How to get more sales on Shopify

You’re driving traffic to your Shopify store, but sales aren’t rising at the same pace.

For fast-growing ecommerce brands, that gap is frustrating (and expensive). Because when you’re investing in ads, content, influencer campaigns, and product launches, your store should be converting consistently, and not leaking revenue through avoidable issues.

Shopify stores don’t struggle because demand isn’t there. They struggle because small problems across product pages, UX, mobile experience, and content quietly add up.

In this guide, we’ll break down the most common reasons brands fail to convert. We’ll show you how to fix them, and how to get more sales on Shopify. 

Why you’re not getting Shopify sales

When traffic is healthy but sales are flat, you can be fairly confident that you don’t have a demand problem. There’s clearly a need for your product, but you’re just not converting. 

For fast-growing ecommerce brands, it’s often caused by a handful of issues that quietly compound: unclear positioning, weak product presentation, slow load times, distracting apps, or unnecessary steps at checkout.

The goal is to identify where customers lose confidence or momentum and remove any friction. 

Here are some things to consider: 

Poor-quality product photos 

You likely deal with a lot of product imagery, so you know that clear, detailed imagery builds trust, reduces uncertainty, and directly influences buying decisions. In fact, 67% of shoppers say that image quality strongly affects their purchases.

If your photos are low-res, inconsistent, or irrelevant to your brand and audience, you’ll struggle to compete with competitors featuring crisp 360° shots and engaging product videos.

Clashing Shopify plugins and apps 

Shopify websites often thrive on a bed of apps and plugins that make each online store unique. But the more apps you add, the easier it is to create issues behind the scenes. Conflicting scripts, slow load times, broken features, and inconsistent customer journeys can have a direct impact on conversion rates.

The fix isn’t necessarily to use fewer apps — it’s to use the right ones. Prioritise tools that integrate cleanly with Shopify (and with each other), and regularly audit your site to remove anything that’s slowing things down or causing friction.

If you’re reviewing your stack, check out our roundup of the best Shopify apps to support growth. 

Misaligned positioning

Most scaling brands know who their target customer is.

The real issue? Their website doesn’t communicate that positioning clearly or consistently.

When traffic lands on your online store, shoppers make split-second decisions:

• Is this for me?
• Does this solve my problem?
• Does this brand understand someone like me?

If your messaging is vague, overly broad, or trying to appeal to everyone, you dilute relevance. And when relevance drops, conversion rates follow.

Inconsistent branding 

Branding isn’t just about looking good — it’s about building trust.

If your website feels inconsistent, outdated, or visually messy, customers will notice. And even if they can’t put their finger on what’s wrong, it can create doubt about your credibility and the quality of your product.

Strong ecommerce brands feel consistent everywhere: on product pages, banners, imagery, tone of voice, and checkout. That consistency builds familiarity, reinforces professionalism, and makes customers feel confident they’re buying from a brand that knows what it’s doing.

Frustrating user experience 

A strong Shopify store should feel effortless to shop.

Customers should be able to navigate quickly, find the right product, understand what they’re buying, and check out with minimal friction. When the experience is smooth, shoppers stay focused on purchasing. When it isn’t, they hesitate—and hesitation kills conversions.

Underperforming product pages 

Your product page is where buying decisions are made. It’s the point in the journey where interest either turns into revenue… or disappears. Small improvements on your product pages can have a significant impact on conversion rate and average order value.

Bad mobile optimisation 

By 2026, mobile devices are projected to account for around 60% of total global ecommerce sales, meaning smartphones and tablets will be the primary purchasing channel for most online buyers.

If your Shopify store doesn’t perform well on smartphones and tablets—whether that’s slow load speeds, poor layout, cluttered navigation, or difficult checkout flows—you’re effectively turning away more than half of your potential revenue before a visitor even gets to the cart. Mobile shoppers expect fast, intuitive experiences, and if they don’t get them, they’ll quickly abandon your site for a competitor.

11 ways to get more sales on Shopify 

Now that we’ve covered the most common conversion blockers, let’s focus on the upside: most of these issues are completely fixable.

Below are practical, high-impact ways to improve Shopify performance and start converting more of the traffic you’re already getting.

1. Optimise your product pages for search engine optimisation

Your product pages need to do two jobs:

• Bring in high-intent traffic from search
• Convert that traffic into sales

SEO is what gets shoppers onto the page. Conversion optimization is what turns that visit into revenue. The strongest Shopify brands treat both as part of the same strategy.

Here’s where to focus.

Keyword research and on-page optimisation

Google can’t rank your product page if it doesn’t understand what you’re selling. That’s why keyword research matters—it tells you the exact language shoppers are using when they’re ready to buy.

