store, compare the rate by traffic source and look at orders and sales alongside it. A falling rate with rising orders is not a problem to fix.
8. Change one thing, then measure it properly
Ship one change at a time and compare whole weeks with whole weeks, so weekends are counted fairly. A before-and-after comparison can be fooled by a sale, a season or a change in traffic. For anything you are unsure about, run it as a split test and check the result with the A/B test significance calculator.
A worked example
For a pet supply store with 30,000 sessions a month
Worked example (an invented store, with invented numbers)
Last month the store had 30,000 sessions. 2,100 had a cart addition, 900 reached checkout and 450 completed it, a conversion rate of 1.5%.
Step to step: 2,100 of 30,000 sessions added to cart (7%), 900 of those 2,100 reached checkout (about 43%), and 450 of those 900 completed it (50%). Cart to checkout is the weakest step against the owner's earlier months, and a test purchase on a phone shows why: the delivery cost first appears at checkout.
The owner adds a delivery estimate and the free delivery threshold to the cart and the product pages. The next month also has 30,000 sessions; 1,050 reach checkout and 525 complete it, which is 1.75% and 75 more orders. Because a before-and-after comparison can be moved by other things, the owner runs the cart change as a split test the following month to confirm it.
Common mistakes
Chasing a number from an industry article. Stores selling a $15 refill and a $900 sofa should not share a target. Track your own trend and your own funnel steps.
Reading orders and converted sessions as the same thing. Someone can buy twice in one visit, so the counts can differ. source, checked 28 September 2026
Treating a jump in the rate after the September 2026 session change as a win. The rate is built on sessions, so a change in how sessions are counted moves it even when orders do not. source, checked 28 September 2026
Discounting to lift the rate. A site-wide code can raise conversions and lower profit at the same time, and it teaches shoppers to wait. Fix the leak in the funnel before you reach for a discount.
Doing this with Tilly
Tilly starts with a free audit that needs only your store URL; it reads your storefront, reviews and marketing. From there the CRO agent runs a CRO audit for 20 credits and builds each CRO fix for 10 credits. An A/B test from the experiments agent costs 10 credits.
Page changes are published to a preview copy of your theme, and nothing goes live until you approve it. Reading the funnel and measuring the result stay with your Shopify reports.
Questions people ask
What conversion rate should my Shopify store have?
There is no reliable published figure to aim at, and averages quoted online mix very different stores. Measure your own rate by month, split it into funnel steps, and judge each change by whether it moves your own numbers.
Why did my sessions and conversion rate change in September 2026?
Shopify changed how sessions are measured between September 21 and 23, 2026, including filtering out identified bots by default. Your orders and sales were not affected, so compare those alongside the rate before you read anything into the change. source, checked 28 September 2026
How long does a Shopify session last?
A session ends after half an hour with no activity. Someone who leaves a tab open and comes back an hour later starts a new session, which is one reason visits and people are not the same count. source, checked 28 September 2026
See this on your own store
Paste your store URL. The first pass takes about a minute and needs no account. Save a card (nothing is charged) and Tilly reads the whole store and works out who buys from you.