Shopify Plus performance and CRO

Launch is the point a store starts producing useful data, and usually the point the agency moves on. The theme is handed over and nobody reads what the numbers say. Optimisation is reading them and acting on them, month after month.

It's also the work most easily done badly. A CRO agency produces tests it can't build and recommendations that wait for a developer. A developer without the data makes the store faster and never finds out whether it mattered. I do both halves, so an idea on Monday can be a live change by Friday.

Two examples from this year. A UK skincare brand had its Add to cart button two full screens down on a phone. I moved it back onto the first screen, and mobile add-to-cart rate went up 16%. A UK haircare brand's product page had grown to 21MB, one photo and video at a time. I took it down to about 6MB, with 87% less of the page jumping around as it loads.

What I work on

Speed. Core Web Vitals on the phones your customers actually use, measured from real visits. Most of the gains on a Plus store are in the apps and third-party scripts, and telling you plainly which apps are costing you is part of the job.

Accessibility. Keyboard navigation, focus states, colour contrast, labelled controls and screen reader announcements for the cart and filters, checked against WCAG 2.2 AA. A store some customers can't use is losing those orders, and in several markets it's a legal exposure too.

The path to purchase. Collection filtering, product page structure, variant selection, the cart, and the checkout extensions Plus allows. Small, unglamorous fixes here compound: a clearer size guide, a faster add to cart, one fewer step before payment.

Testing. Proper A/B tests where there's enough traffic, and honest before-and-after measurement where there isn't. Most stores outside the very top tier can't run a valid split test on a single product page, and pretending they can produces confident nonsense.

Offers built into the store. Bundles, tiered pricing, gift with purchase and free delivery thresholds built as Shopify Functions, so the offers marketing wants to run don't need a new app or a developer each time.

How it's measured

Revenue per session, conversion rate by device and traffic source, average order value, and the speed metrics behind them. Each month you get a short note: what changed, what moved, and what's next in the queue. If something was tried and didn't work, that's in the note too.

Measurement is only as good as the tracking. Server-side tracking, with product IDs that match your catalogue feed, is usually worth fixing before any test is read.

The case studies further down show bigger numbers, and those came from full rebuilds. They're there because they pull the same levers: speed, a cleaner path to purchase, and offers built into the platform.

How it fits with the other work

Optimisation usually runs inside a retained arrangement, where the days are already set aside. It can follow a custom theme build, or start on its own once the Shopify Plus audit has shown where the leaks are.

Who it's for

Brands on Plus with steady traffic and a team that wants the store to keep getting better. If the store hasn't launched yet, or is about to be rebuilt, start with the build and come back to this.