For example, your customers might search for “red ballet flats” rather than “red ballet pumps”. If you’re using the wrong wording, you’ll miss traffic even if your product is a perfect match.

Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to identify high-intent keywords with solid search volume, then build your product page around them.

You should naturally include your main keyword in:

• Product title
• Product description (especially near the top)
• Image alt text
• Meta title
• Meta description
• URL slug (where possible)

To find additional keyword ideas, look at:

• Google autocomplete suggestions
• “People Also Ask” results
• Related searches at the bottom of the SERP
• Competitor product pages that already rank well

Technical tweaking

Page load speed is a ranking factor, but more importantly, it’s a conversion factor.

If your product page takes too long to load, especially on mobile, customers won’t wait. Even small delays can increase bounce rates and reduce conversions.

One of the most effective ways to improve speed is to optimise your Shopify store’s product imagery. Large, uncompressed image files are one of the most common causes of slow Shopify stores. Compressing images (using tools like Squoosh or built-in optimisation apps) can significantly reduce load times without compromising visual quality.

Beyond image optimisation, consider:

• Removing unused or conflicting apps and scripts
• Reducing unnecessary redirects
• Choosing a lightweight, well-coded Shopify theme
• Enabling browser caching
• Minimising third-party tracking scripts where possible

As your catalogue grows, keeping your visual assets organised becomes even more important. Using a digital asset management tool like Dash helps you manage image versions, avoid duplicates, and ensure you’re always uploading optimised, ready-to-publish files — without slowing your team down.

2. Build trust with social proof

92% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase—which means social proof isn’t a “nice extra”. It’s a core part of your online sales funnel.

Social proof can include reviews, testimonials, star ratings, customer photos, video content, and user-generated content. And when it’s used strategically, the impact can be significant. For example, brain care brand Heights increased the amount of social proof across their site and reportedly saw an 87.5% lift in conversions.

You can read our full guide on creating user-generated content strategy. 

3. Build your newsletter and email lists

Email is still one of the highest-performing channels in ecommerce  because it gives you a direct line to your customers, without relying on paid ads or algorithms.

If someone joins your list, they’re giving you permission to stay in their world, and that’s a big opportunity to build trust, increase repeat purchases, and drive predictable revenue over time.

The key is to treat email as part of your conversion strategy, not an afterthought.

Here are a few ways fast-growing brands use email to increase Shopify sales:

• Capture high-intent visitors who aren’t ready to buy yet: Not everyone converts on their first visit. Use pop-ups, embedded sign-up forms, and exit-intent offers to collect emails so you can nurture potential customers until they’re ready.
• Segment your audience early: Your customers aren’t one group. Segmenting by behaviour (browsing history, purchase history, location, product interest) allows you to send more relevant emails — and relevance is what drives clicks and conversions.
• Offer an incentive (without damaging your brand): Discounts work, but they’re not your only option. Many brands use free shipping, early access, exclusive bundles, or limited-time perks to encourage sign-ups while protecting margins.
• Build trust through consistent, valuable communication: The brands that win long-term don’t just email when they want to sell something. They stay visible through product launches, back-in-stock alerts, helpful content, seasonal edits, and customer stories — keeping their brand top of mind until the timing is right.

For more email tips, check out our most on the top email mistakes brands should avoid. 

4. Get the best product shots

Product photography is one of the biggest drivers of ecommerce performance. When customers can’t see a product in real life, your visuals have to do the heavy lifting — building trust, reducing uncertainty, and helping shoppers imagine the product in their own world.

Strong product pages typically include a mix of:

• Strong, high resolution images
• Clear studio shots (front, side, detail)
• Lifestyle imagery to show scale and context
• Close-ups of texture, materials, or finishes
• Video or 360° content where relevant

If your photography feels inconsistent, low quality, or incomplete, it creates hesitation—and hesitation leads to drop-offs.

There are two main ways to level up your product imagery:

DIY (with a repeatable process)

You don’t need a full studio to improve your shots. Modern smartphones can capture high-quality images, especially with good lighting and a consistent setup. The key is building a repeatable system so every product looks cohesive across your online store.

Hire a professional photographer

If you’re scaling quickly, professional photography can be a worthwhile investment. A strong photographer can elevate your brand perception and give you a library of assets you can use across product pages, ads, email campaigns, and your social media marketing strategy.

Just check out how a professional photographer improved conversions for a small, baked good company. 

Whichever route you choose, organisation matters. As your catalogue grows, managing multiple versions, edits, formats, and campaign assets becomes a job in itself — which is where a DAM like Dash can help you online store, organise, and quickly access the right images whenever you need them.

