Overview
A high-growth fashion and lifestyle e-commerce brand came to us with a clear problem: traffic was rising but conversions were not. The brand was spending aggressively on performance marketing while ROI slipped, acquisition costs climbed and revenue stayed inconsistent.
The product was not the issue. The path to purchase was. The brief was to find where shoppers were dropping off and fix it with evidence, not opinion, so more of the existing traffic turned into orders.
The challenge
A checkout that leaked
The five-step checkout added unnecessary cognitive load, and users dropped off in the gaps between login, shipping and payment.
A weak mobile experience
Around 70% of traffic was mobile, yet mobile conversions lagged, held back by slow UI components, low-contrast CTAs and key actions that were hard to find.
No behavioural intelligence
There were no heatmaps, scroll-depth or click-pattern insights, so no one could see why shoppers were leaving.
Generic product recommendations
Suggestions were static and generic, with no personalised or dynamic logic to support basket size or discovery.
No CRO framework
There was no structured experimentation. UI decisions were made on opinion rather than data, so improvements were guesses.
Our approach
Before changing the store, we ran a Design Thinking diagnostic built on real behaviour, not assumptions about it.
- 1
Empathise
studied real user behaviour through Hotjar heatmaps, scroll maps and session recordings.
- 2
Define
identified the top five friction points that were costing conversions.
- 3
Ideate
formed clear hypotheses and mapped alternative user flows.
- 4
Prototype
built quick UI mockups and checkout variations to test them.
- 5
Test
A/B tested each change across four to six weeks against conversion, not preference.
What we did
Rebuilt the checkout from five steps to two. We collapsed the login, shipping and payment gaps into a short, clear flow, removing the cognitive load that was causing drop-off at the final and most valuable moment.
Optimised the product page for mobile first. Faster UI components, high-contrast CTAs and clearer key actions closed the gap for the 70% of shoppers browsing on their phones.
Made recommendations dynamic. Static suggestions gave way to personalised, behaviour-driven recommendations that lifted average order value by 28%.
Stood up a real CRO framework. Using GA4, Hotjar and Google Optimize on Shopify, we replaced opinion-led UI calls with a structured testing model, so every change was validated before it shipped. The programme lifted the conversion rate by 62%.
The impact
- Less dependency on heavy ad spend to hit revenue targets.
- Improved CAC efficiency from a higher-converting store.
- A scalable CRO operating model the team can keep running.
- A stronger retention engine built on a better shopping experience.
- Markedly better first-time-visitor performance.
“Users were not confused by the product. They were confused by the process. Simplifying the journey and removing friction unlocked the conversions.”