5. Optimise your checkout experience 

Even the best product pages won’t convert if your checkout experience creates friction.

Checkout is one of the most sensitive parts of the customer journey, because this is the moment where shoppers are deciding whether they trust you enough to hand over their payment details. Small issues here can cause a surprising number of drop-offs.

If you want to increase Shopify sales quickly, checkout optimization is one of the highest-impact areas to focus on.

Here are a few common checkout blockers to look out for:

• Unexpected costs: If shipping fees, taxes, or duties appear late in the checkout process, it creates hesitation and can lead to abandonment. Be as transparent as possible upfront.
• Too many steps or fields: Customers don’t want to fill out a long form to buy a t-shirt. Reduce friction by minimising required fields, enabling auto-fill, and keeping the process clean and fast.
• Missing express payment options: Fast-growing brands should prioritise convenience. Payment options like Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Klarna reduce checkout time dramatically and make it easier for customers to commit.
• Weak trust signals: At checkout, customers want reassurance. Clear delivery info, easy returns, secure payment messaging, and customer support access can all help remove last-minute doubt.

The goal is simple: make checkout feel fast, predictable, and safe. When customers know what to expect, they’re far more likely to complete the purchase.

6. Don't forget existing customers

Not only are existing customers easier to sell to, they account for around 65% of total ecommerce revenue. That means you should absolutely be investing in customer retention. 

So if you want to increase Shopify sales without relying entirely on paid acquisition, start by investing in customer loyalty.

Here are two proven ways to do it:

Loyalty and rewards programmes

Reward repeat and loyal customers with points, perks, exclusive discounts, early access, or VIP benefits. Done well, customer loyalty programmes encourage repeat purchases and increase lifetime value without relying on constant promotions.

Referral and affiliate programmes

Turn your happiest customers into your best marketing channel. Referral programmes incentivise customers to share your products with friends, while affiliate programmes work well for creators, brand advocates, and superfans who can drive consistent sales over time.

You can get more ideas in our customer retention strategy guide. 

7. Answer customer questions quickly

One of the biggest hurdles to a sale is customer objections. Maybe a shopper can't find the right size or they have a niggling question or two they want answered before they take the plunge.

Five words: give them what they want.

The quicker you answer customer questions and tackle objections, the quicker the path is to a sale. When a customer is in buy mode, they're ready to buy. Nothing – we repeat, nothing! – should disrupt that journey.

There are a couple of ways you can action this:

1. Automated chatbot: Load up a chatbot with commonly asked questions and their answers. When a customer is on a product page, hovering over that buy button, give them the chance to ask the bot their query and get it answered without disrupting the buying flow.
2. AI chatbot: AI-powered chatbots are a step up from traditional bots because they can handle more detailed, conversational questions in real time (without forcing shoppers through rigid menus). They’re especially useful for answering product-specific queries like sizing, delivery times, product comparisons, or recommendations—helping customers feel confident enough to buy without leaving the page.
3. FAQs: Build a dedicated FAQ page with clear answers to common customer questions, and make sure it’s easily accessible from your product pages.
4. Content library: Blog content, user-generated content, and reviews all have a part to play in sales. The more information you have available, the fewer objections shoppers will have and the slicker the path to purchase will be.

8. Offer an incentive

Visit most ecommerce stores and you’ll see some form of first-purchase incentive, and for good reason. When used thoughtfully, incentives reduce hesitation and give customers a clear reason to act now rather than later.

For new shoppers, especially those unfamiliar with your brand, a small incentive lowers the perceived risk of trying you out. That first sale is often the hardest to secure. Once it’s made, you have the opportunity to build loyalty through post-purchase emails, personalised recommendations, and rewards programmes.

Here are some incentives you could offer new shoppers: 

• Free shipping (or free shipping over a certain threshold to increase AOV)
• A first-order discount
• Referral rewards for sharing your brand
• A complimentary gift with first purchase
• Early access to launches or exclusive drops

9. Personalise product recommendations

Not all customers are the same, and your recommendations shouldn’t be either.

Generic “You might also like” sections based on inventory priorities rarely drive meaningful revenue. Instead, use customer data to tailor product suggestions based on browsing behaviour, purchase history and on-site activity.

For example, if a customer consistently browses or purchases from a specific category, style, or price range, your recommendations should reflect that. Suggesting unrelated products or categories creates friction and weakens the customer experience.

On the other hand, when recommendations feel aligned with a shopper’s preferences—whether that’s colour, fit, category, or previous purchases—you increase the likelihood of repeat purchases and higher average order value.

10. Reduce cart abandonment with recovery flows (email, SMS and retargeting)

70% of online shopping carts get abandoned. And cart abandonment is one of the biggest sources of lost revenue for Shopify brands. Luckily, it’s also one of the easiest areas to improve without increasing ad spend.

Shoppers abandon carts for all kinds of reasons: distractions, delivery uncertainty, price hesitation, or simply needing more time to decide. The important thing is that abandonment doesn’t always mean ‘not interested’. Often, it just means ‘not yet’.

The most effective online businesses build automated recovery flows that bring customers back at the right moment.

Here are a few high-impact tactics:

• Set up abandoned cart emails: A strong abandoned cart sequence usually includes 2–3 messages over 24–72 hours. These emails should remind shoppers what they left behind, answer common objections, and make it easy to return to checkout in one click.
• Use SMS strategically: SMS can work well for high-intent shoppers, but it needs to be used carefully. Short, timely reminders often outperform long promotional messages.

• Retarget cart abandoners: Paid retargeting is especially effective when combined with email. Showing customers the exact product they abandoned (along with reviews or UGC) helps rebuild momentum.

• Remove common friction points: If you notice abandonment is consistently caused by shipping costs, delivery uncertainty, or payment options, fix the root issue rather than trying to discount your way out of it.

11. Use analytics and CRO testing to find what’s actually holding conversions back

If you’re serious about scaling, you can’t rely on guesswork. Fast-growing ecommerce brands increase sales by identifying exactly where shoppers drop off, and making targeted improvements based on data.

Here are a few ways to uncover what’s really happening on your Shopify store:

Review key funnel metrics

Look at your product page conversion rate, add-to-cart rate, checkout initiation rate, and checkout completion rate. These numbers help you pinpoint where customers lose momentum.

Use heatmaps and session recordings

Tools like Hotjar allow you to see how shoppers behave on your site. You can see where they scroll, where they hesitate, and what they ignore. This is one of the fastest ways to spot UX issues you might not notice internally.

Run simple A/B tests

You don’t need a complex experimentation program to see results. Test one change at a time. You could test product page headlines, CTA button copy, image order, pricing layout, or shipping messaging. From here you can measure what improves conversion and boosts sales.

Track performance by device

If mobile conversion is significantly lower than desktop, it’s a strong signal that your mobile UX needs attention.

Turn traffic into sales: time to get started

You don’t need to do every improvement to your online store, all at once. Instead, you should identify the highest-leverage changes and implement them consistently.

Here’s a recap of the key areas that drive meaningful conversion growth:

• Optimise product pages with targeted keyword research and clear value propositions
• Strengthen social proof and display it prominently
• Build and segment your email list
• Invest in high-quality, conversion-focused product imagery
• Reduce cart abandonment with timely emails and strategic incentives
• Prioritise retention and repeat purchases
• Remove friction by answering customer questions quickly
• Offer thoughtful incentives that support acquisition and loyalty
• Personalise product recommendations using customer data

Start by identifying your biggest barrier to sales. Is it traffic quality? Product page clarity? Trust signals? Mobile performance? Focus on solving one core issue first, measure the impact, and iterate from there.

One final point: growth is much easier when your operations are organised.

As your product catalogue and marketing channels expand, keeping your visual assets and content structured and accessible becomes critical. When your team can quickly find, update, and deploy the right assets, you move faster and scale more efficiently.

That’s where tools like Dash help keep everything aligned behind the scenes, so you can focus on turning more visitors into loyal customers. And the best part: Dash integrates directly with your Shopify store, so you can update SKUs fast.

Want to try it for yourself? Sign up for a 14-day free trial of Dash, no card details required.

FAQS about selling on Shopify

What’s a good conversion rate for a Shopify store?

While conversion rates vary by industry and price point, the average ecommerce conversion rate typically falls between 2% and 3%. Top-performing ecommerce stores often convert at 4–5% or higher, particularly when product pages, checkout experience, and retention strategies are well optimised.

It’s also worth benchmarking by device: mobile conversion rates are often lower than desktop, so a significant gap between the two can signal UX or performance issues.

Rather than chasing a specific number, focus on steady improvement. Even a 0.5% increase in conversion rate can have a meaningful impact on revenue when you’re driving consistent traffic.

‍

Why am I getting traffic but no sales on Shopify?

If your store is getting consistent traffic but conversions are low, the issue is usually friction — not demand. Common causes include weak product pages, unclear messaging, slow site speed, poor mobile experience, lack of trust signals (like reviews), or a checkout process that feels confusing or expensive.

‍

What are the biggest reasons Shopify customers abandon checkout?

The most common reasons include unexpected shipping costs, long delivery times, lack of payment options, unclear returns policies, and slow or complicated checkout flows. Shoppers often abandon because they feel uncertain or interrupted — not because they’ve lost interest.